The Poor Health Status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: Can More Indigenous Doctors Make a Difference?

Training Indigenous Health Practitioners
According to the 1996 Australian population census, 353,000 individuals identified as Indigenous Australians, of these, 314,120 were of Aboriginal descent, 28,774 were of Torres Strait Islander descent and 10, 106 identified as being of both descent. This represents 1.8%, 0.2% and 0.06% of Australia's total population respectively (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996). As at 1996, the median age for the Indigenous population was approximately 20 years, which compares with 34 years for the total national population. Forty percent of Indigenous Australians were aged under 15 years compared to 21 percent of the total population, but more noticeable is that only 2.6% of the Indigenous population was aged 65 years or older which compared to 12 percent of the total Australian population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1 998).