HLB001 Health Needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians

Unit Outline: Semester 1 2021, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Overview

This unit takes a holistic perspective to engage you in exploring the historical, socio-cultural, political and cultural beliefs that influence Indigenous health and well-being in Australia today. You will be supported to develop your skills, knowledge and understanding of Indigenous health and well-being utilising a population health approach to addressing health disparities and applying evidence based care within the framework of the social determinants of health.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Analyse the impact of history and colonisation on the social, economic and personal factors impacting on the patterns of health for contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing outcomes;
2. Analyse demographic and health statistics, as well as features of effective policies, strategies and programs to promote health and well-being for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities
3. Identify the principles of culturally appropriate, safe and sensitive communication protocols and strategies for building and maintaining respectful relationships and partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.
4. Examine and critically appraise the Australian health systems provision of equitable health outcomes and culturally safe services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities
5. Articulate the progression of one's own journey of becoming a culturally safe practitioner.

Content

Learning Approaches

This unit adopts a combination of face to face, blended learning and on-line learning experiences. You will engage in diverse cultural perspectives, with a specific focus on Indigenous knowledges through Indigenous authored resources, Indigenous community members participating in curriculum delivery and student learning experiences through discussions of the social determinants of health and the impact discrimination, racism and the lack of culturally safe care has on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. You will have the opportunity for frequent face to face discussion, oral discourse where the student group will be encouraged to support each other and share thoughts on articles, newspaper and other media. Critical analyses of these media resources will provide opportunities to raise levels of thinking, and guests working in communities will support the contextual development of culturally safe communication skills. The unit coordinator and the tutors are available for consultation throughout the semester in on-campus and online contexts.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

Early and ongoing discussion groups in face to face or online teaching sessions will provide you with self-assessment opportunities on your grasp of the key concepts and expectations of the unit. Your active participation will enrich the social discourse for you and your peers, and extend your capacity to articulate and communicate the diversity of interpretations of the health issues arising from your research.

Assessment

Overview

This Unit provides students with a combination of formative and summative authentic assessment tasks.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Community Profile Poster

You will be required to collaborate and cooperate as a member of a team to compile an Indigenous community profile. Incorporating historical, demographic and health information of your nominated community which will be one of the following: An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander/ regional/ rural/ urban/ remote, very remote community located in Queensland. It is also important to gain knowledge of the pre-invasion health status of Indigenous people in order to understand its impact. A draft community profile will be presented in Week 5 for feedback. The group will formulate a poster with bibliography and present their poster and community profile in tutorials to peers in a mock health conference setting. Due date:  Presentation in Week 8-10

Assessment: Essay

Critically analyse how the past policy of assimilation has impacted upon the physical/psychological/environmental health status of Indigenous people today. It is important to gain knowledge of the pre-invasion health status of Indigenous people in order to understand its impact.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Resources

Resource Materials

Other

A range of readings will be available on QUT Readings

Risk Assessment Statement

There are no particular risks associated with this unit.