Remote Australia Online

Environmental factors can impact the ability of food retail businesses to implement best practice health-enabling food retail. Methods: We co-designed a short-item survey on factors influencing food retail health-enabling practice in a remote Australian setting. Publicly available submissions to an Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into food pricing and food security in remote Indigenous communities were coded using an existing remote community food systems assessment tool and thematically analysed. Themes informed survey questions that were then prioritised, refined and pre-tested with expert stakeholder input. Results: One-hundred and eleven submissions were coded, and 100 themes identified. Supply chain related data produced the most themes (n = 25). The resulting 26-item survey comprised questions to assess the perceived impact of environmental factors on a store’s health-enabling practice (n = 20) and frequency of occurrence (n = 6). Conclusions: The application of this evidence-informed, co-designed survey will provide a first-time cross-sectional analysis and the potential for ongoing longitudinal data and advocacy on how environmental factors affect the operations of remote stores.

The burden of chronic conditions is growing in Australia with people in remote areas experiencing high rates of disease, especially kidney disease. Health care in remote areas of the Northern Territory (NT) is complicated by a mobile population, high staff turnover, poor communication between health services and complex comorbid health conditions requiring multidisciplinary care.

Decolonising Mathematics Education: Transforming Pedagogy alongside First Peoples of Remote Australia

The study evaluated the current state and accessibility of tertiary healthcare services in rural Australia. A systematic literature review from 2010 to 2022 was undertaken, utilising databases such as PubMed, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. The PRISMA method was employed to retrieve an initial total of 4768 papers. Upon removal of 2806 duplicates and 1587 irrelevant records, 1962 articles were screened. From these, 375 were assessed for eligibility, leading to the inclusion of eleven studies in the systematic review. Criteria for exclusion included a focus on primary and secondary healthcare, absence of peer review, and unclear methodology. A collective survey of 230,339 individuals, focusing on access to tertiary healthcare in rural and remote areas of Australia, was reported in the chosen studies. Several barriers to healthcare access for rural populations were identified, including lack of informed leadership, inadequate clinical governance, limited awareness of modern care models, suboptimal workforce planning and resource utilisation, incorrect risk perception, and insufficient community engagement. In conclusion, there is an urgent need to address healthcare disparities and improve service accessibility in Australia's rural and remote areas.

Background Culturally appropriate mental health care is essential in remote Australia. However, while associated with the development of an effective therapeutic alliance, current literature insufficiently reports the retention and psychotherapy outcomes of Indigenous adults. We aimed to describe the characteristics and retention of clients attending the Far North Mental Health and Wellbeing Service (FNS). Methods We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study on clients who received one or more psychotherapy consultations between 1st July 2019 and 31st December 2020. Population, entrance, and treatment characteristics were described, with retention compared between the major cultural groups. Entrance characteristics comprised referral pathway and reason for presentation and were investigated as alternative predictors of client retention. Findings There were 186 non-Indigenous (68.3 % female) and 174 Indigenous (62.6 % female) clients, with a median number of 3.0 consultations (IQR 2.0–5.3). Indigenous status did not significantly predict retention. Referral pathway significantly predicted the number of consultations (Wald X2(6) = 17.67, p = .0071) and immediate discontinuation (Wald X2(6) = 12.94, p = .044), with self-referred clients having the highest retention. Initial presentation reason significantly predicted the number of consultations (Wald X2(5) = 13.83, p = .017), with clients with potential health hazards related to socioeconomic and psychosocial circumstances having the lowest retention. Significantly more Indigenous clients presented for this reason (20.1 % vs 4.3 %). Interpretation Comparable retention of Indigenous clients suggests cultural appropriateness of the psychotherapy being delivered by the FNS. Services might use the described therapeutic approach as a guide for culturally appropriate care.

INTRODUCTION: In Australia, colorectal cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer and cause of death from malignant diseases, and its incidence is rising. The aim of this article was to present an analysis of National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) data for rural and remote South Australia (SA), in order to identify geographical areas and population groups that may benefit from targeted approaches to increase participation rates in colorectal cancer screening. METHODS: De-identified data from the NBCSP (February 2007 to July 2008) were provided by Medicare Australia. Mapping and analysis of the NBCSP data was performed using ESRI ArcGIS (http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/index.html) and MapInfo (http://slp.pbinsight.com/info/mipro-sem-au). Data were aggregated to postcode and Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) and participation was then mapped according to overall participation rates, sex, age, Indigenous status and Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA)-Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage (IRSD). The participants were South Australians who turned 55 and 65 years between 2007 and 2008 who returned the completed NBCSP test sent to them by Medicare Australia. RESULTS: The overall participation rate was 46.1% in rural and remote SA, although this was statistically significantly different (p<.001) according to sex (46.7% for males and 53.3% for females), age (45.2% for those 55 years, and 52% for those 65 years), socio-economic status (from 43% in 'most deprived' quintile to 50% in 'most affluent' quintile) and remoteness (45.6% for metropolitan, 46% for remote and 48.6% for rural areas). Indigenous participation was 0.5%. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study suggest lower NBCSP participation rates for people from metropolitan and remote areas, compared with those from rural areas. The uptake of cancer screening is lower for older rural and remote residents, men, Indigenous people, lower socioeconomic groups and those living in the Far North subdivision of SA.

Introduction People living in rural and remote areas face substantial barriers to accessing timely and appropriate mental health services. In the Bowen Basin region of Queensland, Australia, barriers include: limited local providers, long waiting lists, unreliable telecommunication, and reluctance to trial telehealth. Isaac Navicare is a new, community co-designed care navigation service which addresses these barriers by coupling care navigation with supported telehealth, and referrals to mental health providers and other supports. We aimed to understand the reach and effectiveness of Isaac Navicare in improving access to mental health services and address an evidence gap on strategies for improving telehealth acceptability. Methods This mixed-methods implementation science evaluation used the RE-AIM Framework. It involved a client database review, survey and semi-structured interviews with service users during the 12-month pilot from November 2021. Results 197 clients (128 adults, 69 minors) were referred to Navicare during the pilot. Half of adult clients were unemployed, meaning referral options were limited to low-cost or bulk-billed services. Participants described Navicare as supportive and effective in helping to access timely and appropriate mental health supports. Most clients who expressed a treatment modality preference selected face-to-face (n = 111, 85.4%), however most referrals were for telehealth (n = 103, 66.0%) due to a lack of suitable alternatives. The rapport and trust developed with the care navigator was critical for increasing willingness to trial telehealth. Barriers to telehealth included privacy issues, technical difficulties, unreliable internet/phone, and perceived difficulties developing therapeutic rapport. The supported telehealth site was under-utilised. The majority (88.3%, n = 182) of referrals to Navicare were from local health or community service providers or schools. Discussion Coupling supportive, individualised care navigation with tele-mental health provider options resulted in increased uptake and acceptance of telehealth. Many barriers could be addressed through better preparation of clients and improving promotion and uptake of the supported telehealth site. Conclusion Attitudes towards telehealth have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, however although the need exists, barriers remain to uptake. Telehealth alone is not enough. Coupling telehealth with other supports such as care navigation improves acceptance and uptake.

Background Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for some pathogens in Australia are considerably higher in rural and remote compared to urban regions. The inaugural Hot North Antimicrobial Academy was a 9-month educational programme aimed to build workforce knowledge and capacity in antimicrobial use, audit, stewardship, surveillance and drug resistance in remote primary health care. Methods The Academy was advertised to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, regional and remote healthcare workers. Participants were Aboriginal health practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and doctors from Queensland, Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia working in remote primary health care with a focus on Indigenous health. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Academy ran virtually from February–November 2021 using Microsoft Teams. The Academy was evaluated using surveys and yarning circles to assess impact and knowledge gain. Results Participants and faculty from across Australia attended 19 lectures and mentorship sessions. Eleven participants commenced and eight (73%) completed the Academy. The Academy raised participants awareness of AMR guidelines, governance and generating change; built confidence in advocacy; grew knowledge about drug resistant infections; and created a community of AMR champions in Indigenous health. Conclusion The evaluation confirmed the Academy met the needs of participants, provided opportunities to move stewardship from tertiary hospitals into Indigenous and remote clinics and developed skills in research, audit, stewardship and advocacy for all involved. All sessions were recorded for future use, with facilitation by the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) in future years.

Introduction Dementia is now responsible for the greatest burden of disease of any chronic illness in older Australians. Rural and remote communities bear the impacts of this disproportionately. Additional training and education for healthcare staff to support people living with dementia is needed. The objective of this scoping review was to map and synthesise the evidence related to barriers and enablers of accessing dementia training for Australian healthcare workers located in rural and remote areas. This scoping review systematically searched multiple databases in January 2023 for peer-reviewed literature on the topic. Reviewers used Covidence to screen titles and abstracts of located sources, and to screen full-text articles. From 187 articles screened, seven peer-reviewed journal articles were included in the final data analysis; all were from Australia or Canada. The most common barrier described was low staffing, precluding release of staff for dementia training. Enablers to participation in dementia training were availability of online training programs, as well as training providers collaborating with end users to ensure the training met their learning needs. This review provides evidence of barriers and enablers specific to rural and remote healthcare workers accessing dementia training. It also explores other approaches to training that have been trialled successfully in different settings. Conclusion Addressing the identified barriers and enablers may assist in developing training approaches appropriate for existing staff, and in meeting training needs for the future workforce.

Objective: To measure progress, over the past decade, in reducing the disadvantage in cancer death rates among people living in regional and remote areas of Australia. Design: Analysis of routinely collected death certificate and corresponding population data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Setting: Population-based, Australia-wide comparison of mortality rates in regional and remote areas compared with metropolitan areas from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2010. Main outcome measures: Absolute and relative excess of cancer deaths in regional and remote areas. Results: The number of excess cancer deaths in regional and remote areas from 2001 to 2010 was 8878 (95% CI, 8187–9572). For men, the age-standardised mortality ratios (comparing regional and remote areas with metropolitan areas) showed no evidence of improvement, from 1.08 in 1997–2000 to 1.11 in 2006–2010. For women, they increased from 1.01 in 1997–2000 to 1.07 in 2006–2010. The age-standardised cancer death rate in regional and remote areas (annual percentage change [APC], – 0.6%; 95% CI, – 0.8% to – 0.4%) is decreasing more slowly than in metropolitan areas (APC, – 1.1%; 95% CI, – 1.3% to – 1.0%). Conclusions: The regional and remote disadvantage for cancer deaths has been recognised as a problem for more than two decades, yet we have made little progress. This is not surprising – we have not invested in research into solutions. The benefits of laboratory and clinical research to identify innovative cancer treatments will not be fully realised across the entire Australian population unless we also invest in health systems and policy research.

This case study explores the developmental practices and institutional environment which have supported the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust to build a sense of Aboriginal agency and ownership over efforts to promote development in remote central Australia. Drawing on interview data with practitioners and Aboriginal participants, the study demonstrates that flexible, adaptive practices which embrace learning and prioritise respectful relationships in pursuit of culturally appropriate fit-for-purpose governance is conducive to supporting Aboriginal-led development. The study further identifies the importance of institutional settings that enable this work, including relational leadership, long-term commitment, risk appetite, creating space for reflection and adaptation, and appropriate recruitment. It also identifies the constraints on the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT) within the contemporary political economy of Indigenous affairs, which limit the extent to which such practices and institutions can, by themselves, further Aboriginal-led development approaches.

Aboriginal community involvement in the management of Mimosa (Mimosa pigra) on the wetlands of the Northern Territory's 'Top End'

Introduction: This study aimed to identify opportunities for clinical decision support targeting medication safety in remote primary care, by investigating the relationship between clinical workflows, health system priorities, cognitive tasks, and reasoning processes in the context of medicines used in people with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Methods: This qualitative study involved one-on-one, semistructured interviews. The participants were healthcare professionals employed in a clinical or managerial capacity with clinical work experience in a remote health setting for at least 1 year. Results: Twenty-five clinicians were interviewed. Of these, four were rural medical practitioners, nine were remote area nurses, eight were Aboriginal health practitioners, and four were pharmacists. Four major themes were identified from the interviews: (1) the need for a clinical decision support system to support a sustainable remote health workforce, as clinicians were 'constantly stretched' and problems may 'fall through the cracks'; (2) reliance on digital health technologies, as medical staff are often not physically available and clinicians-on-duty usually 'flick an email and give a call so that I can actually talk it through to our GP'; (3) knowledge gaps, as 'it takes a lot of mental space' to know each patient's renal function and their medication history, and clinicians believe 'mistakes can be made'; and (4) multiple risk factors impacting CKD management, including clinical, social and behavioural determinants. Conclusions: The high prevalence of CKD and reliance on digital health systems in remote primary health settings can make a clinical decision support system valuable for supporting clinicians who may not have extensive experience in managing medicines for people with CKD.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how embedding accounting techniques of cost and budgeting within the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) potentially perpetuates colonial practices for Australian First Nations people living in remote areas. Further, the paper aims to explore how accounting might help to integrate the unique modes of accountability First Nations people have over disability care into the NDIS funding system. Ultimately, the aim is to discern whether accounting practices can be mobilised as a means to decolonising the NDIS framework. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a qualitative methodology to analyse public hearings from the Australian Disability Royal Commission. Drawing on Bhabha's (1994) concept of the “third space”, this study investigates how accounting techniques can be used to potentially decolonise the NDIS. This study also borrows Bhabha's (1994) concept of the third space to explore the potential for decolonising the NDIS through accounting techniques. Findings Findings show that the accounting techniques pertaining to funding and costs embedded within the NDIS contribute to displacing and disconnecting First Nations people from their cultural practices and ways of life. Further, the analysis reveals that the NDIS funding system could help to decolonise the NDIS space if it were modified to incorporate First Nations' perspectives on accountability for disability care. Originality/value The case of the NDIS exposes glimpses of colonisation in contemporary Australia, where Western institutional and economic systems dominate over the structure and authority of the practice. In this paper, this study demonstrates that the accounting system used by the NDIS plays a role in marginalising First Nations people. However, accounting, as a technology of negotiation, could also be mobilised to enhance accountability for disability care outcomes and pave the way for decolonising public policies.

Income inequality is a significant issue for the more than 6.7 million people of rural and remote Australia, especially given the pervasive influence of low income on health and wellbeing. On top of the lower median gross household incomes in rural and remote Australia, many goods and services are more highly priced. In 2005 the AIHW identified food costs as being 10-20 per cent higher in rural and remote areas, with petrol frequently being 10 per cent more costly. More recent figures confirm these price differentials. Despite the common perception that housing in rural and remote areas is cheaper than in the major cities, people in rural and regional Australia are just as likely to experience housing stress. The well-known challenges of access to health, housing, education and work in rural and remote Australia are associated with higher rates of health risk factors and higher rates of a number of chronic conditions among the people of rural and remote Australia. Income inequality contributes to these worse health outcomes, which result in higher rates of avoidable hospitalisations for chronic conditions and higher death rates than experienced by their city counterparts

Aurukun is a small Aboriginal community located in remote Cape York, Far North Queensland. This study explores local perspectives on the goals, strengths and areas of need in the community, and perceptions of the role of a man in Aurukun. Seventeen individuals from the Aurukun community were informally interviewed. The sample comprised eight community elders (four female, four male) and nine community members (six male, three female). A reference group comprising local community members and elders guided the research project. Results indicated that the communities’ main strength was their connection to culture, the areas most needing improvement were violence, alcohol use, over incarceration, poor support for mental health and a lack of employment opportunities. Participants saw the best way forward as being through more employment and better communication. The interconnectedness of these themes as well as their implications for successful program development and evaluation are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the use of telehealth consultations by telephone and video around the world. While telehealth can improve access to primary health care, there are significant gaps in our understanding about how, when and to what extent telehealth should be used. This paper explores the perspectives of health care staff on the key elements relating to the effective use of telehealth for patients living in remote Australia.

Academic fieldwork plays a crucial role in scientific advancement, knowledge production, and research training. However, the current investigations into fieldwork often focus on conduct, methods, and techniques, leaving the experience of solo female tourism fieldworkers largely under-explored. Drawing new connections between the intersections of liminality and gender in tourism fieldwork contexts, this study adopts a duo-ethnographic methodology and uses visual memorywork to explore the experiences and evaluate the effects of entering liminal tourism spaces on female scholars conducting solo fieldwork in remote Australia. The study contributes to theoretical advancements in gender studies, reflexivity, liminality, and transformative experiences research. Furthermore, the paper also provides practical implications for institutions and researchers engaged in remote tourism fieldwork.

Inadequate healthcare access and utilisation are implicated in the mental health burden experienced by those living in regional, rural, and remote Australia. Facilitators that better enable access and utilisation are also reported in the literature. To date, a synthesis on both the barriers and facilitators to accessing and utilising mental health services within the rural Australian context has not been undertaken. This scoping review aims to (1) synthesise the barriers and facilitators to accessing and utilising mental health services in regional, rural, and remote Australia, as identified using the Modified Monash Model; and (2) better understand the relationship between barriers and facilitators and their geographical context.

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of remote-dwelling pregnant women with threatened labor referred for air medical retrieval to a regional birthing center as well as factors associated with birth within 48 hours. Methods: This was a retrospective observational study of all pregnant women in the remote Central Australian region referred to the Medical Retrieval Consultation and Coordination Centre for labor > 23 weeks’ gestation between February 12, 2018, and February 12, 2020. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed. Results: There were 116 women referred for retrieval for labor. There were no births during transport, and less than half of the cases resulted in birth within 48 hours of retrieval. Tocolysis was frequently used. Predictors of birth within 48 hours were cervical dilatation ≥ 5 cm, preterm gestational age, and ruptured membranes in the univariate analysis. Nearly one third of this cohort required intervention or had complications during birth. Conclusion: Birth during transport for threatened labor did not occur in this cohort, and more than half of the retrievals did not result in birth within 48 hours; however, the high risk of birth complications may offset any benefit of avoiding air medical transport from remote regions. Retrieval clinicians should consider urgent transfer in cases of ruptured membranes, cervical dilatation of 5 cm or more, or gestational age less than 37 weeks.

Rural areas have long been considered bastions of community safety and cohesion. However, recent research in rural criminology has demonstrated the heterogeneity of crime and safety in rural areas. In areas like Australia and Canada, crime rates in rural communities often surpass those of their urban counterparts. However, many have critiqued this as a denominator effect, emphasizing that a small number of events will produce a higher rate of crime when the population is low. In 2014, Carleton and colleagues examined crime in British Columbia, Canada and found that, by using the location quotient, a measure of crime specialization, rural areas indeed specialized in violent crime, but urban areas specialized in property crime. The current study replicates and extends this strategy in Queensland, Australia, to determine if these findings are representative in the international context, examining these differences across five diverse area types (highly accessible, accessible, moderately accessible, remote, and very remote), and then determining specifically which types of crimes are driving violent and property crime specialization. In addition, this study also explores social disorder, as it accounts for a large proportion of police activity. As such, this study offers a more extensive and specified understanding of crime patterns along the rural/urban divide.

The picture of researchers arriving in ‘remote’ communities to conduct research on a topic of interest to them (complete with consent forms and ethical clearance), is conjured up frequently by First Nations people, as a sign of White power and colonial control. ‘Research’ for many, has become a dirty word. But when First Nations researchers who live in those communities, take responsibility for research, a different dynamic comes into play. Research then becomes a legitimate way for community members to tell their stories, and for the voices of community members to be heard and relayed with integrity. This Rural Connections article tells two interwoven stories of Catherine Ridley, in her own words. The first story is about her experiences growing up and learning at school in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The second story is about her experiences as a researcher, investigating issues of school engagement, attendance, and retention.

James Wigley has been historicised by Australian art scholars as a social realist, but the focus of his work through the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s differed from others who were a part of this art movement. During this time, he returned again and again to join the ?strike mob? who had walked off pastoral stations in the Pilbara in 1946 and become independent by mining and purchasing their own pastoral properties. The organiser of the strikers, Don McLeod, invited Wigley to help the strikers with building boats to gather pearl shell, and later to run a printing press at the school in the new settlement of Strelley, on one of their pastoral leases. During his time with the strikes, Wigley drew and painted; he would send work to Melbourne and return there to exhibit work about the Pilbara and the people who lived there. He also illustrated the schoolbooks he was printing for the Strelley Literature Centre in the late 1970s. This article argues that this significant body of work places Wigley alongside other Australian artists who spent substantial time in remote Aboriginal communities, and whose experiences shaped their art.

This report summarises the Healthy Homes Monitoring and Evaluation Project undertaken by Menzies School of Health Research from July 2021 until June 2023. Menzies was contracted by the Department of Territory Families, Housing and Communities (TFHC) to monitor and evaluate ‘Healthy Homes’, the Department’s remote housing repairs and maintenance program. Repairs and maintenance is central to householder wellbeing and housing dysfunction in remote communities in the Northern Territory. In recent years, this has been most evident in litigation brought by householders at the communities of Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa) and Laramba against the NT Government for its failure to provide necessary housing repairs. Submissions by applicants identified a significant backlog of fix work required for houses to meet the habitability standard specified by the Residential Tenancies Act 1999 (Northern Territory). In government housing programs, repairs and maintenance are often deprioritised relative to new construction and major capital works. Repairs and maintenance work is less visible and less able to be celebrated through forms of public announcement or ceremony. However, housing’s materiality is dynamic and entropic, breakdown is inevitable, and ongoing repairs and maintenance is necessary to hold things together. In remote Indigenous communities in Australia, reactive approaches to property maintenance dominate over preventive attention, leaving housing in various states of disrepair. Adequate housing sustained by regular repairs and maintenance is not only necessary to ensure householder health: it is also a right. When governments fail to provide adequate housing they fail to meet their obligations under local laws and international legal frameworks, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Such failure is especially significant in remote communities in Australia, where First Nations people never ceded sovereignty and settler colonialism is an ongoing process. For remote community residents, the right to housing has not been met by successive Commonwealth and NT Governments and the housing crisis is endemic rather than episodic. The Healthy Homes program has sought to arrest the poor standard of remote community housing by initiating a preventive and cyclical maintenance approach to complement existing responsive repairs. This policy effort responded to consistent identification in reports, reviews, and evaluations of preventive maintenance as a strategy for improving householder wellbeing and satisfaction, house function, and asset value over time. The intent of Healthy Homes to prioritise preventive maintenance in remote community housing is appropriate and should remain central to subsequent program iterations. This report examines the implementation of this program against these aims. The Northern Territory Government’s remote housing program ‘Our Community. Our Future. Our Homes’ has four main components: Homebuild, or new construction; Room to Breathe, housing refurbishment and extensions; Government Employee Housing; and repairs and maintenance. The NT Government is responsible for about 5,498 houses across 73 remote communities, Alice Springs town camps, and Tennant Creek community living areas. At December 2022, the proportion of those houses that was overcrowded was 52.9 per cent, a minor reduction from 55 per cent at December 2017. This should be compared with the aspiration of Closing the Gap target 9a which aims to ‘increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in appropriately sized (not overcrowded) housing to 88 per cent’ by 2031. In the month of March 2023, there were 3,329 active applicants on the wait list for remote community housing, with 34 households assisted into new housing (and 17 households transferred from an existing tenancy into alternate remote public housing). The average wait time for those 34 households allocated new housing in March 2023 was 40 months.

Introduction: Health outcomes for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples are very poor. This is considerably worse in remote regions. The East Pilbara, where the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities of the Martu and Nyiyaparli people reside, is one such remote region. Methods: This review explored the grey literature relating to the health services and health outcomes of the Martu and Nyiyaparli people. Search strategies included specific search terms as well as the systematic search of specific websites likely to inform this review. To ensure relevance of the data, the review incorporated documents published in the last five years and obtained statistical data at two different population levels (SA3 and Indigenous Area). Both SA3s and IAREs are geographical areas utilised by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the attainment of statistical data; however, IAREs were created for more specific data related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Results: The main findings from this review were that health outcomes for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of the East Pilbara were poor, with health indicator trends that were worse than nationwide averages. Additionally, the review found that the healthcare workforce shortages common to very remote areas across Australia were particularly problematic in the East Pilbara. Conclusion: In addition to seeking improved health outcomes, this project responds to calls from this community to move from the ‘repair shop’ model of healthcare to an upstream preventative model by providing a context of the current health issues in this East Pilbara region.