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Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Australia is a wealthy developed country. However, there are significant disparities in health outcomes for Aboriginal infants compared with other Australian infants. Health outcomes tend to be worse for those living in remote areas. Little is known about the health service utilisation p...

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Autores principales: Bar-Zeev, Sarah J, Kruske, Sue G, Barclay, Lesley M, Bar-Zeev, Naor H, Carapetis, Jonathan R, Kildea, Sue V
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384247/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22373262
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-12-19
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author Bar-Zeev, Sarah J
Kruske, Sue G
Barclay, Lesley M
Bar-Zeev, Naor H
Carapetis, Jonathan R
Kildea, Sue V
author_facet Bar-Zeev, Sarah J
Kruske, Sue G
Barclay, Lesley M
Bar-Zeev, Naor H
Carapetis, Jonathan R
Kildea, Sue V
author_sort Bar-Zeev, Sarah J
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Australia is a wealthy developed country. However, there are significant disparities in health outcomes for Aboriginal infants compared with other Australian infants. Health outcomes tend to be worse for those living in remote areas. Little is known about the health service utilisation patterns of remote dwelling Aboriginal infants. This study describes health service utilisation patterns at the primary and referral level by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants from northern Australia. RESULTS: Data on 413 infants were analysed. Following birth, one third of infants were admitted to the regional hospital neonatal nursery, primarily for preterm birth. Once home, most (98%) health service utilisation occurred at the remote primary health centre, infants presented to the centre about once a fortnight (mean 28 presentations per year, 95%CI 26.4-30.0). Half of the presentations were for new problems, most commonly for respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal symptoms. Remaining presentations were for reviews or routine health service provision. By one year of age 59% of infants were admitted to hospital at least once, the rate of hospitalisation per infant year was 1.1 (95%CI 0.9-1.2). CONCLUSIONS: The hospitalisation rate is high and admissions commence early in life, visits to the remote primary health centre are frequent. Half of all presentations are for new problems. These findings have important implications for health service planning and delivery to remote dwelling Aboriginal families.
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spelling pubmed-33842472012-06-28 Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study Bar-Zeev, Sarah J Kruske, Sue G Barclay, Lesley M Bar-Zeev, Naor H Carapetis, Jonathan R Kildea, Sue V BMC Pediatr Research Article BACKGROUND: Australia is a wealthy developed country. However, there are significant disparities in health outcomes for Aboriginal infants compared with other Australian infants. Health outcomes tend to be worse for those living in remote areas. Little is known about the health service utilisation patterns of remote dwelling Aboriginal infants. This study describes health service utilisation patterns at the primary and referral level by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants from northern Australia. RESULTS: Data on 413 infants were analysed. Following birth, one third of infants were admitted to the regional hospital neonatal nursery, primarily for preterm birth. Once home, most (98%) health service utilisation occurred at the remote primary health centre, infants presented to the centre about once a fortnight (mean 28 presentations per year, 95%CI 26.4-30.0). Half of the presentations were for new problems, most commonly for respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal symptoms. Remaining presentations were for reviews or routine health service provision. By one year of age 59% of infants were admitted to hospital at least once, the rate of hospitalisation per infant year was 1.1 (95%CI 0.9-1.2). CONCLUSIONS: The hospitalisation rate is high and admissions commence early in life, visits to the remote primary health centre are frequent. Half of all presentations are for new problems. These findings have important implications for health service planning and delivery to remote dwelling Aboriginal families. BioMed Central 2012-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC3384247/ /pubmed/22373262 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-12-19 Text en Copyright ©2012 Bar-Zeev et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bar-Zeev, Sarah J
Kruske, Sue G
Barclay, Lesley M
Bar-Zeev, Naor H
Carapetis, Jonathan R
Kildea, Sue V
Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study
title Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study
title_full Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study
title_fullStr Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study
title_full_unstemmed Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study
title_short Use of health services by remote dwelling Aboriginal infants in tropical northern Australia: a retrospective cohort study
title_sort use of health services by remote dwelling aboriginal infants in tropical northern australia: a retrospective cohort study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384247/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22373262
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-12-19
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