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    A multilevel analysis on the relationship between neighbourhood poverty and public hospital utilization: is the high Indigenous morbidity avoidable?

    215907_46922_BMC_Public_Health_Zhao_You_Guthridge_Lee.pdf (300.1Kb)
    Access Status
    Open access
    Authors
    Zhao, Y.
    You, J.
    Guthridge, S.
    Lee, Andy
    Date
    2011
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Zhao, Y. and You, J. and Guthridge, S. and Lee, A. 2011. A multilevel analysis on the relationship between neighbourhood poverty and public hospital utilization: is the high Indigenous morbidity avoidable?. BMC Public Health. 11 (737).
    Source Title
    BMC Public Health
    DOI
    10.1186/1471-2458-11-737
    ISSN
    1471-2458
    School
    School of Public Health
    Remarks

    This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/. Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/45147
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    Background: The estimated life expectancy at birth for Indigenous Australians is 10-11 years less than the general Australian population. The mean family income for Indigenous people is also significantly lower than for non-Indigenous people. In this paper we examine poverty or socioeconomic disadvantage as an explanation for the Indigenous health gap in hospital morbidity in Australia. Methods: We utilised a cross-sectional and ecological design using the Northern Territory public hospitalisation data from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2008 and socio-economic indexes for areas (SEIFA) from the 2006 census. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios and confidence intervals. Both total and potentially avoidable hospitalisations were investigated. Results: This study indicated that lifting SEIFA scores for family income and education/occupation by two quintile categories for low socio-economic Indigenous groups was sufficient to overcome the excess hospital utilisation among the Indigenous population compared with the non-Indigenous population. The results support a reframing of the Indigenous health gap as being a consequence of poverty and not simplistically of ethnicity. Conclusions: Socio-economic disadvantage is a likely explanation for a substantial proportion of the hospital morbidity gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Efforts to improve Indigenous health outcomes should recognise poverty as an underlying determinant of the health gap.

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