Aboriginal health

Aboriginal Health National Partnership

A number of national partnership agreements have been established to address the six Closing the Gap targets.

The partnership to close the gap in Indigenous health outcomes is known as the Aboriginal Health National Partnership. It addresses two of the six targets:

• to close the gap in life expectancy within a generation
• to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade.

The Aboriginal Health National Partnership agreement outlines five priority areas, which all states and territories must address as part of their Closing the Gap agenda.

These priority areas are:

• tackling smoking
• primary health care services that deliver
• fixing the gaps in the patient journey
• healthy transition to adulthood
• making Aboriginal health everyone’s business.

Through the Aboriginal Health National Partnership, state and territory governments across the country are working in partnership with the Commonwealth Government to implement initiatives to help improve the health and wellbeing of Australia’s Aboriginal community.

The Indigenous Early Childhood and Development National Partnership addresses the target to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade. The Department of Health is addressing this target through the following initiatives:

• increased access to, and use of, maternal and child health services by Indigenous families
• increased access to antenatal care, pre-pregnancy, and teenage sexual and reproductive health services