Porsche Cahill, HealthLAB trainee, showcasing a HealthLAB pop-up at Medibank.
For ten years, Menzies HealthLAB has been delivering health education and access to remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory through their innovative fly-in, fly-out mobile health lab.
And with the support of Medibank, the service has now commenced an evaluation of its program to better understand how HealthLAB serves the current needs of the communities Menzies works with and how to adapt its services in the future.
Professor Heidi Smith-Vaughan from Menzies School of Health Research said: “Our aim is to empower young people to better understand and take ownership of their health, and their family’s health, by sharing health promotion information with communities in ways that are accessible.”
“By evaluating our program iteratively, we’re able to continue to respond to changing community needs and deliver the support communities need,” she said.
The HealthLAB team is invited in by the communities it collaborates with and works together to understand their health priorities and also gain feedback after each visit.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth and nurses on the HealthLAB team also play an important role in the program’s design, resource development, delivery and community engagement.
When visiting a remote community, the HealthLAB team will generally set up six different stations covering health topics of the highest priority identified by the communities they work with.
“We’ll set up the stations, where people can learn about different things. They might learn how to take their blood pressure, for example,” says Professor Smith-Vaughan.
“They’ll learn what those numbers mean, as well as why they might have high or low blood pressure and what they can do about it.
“Another station might look at kidney disease and how young people can look after their kidneys, with the HealthLAB team showing how blood and other fluids flow through the body.”
Professor Smith-Vaughan said focusing on health education with young people today can have lifetime health benefits for future children.
“It’s not only the health of the current generation that we are focused on, our aim is to create change for future generations.
“The effectiveness of this preventative health program can be measured by looking at generational change, and the Medibank-funded evaluation will be critical in helping the HealthLAB to improve on the services it offers in the coming years,” she said.
Our journey is ongoing
Today is Close the Gap Day and aims to generate awareness around health equity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
At Medibank, our vision is that everyone in Australia deserves to live their best quality of life and that is inclusive of our nation’s First Peoples.
In 2012, Medibank was the first Australian private health insurer to launch its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). In 2022, Medibank launched its fifth RAP highlighting our new aspirations for Reconciliation.
Sally Haydon, Medibank’s RAP Working Group Chair said: “We have been on an ongoing journey of learning how to do things better with the aim of understanding the role we can play in addressing the health equity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.
“We have learned from listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders that it is the wisdom, knowledge and expertise of the Aboriginal health sector and communities themselves who are best placed to help us identify where we can best pay a role under their leadership.”
What can individuals do to support change?
Help raise awareness for health equality and join thousands of Australians on 16 March this year by getting involved in National Close the Gap Day.
To learn more about the health gap and what can be done, read the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Close the Gap Progress and Priorities Report.
Medibank proudly recognises the Aboriginal community controlled health sector and its work leading the way in closing the health gap. Our Reconciliation Action Plan sets out our commitments to play our role in advancing reconciliation and Indigenous health equity. Find out more.
You can also read more about health research at Medibank, including Medibank’s support of the Menzies HealthLab.
