Smoking fall is good for Indigenous health - PS News
First results from the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey show Indigenous people are smoking less than ever before.
Australian Bureau of Statistics First Assistant Statistician, Dr Paul Jelfs said the survey focus was on long-term health conditions, health risk factors, selected social and emotional well-being indicators, health measurements and health-related actions, and included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote and non-remote areas.
“The good news is the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people smoking every day has declined 10 percentage points over the past decade,” he said.
“This is about 40 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over smoking on a daily basis.”
Dr Jelfs said while the smoking rate had declined in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, the smoking rate in the non-Indigenous population had also fallen.
He said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remained 2.6 times as likely as the non-Indigenous population to be current daily smokers.
Mr Jelfs said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more than three times as likely as non-Indigenous people to have diabetes or high sugar levels.
He said in self-assessing one’s health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over were around half as likely as non-Indigenous people to report excellent or very good health and twice as likely to report fair or poor health.
He said the survey also found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults experienced higher levels of psychological distress and were nearly three times as likely as the non-Indigenous population to have experienced high to very high psychological distress in the preceding four weeks.
Further information is available at http://www.abs.gov.au/
Australian Bureau of Statistics First Assistant Statistician, Dr Paul Jelfs said the survey focus was on long-term health conditions, health risk factors, selected social and emotional well-being indicators, health measurements and health-related actions, and included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote and non-remote areas.
“The good news is the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people smoking every day has declined 10 percentage points over the past decade,” he said.
“This is about 40 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over smoking on a daily basis.”
Dr Jelfs said while the smoking rate had declined in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, the smoking rate in the non-Indigenous population had also fallen.
He said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remained 2.6 times as likely as the non-Indigenous population to be current daily smokers.
Mr Jelfs said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more than three times as likely as non-Indigenous people to have diabetes or high sugar levels.
He said in self-assessing one’s health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over were around half as likely as non-Indigenous people to report excellent or very good health and twice as likely to report fair or poor health.
He said the survey also found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults experienced higher levels of psychological distress and were nearly three times as likely as the non-Indigenous population to have experienced high to very high psychological distress in the preceding four weeks.
Further information is available at http://www.abs.gov.au/
Edition 389f, 29 November 2013
