Keywords:
Streptococcus pyogenes; households; infectious disease; systematic review; transmission
Abstract:
Insufficient and poorly maintained housing and plumbing in many remote Australian Indigenous communities in Australia results in reduced capacity to maintain personal hygiene, contributing to infectious disease inequalities. Infections from Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) and sequalae are often noted to be the result of contextual poverty; a product of over 230 years of discriminatory practice that has excluded Indigenous people from the basic human rights of healthy, maintained housing afforded to most in the nation. The solutions for eliminating diseases of inequity among Australian Indigenous population are known, their success is historically documented, and yet they are to be comprehensively implemented in the remote Indigenous communities. This paper explores how decades of inequitable policy has permeated contemporary Australian Indigenous wellbeing with specific regards to infectious disease rates; a deviation from thousands of years with limited exposure to such illnesses.