The objective of this study is to understand the calcareous nannoplankton response to past environmental changes in the Strait of Hormuz during the Holocene. Calcareous nannoplankton is well abundant in the living phytoplankton community and a key component of the marine sediments. Due to its distinct reaction to environment changes and its good preservation potential, it is well suited for p...

BACKGROUND Health Assessment (HA) items were introduced in 1999 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged at least 55 years and all Australians aged over 75 years. In 2004 a new item was introduced for HAs among adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15-54 years. The new item has been applauded as a major policy innovation however this enthusiasm has been tempered w...

This is an Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) response to Madden et al.’s paper entitled ‘Estimating Indigenous life expectancy: pitfalls with consequences’, which is published in this issue of the Journal of Population Research. This paper is a critique of the method used by the ABS for compiling life tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The paper claims that ‘the A...

OBJECTIVES To determine the accuracy of routine identification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women confining at King George V (KGV) Hospital, located in Sydney, Australia. DESIGN Interviewer-administered survey. PARTICIPANTS Consecutive sample of women who delivered live, well infants from May to July 1999. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Comparison of hospital documentation compared with...

Studies of cross-strait lexical differences in the use of Mandarin Chinese reveal that a divergence has become increasingly evident. This divergence is apparent in phonological, semantic, and pragmatic analyses and has become an obstacle to knowledge-sharing and information exchange. Given the wide range of divergences, it seems that Chinese character forms offer the most reliable regular mappi...

This report presents the case of a middle-aged Torres Strait Islander male with HIV who contracted Plasmodium vivax malaria in Papua New Guinea. His presentation included clinical and radiological features of pneumonia and he required inpatient treatment for 13 days. This study reviews the literature concerning co-infection with HIV and malaria, which is an uncommon combination in Australia, di...

OBJECTIVE To assess the completeness of data describing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status in NSW invasive meningococcal disease notifications and determine the relative risk for invasive meningococcal disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in NSW. METHODS Surveillance data from the NSW Notifiable Diseases Database was reviewed for 5-year periods between 1991 an...

The aim of this work was to determine the feasibility of improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status recording for notifiable diseases using all Invasive Pneumococcal Disease (IPD) notifications in a regional area of New South Wales, Australia. In Australia people with IPD are nearly always admitted to hospital and their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status is recorded. Abori...

BACKGROUND Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are under-reported in administrative health datasets in NSW, Australia. Correct reporting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is essential to measure the effectiveness of policies and programmes aimed at reducing the health disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This study investigates the ...

In this paper I will describe some of the sentinel events in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy and strategy during 2003 and the early part of 2004. This will involve discussion on the:* National Strategic Framework in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health* National Strategic Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Mental Health and Social and Emotion...