The Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH): a long-term platform for closing the gap

Darryl Wright; Raylene Gordon; Darren Carr; Jonathan Craig; Emily Banks; Sumithra Muthayya; Sonia Wutzke; Sandra Eades; Sally Redman

doi:10.1071/phrp2631635

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

The Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH): a long-term platform for closing the gap

Darryl Wright ^A , Raylene Gordon ^B , Darren Carr ^C , Jonathan Craig ^D ^E , Emily Banks ^F ^G , Sumithra Muthayya ^G ^* , Sonia Wutzke ^H ^I , Sandra Eades ^J and Sally Redman ^G

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Tharawal Aboriginal Corporation, Sydney, NSW, Australia

^B Awabakal Ltd, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

^C Riverina Medical and Dental Corporation, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia

^D Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

^E Centre for Kidney Research, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW, Australia

^F National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT

^G The Sax Institute, Sydney, NSW, Australia

^H The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, Sax Institute, Sydney, NSW

^I Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

^J Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

^* Correspondence to: sumithra.muthayya@saxinstitute.org.au

Public Health Research and Practice 26, e2631635 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp2631635

Published: 15 July 2016

2016 © Wright et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence, which allows others to redistribute, adapt and share this work non-commercially provided they attribute the work and any adapted version of it is distributed under the same Creative Commons licence terms.

Abstract

The full potential for research to improve Aboriginal health has not yet been realised. This paper describes an established long-term action partnership between Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs), the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales (AH&MRC), researchers and the Sax Institute, which is committed to using high-quality data to bring about health improvements through better services, policies and programs. The ACCHSs, in particular, have ensured that the driving purpose of the research conducted is to stimulate action to improve health for urban Aboriginal children and their families.

This partnership established a cohort study of 1600 urban Aboriginal children and their caregivers, known as SEARCH (the Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health), which is now having significant impacts on health, services and programs for urban Aboriginal children and their families. This paper describes some examples of the impacts of SEARCH, and reflects on the ways of working that have enabled these changes to occur, such as strong governance, a focus on improved health, AH&MRC and ACCHS leadership, and strategies to support the ACCHS use of data and to build Aboriginal capacity.