Part 1 : Research project ‘Developing, implementing, and testing a co-created health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in primary care’

Part 2 : Registrations close 20 October for the NACCHO Youth Conference Darwin 4 November 

Part 3 : If you cannot get to Darwin  you can still have your say about what is needed to make real change in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth

‘General practice needs to think more carefully about the issues facing young people as a distinct group. Better understanding has to start with asking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about important health priorities, and then listening carefully to the responses.

Once we have listened to community voices on health priorities and co-created the young person’s health assessment, we intend to conduct a pilot randomised trial of the new health assessment looking at outcomes including social and emotional wellbeing, detection of psychological distress and appropriate management and referrals.” 

Dr Geoffrey Spurling first had the idea for his research project ‘Developing, implementing, and testing a co-created health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in primary care’ during a moving experience not so long ago, when he attended the funeral of a young Aboriginal woman who had committed suicide. See Part 1

The project was originally published in the RACGP News GP

Read all NACCHO Youth Articles HERE 

Part 1 ‘Developing, implementing, and testing a co-created health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in primary care’. Continued from intro above

‘It was a profoundly sad experience,’ Dr Spurling told newsGP.

‘At the same time, community members were telling me that social and emotional wellbeing, especially for young people, was a health priority.

‘I wanted to do what I could with my medical and research skills to understand and help address the social and emotional wellbeing issues facing the community.’

It was here that his research project began to take shape.

Dr Spurling, a GP at Inala Indigenous Health Service and senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, was recently granted funds from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to develop his project, ‘Developing, implementing, and testing a co-created health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in primary care’.

Through collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members, this research aims to develop and implement a health check especially tailored for young people in these communities.

Current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Medicare health assessments involving adolescents are constructed for 5–14-year-olds and 15–54-year-olds. Dr Spurling believes more focus is needed on the health of young people within the second age group, and a specific health assessment should be implemented.

Following development of the tailored health assessments, Dr Spurling and his team intend to conduct a trial comparing the new health check with the current one available in clinical software, aiming to show better detection and management of social and emotional wellbeing concerns.

‘By creating a youth health assessment together with both young people and clinicians, I hope we can have more relevant conversations about health in general practice within both the specific context of the newly developed young person’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessment, and more broadly in general practice.’

The National guide to a preventive health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people recommends the Social Emotional Wellbeing (SEW) and HEEADSSS screening tools as part of health assessments for young people.

Investigator Grants is the NHMRC’s largest funding scheme, with a 40% allocation from the Medical Research Endowment Account. The scheme’s objective is to support the research of outstanding investigators at all career stages, providing five-year funding security for high-performing researchers through its salary and research support packages. The 2019 Investigator Grants funding totals $365.8 million.

Part 2 NACCHO Youth Conference Darwin 4 November 

 ” Culturally-appropriate care and safety has a vast role to play in improving the health and wellbeing of our people.

In this respect, I want to make special mention of the proven record of the Aboriginal Community Health Organisations in increasing the health and wellbeing of First Peoples by delivering culturally competent care.

I’m pleased to be here at this conference, which aims to make a difference with a simple but sentinel theme of investing in what works, surely a guiding principle for all that we do

Providing strong pointers for this is a new youth report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Equipped with this information, we can connect the dots – what is working well and where we need to focus our energies, invest our expertise, so our young people can reap the benefits of better health and wellbeing “

Minister Ken Wyatt launching AIHW Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Adolescent and Youth Health and Wellbeing 2018 report at NACCHO Conference 31 October attended by over 500 ACCHO delegates including 75 ACCHO Youth delegates Pictured above 

Read Download Report HERE