Background:
Despite Australia having a high-quality health system, Aboriginal people experience unacceptable health inequalities from an early age. These inequalities are reflected in higher avoidable hospitalisation rates for skin infections. Aboriginal children living remotely have experienced the highest reported rate of skin infections globally for four decades. To be effective, programs targeting skin infections need to be community-driven and tailored to local community conditions and context. This requires investigating current treatments, prevention programs and health promotion resources to identify gaps and opportunities to improve on these approaches.
Method:
Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews and focus groups with school and clinic staff and yarning sessions with community members were conducted during May 2019 and November 2020. Following consent, interviews were audio-recorded or for those not recorded, handwritten notes were scribed. Audio-recordings were transcribed verbatim and uploaded into QSR NVivo v12, along with scribed notes. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted.
Results:
Preliminary findings reveal the awareness of skin infections amongst clinic, school staff and community members and the importance of effective prevention strategies. Community members perceived that swimming in community pools was effective in preventing skin sores and also identified bush and traditional medicine as a popular treatment for skin sores. School staff identified a variety of prevention strategies implemented in different communities including showering and clothes washing. Treatment methods including cleaning and dressing wounds and working with community members to make bush medicine were discussed.
Conclusions:
Swimming pools and traditional bush medicines are perceived as effective prevention strategies, along with culturally appropriate education and health promotion including art, music, and visual resources.