To explore the relationship between Indigenous social disadvantage and serious mental illness.
Conclusions:
Rapidly changing patterns of mental disorders in Indigenous populations indicate the importance of social determinants. Canadian research on Native American suicide has demonstrated a clear link between social control factors and one mental health issue – completed suicide – a finding with major social policy implications. This work has not been replicable in Australia, reflecting the particular political and social circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Recent research motivated by clinicians’ observations of an increase in psychotic disorders in the Indigenous populations of Cape York and the Torres Strait has demonstrated that the prevalence is high and that there are within-population differences. Given similar exposure to social disadvantage, these findings raise the possibility of utilising Indigenous psychosis prevalence as a metric to inform a more nuanced understanding of the predictors of wider vulnerability and resilience at a setting level, and as a policy and service development lever.
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