The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey: findings to date on adolescents

This state-wide Aboriginal community child health survey, the first of its kind in Australia, describes physical and mental health and their antecedents in Western Australian Aboriginal children and young people. Aboriginal young people had significantly more physical and mental health problems and were more likely to engage in lifestyle risk factors than non-Aboriginal young people. Aboriginal young people tend to be caught up in a cycle of disadvantage that includes family and community factors as well as recent history, facilitating their making less optimal life choices, thereby perpetuating the cycle. A coordinated approach will be required to break this cycle, in which appropriately and sympathetically provided medical attention is necessary but not sufficient.