Helping to close the gap
Working in close partnership with First Nations communities, the Life Course Centre has been instrumental in laying the foundations for a landmark study using more than 40 years of data to pinpoint crucial turning points in child development, helping us better understand the gap in Aboriginal health and wellbeing outcomes.
Entitled “Improving Aboriginal health by understanding the influence of early life environments and contacts with health and social service systems over time and across generations“, the project was awarded the prestigious Synergy Grant by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), this research examines the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal children under the principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty.
Running from 2023 to 2029, this study is the result of many years of work by Life Course Centre researchers on advancing data linkage infrastructure. The multi-disciplinary project team is led by Associate Professor Francis Mitrou, Chief Investigator, TKI-UWA, and includes colleague Emeritus Professor Steve Zubrick, former Chief Investigator and Deputy Director, and Professor Stefanie Schurer, Research Fellow, Sydney, along with several other collaborators and partners, including senior and junior Aboriginal researchers.
The study draws on data from the West Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (WAACHS) of more than 5,000 Aboriginal children and their families collected between 2000 and 2002 and linked to administrative datasets from the Western Australia government, some stretching back more than 40 years. This research aims to improve Aboriginal health by understanding the influence of early life environments and contacts with health and social service systems over time and across generations.
The NHMRC Synergy Grant builds on the strong foundations of the WAACHS linked data study, led by Francis and Steve, that investigated disparities in Aboriginal child health across multiple domains, including physical health, social and emotional wellbeing and education, and identified the need for effective planning and delivery of culturally and geographically appropriate services.
First Nations perspectives and partnerships
Partnering to advance First Nations perspectives was a key topic of discussion at the Life Course Centre National Research Retreat in 2022 and will be an important focus for the Centre moving forward in building and strengthening community collaborations and specialist capacities and skills.
There are a range of research projects across the Centre that have been designed, and are being undertaken, in close partnership with First Nations groups, from working with Tati Tati traditional owners in regional Victoria, including Research Fellows Brendan Kennedy and Melissa Kennedy, on Indigenous water rights, to partnerships on Indigenous literacy, early education and youth sleep health in regional Queensland communities.
Our sponsorship of the ‘Reconciliation, Opportunities, Wellbeing of First Nations Peoples’ workshop, organised by Professor Stefanie Schurer and held at the University of Sydney in February 2023, was an important initiative for bringing together researchers in this field. Researchers from three of our nodes attended and presented on the WAACHS and Tati Tati projects and other research, including youth wellbeing in the Northern Territory and truth telling on historical frontier violence.
This workshop featured keynotes from Indigenous academics Professor Pat Dudgeon, UWA, and Professor Gail Garvey, UQ, as well as sessions on Indigenous data access, use and sovereignty. We were also represented in panel discussions on data, evaluations and policymaking, alongside prominent Indigenous academic Professor Marcia Langton, University of Melbourne, at the 2022 Social and Economic Outlook conference.
An important paper published in our Life Course Centre Working Paper Series in 2022, ‘Exploring and researching the Indigenous life course’, was authored by Indigenous academic Professor Maggie Walter, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Aboriginal Research and Leadership, University of Tasmania, and highlights the need for new approaches to, and data on, Indigenous life course journeys.