Australian Aboriginal Peoples and Evidence-Based Policies: Closing the Gap in Social Interventions

Abstract

Australian Aboriginal people are some of the most researched people on earth, yet their life expectancy and other well-being indices lag significantly behind non-Aboriginal Australians. The reach of evidence-based practice (EBP) in social interventions has not yet informed Aboriginal policy even though it is based on clinical expertise and systematic research. This is due to criticism of the processes of EBP, most commonly its supposed limitations and misperceptions, which are easily refuted. EBP continues to be a tool that is needed to inform practice across all disciplines of human service, and needs to be the core value of any intervention with indigenous peoples.

Keywords::

• Australian Aboriginal
• evidence-based interventions
• closing the gap

Funding

The author was funded by the Roberta Sykes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, reading for a MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention during the time this article was written.

Notes

^1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the indigenous peoples of Australia, however use of the term Aboriginal in this article mirrors the practice of the Australian Commonwealth Government publications, and is meant include Torres Strait Island peoples.