It's enough to make you sick: the impact of racism on the health of Aboriginal Australians

Ann Larson; Marisa Gillies; Peter J Howard; Juli Coffin

doi:10.1111/j.1753-6405.2007.00079.x

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It's enough to make you sick: the impact of racism on the health of Aboriginal Australians

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

It's enough to make you sick: the impact of racism on the health of Aboriginal Australians

Ann Larson, Marisa Gillies, Peter J Howard and Juli Coffin

Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, Vol.31(4), pp.322-329

08/2007

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1753-6405.2007.00079.x

PMID: 17725009

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Abstract

Adolescent

Adult

Female

Health Surveys

Humans

Male

Middle Aged

Oceanic Ancestry Group

Prejudice

Western Australia

Experience of interpersonal racism has been neglected as a mechanism by which inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are created and maintained. Cross-sectional survey of randomly selected residents of a rural Australian town (n=639). Interpersonal racism was measured by two questions on experiences in the past four weeks of negative racially based treatment that evoked an emotional or physical response. Health was measured with the mental and physical health component scores of the Short-Form 12 and self-reported fair or poor general health. Linear and logistic regressions modelled the effects of interpersonal racism on health, controlling for age, sex, socio-economic status and Aboriginality. The 183 Aboriginal respondents had lower health component scores, were more than twice as likely to report fair-to-poor general health (34% compared with 17%, p<0.001), and 2.6 to 5.0 times more likely to report negative racially based treatment. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics were not associated with reporting negative racially based treatment. After controlling for other variables, Aboriginal respondents who reported negative treatment were more likely to have poor health on all three measures. Non-Aboriginal respondents who reported experiencing negative treatment had lower mental health component scores. Experiencing racist treatment should be recognised as a social determinant of health. Improved health care and other initiatives may not eliminate health inequalities in the absence of fundamental changes in how non-Aboriginal people behave towards Aboriginal people.

Details

Title: It's enough to make you sick: the impact of racism on the health of Aboriginal Australians
Authors/Creators: Ann Larson - Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health, University of Western Australia
Marisa Gillies - Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health, University of Western Australia
Peter J Howard - Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health, University of Western Australia
Juli Coffin - Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health, University of Western Australia
Publication Details: Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, Vol.31(4), pp.322-329
Publisher: Public Health Association of Australia
Identifiers: 991005560344007891
Murdoch Affiliation: Ngangk Yira Institute for Change
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

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Citation topics: 1 Clinical & Life Sciences; 1.156 Healthcare Policy; 1.156.436 Health Inequities
Web Of Science research areas: Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
ESI research areas: Social Sciences, general