Aboriginal Health

Pre-Invasion Health Status

The health status of Aboriginal people pre-invasion is difficult to assess in ways comparable to current data. However, there is strong evidence that many infectious diseases (measles, 'flu, smallpox, etc.) were not present before the invasion. It also appears that 'life style' diseases (diabetes, high blood pressure, ischaemic heart disease, etc.) were unknown. It is probable that there was a higher infant mortality rate than that for Australia in the 1990s - but it was almost certainly lower than the current level for our people.

We should not assume that our people lived an illness-free life before the invasion. In many cases, especially in the semi-desert of Central Australia, life would have sometimes been hard. Nevertheless, the nomadic lifestyle of our people, our access to the land and its resources, and our own traditional medicine, ensured that we were free of many of the health problems that now beset us.

The eras outlined below are different stages in the colonisation of Australia. They represent the varying ways in which non-Aboriginal society tried to control Aboriginal people and aspirations. It is important to remember that throughout these different eras, the struggle for Aboriginal people was the same: our people never gave up their sovereignty, and always struggled for self determination.