In the course of this 16-minute studio interview with Dr Norman Swan, Professor Ernest Hunter discusses the serious challenges facing Indigenous mental health in Australia.

While providing programs or services for specific mental health problems is important, Professor Hunter notes that it is critical to look into the key driving factors.  Issues such as self-harm, violence, petrol-sniffing, and suicide can all be linked to an Indigenous community's general welfare, largely determined by the community's level of autonomy and political control.

Professor Hunter makes the point that Indigenous communities need to be supported in finding their own solutions to their problems in a sustained and incremental manner.  This includes more focus on early childhood and education, as education is an essential social determinant of both general and mental health.

The recent West Australia Child Health Survey, which is currently the largest Australian study of physical and mental health and educational condition among Aboriginal children, reported poor rates in all three areas.  While school retention rates among Aboriginal children are improving, the quality of outcomes has actually fallen from previous generations.

Professor Hunter concludes that it is important to provide culturally appropriate opportunities and means for Indigenous children to be able to build the capacity to negotiate with the wider society.

Professor Ernest Hunter is an Australian medical graduate trained in psychiatry and public health in the USA.

He has worked for the last two decades in remote Indigenous populations across northern Australia.

He is Regional Psychiatrist with Queensland Health and Adjunct Professor in the School of Population Health, University of Queensland based in Cairns.

16 minutes.

This program was first broadcast on the Foundation's satellite network on Wednesday 6 June 2007.  It was repeated on Friday 8 June 2007.

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