Hard Yakka : Transforming Indigenous Health Policy and Politics

Studies the evolving relations between Australian Indigenous communities and government bureaucracies in the development, implementation, and evaluation of health policy. This volume looks into the processes and politics of health care. It also reflects upon the roles played by anthropologists, sociologists, epidemiologists, and others.

Indigenous and other marginalized populations worldwide experience significant health inequalities - life expectancies reduced by decades, elevated rates of chronic disease, neonatal mortality, accidental death, infectious disease and suicide. Australia is one of the healthiest countries in the world with one of the most dramatic examples of social inequalities in health.Hard Yakka: Transforming Indigenous Health Policy and Politics examines these inequalities through a critical study of Australian health bureaucracy. The author, medical anthropologist Nili Kaplan-Myrth, discusses and evaluates processes and institutional structures that influence relationships between Indigenous communities and goverment in the development, implementation, and evaluation of health policy. With particular attention to the social and cultural dimensions of governance,Hard Yakka provides a window into the complex challenges of Indigenous representation and self-determination in contemporary, urban Australian society. Finally, Dr. Kaplan-Myrth reflects upon the roles of social scientists and other researchers in public policy and community advocacy. With insights that apply equally well outside of the Australian context,Hard Yakka provides a qualitative model for engaging with problems of health care systems.Hard Yakka is an important text for scholars in the fields of Anthropology, Sociology, Indigenous Studies, Ethnicity, Comparative Politics, Public Health, and Medicine.