The politics of evaluating Aboriginal Health Services

Evaluation of Aboriginal Health Services (AHSs) has become a topic of importance to service providers and governments in recent years. This paper examines some of the difficulties AHSs have in conducting evaluation and presents an example of an inappropriate evaluation methodology as proposed by the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) in 1986. The paper examines the contradictory nature of the DAA proposal and the mistrust it has engendered in many AHSs. It then highlights some of the political difficulties in developing meaningful national and community health objectives as a basis for sound evaluation of health services. The paper concludes by identifying some of the processes whereby more appropriate evaluation methodologies might be developed and suggests that negotiation and consultation with the Aboriginal communities and their health services are imperative to successful evaluation.