Closing the gap between rhetoric and practice in strengths-based approaches to Indigenous public health: A qualitative study

At the turn of the 21st century, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter, respectfully, Indigenous) affairs shifted away from ‘self determination’ to a supposed pragmatic problem-solving approach underpinned by a sense of urgency to bring Indigenous peoples’ quality of life into line with that of non-Indigenous people.1 The Howard government’s ‘practical reconciliation’ and the ‘Northern Territory Emergency Response’, followed by the Rudd government’s ‘Closing the Gap’ and ‘Stronger Solutions’ all claimed to be concerned with ameliorating differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples centring efforts around monitoring and measuring disparities in health and socio-economic status. In the resulting public health discourse, this has manifested as an oft used convention of beginning reports about Indigenous health with a recent epidemiological portrait, thus creating a visual metaphor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as a problem to be solved...