The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet pledges commitment to close the gap

The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet celebrated the seventh annual National Close the Gap Day with a morning tea.

Staff and guests pledged their commitment to ‘close the gap’ in health inequality, joining more than 140,000 people across Australia who are acting to raise awareness about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and to urge continued action by governments, including a recommitment to funding before current funding expires on 30 June 2013.

Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet staff and friends at their National Close the Gap Day event

The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet contributes to ‘closing the gap’ in health between Indigenous and other Australians by making knowledge readily accessible to inform policy, practice, research, teaching and the general community.

The HealthInfoNet‘s translational research work focuses on making research and other information available in a way that has immediate, practical utility. It does this by providing comprehensive reviews about individual health topics along with a range of other topic-specific information (such as policies and strategies, health promotion and practice resources, programs and projects, organisations, and publications). ‘Plain language’ versions of many of the topic-specific reviews are also provided. Additionally, there are special sections for some Indigenous health workers, including environmental health and social and emotional wellbeing workers. The HealthInfoNet‘s yarning places (digital networks) allow people with common interests and purposes to share information, knowledge and experiences.

The HealthInfoNet‘s program of free workshops, delivered across Western Australia (WA) to increase access to its web resource and build the capacity of the frontline health workforce, is aimed at assisting the health workforce in ‘closing the gap’ in Indigenous health. In reaching out to the frontline health workforce, the utility of the HealthInfoNet‘s translational research in bridging the divide between knowledge and practice is more fully realised.

The Federal Government currently is working on a national plan to ‘close the gap’, in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, through the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.

For more information on Closing the gap, please see the links below.

Source: Australian Human Rights Commission

• Further information:
  • What is the history of Closing the gap?
    View information: Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet
  • What is Closing the gap?
    View information: Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet
  • Close the Gap Day calls for critical funding (21 March 2013)
    View news item: Australian Human Rights Commission
  • Record-breaking National Close the Gap Day calls for critical funding to be continued
    View news item: Australian Human Rights Commission (21 March 2013)