How can we create equitable access to hearing healthcare in Australia? Interview with Prof. Tom Calma, Prof. Kelvin Kong and Hon. A/Prof. Boe Rambaldini

Tom Calma; Kelvin Kong; Boe Rambaldini

doi:10.1071/phrp3152126

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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How can we create equitable access to hearing healthcare in Australia? Interview with Prof. Tom Calma, Prof. Kelvin Kong and Hon. A/Prof. Boe Rambaldini

Tom Calma ^A ^B ^C ^D , Kelvin Kong ^C ^E and Boe Rambaldini ^C ^F ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Poche Indigenous Health Network, Sydney, NSW, Australia

^B University of Canberra, ACT, Australia

^C Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

^D Poche Centre for Indigneous Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

^E School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

^F Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

^* Correspondence to: boe.rambaldini@sydney.edu.au

Public Health Research and Practice 31, e3152126 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp3152126

Published: 2 December 2021

2021 © Calma 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

Despite decades of research demonstrating that early intervention is critical to diagnosing and treating ear disease in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, not enough progress has been made in providing culturally safe, accessible and equitable hearing health services. In the discussion below, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health leaders Professor Tom Calma, Professor Kelvin Kong and Associate Professor Boe Rambaldini examine the problems and solutions for creating better services to meet the needs of communities where hearing health problems are being neglected, often with catastrophic results for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families.