Healthcare is less accessible for First Nations Australians in major cities and very remote areas, but not regional towns.
Close to one in five Indigenous Australians live in an area without easy access to general practice, according to new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data.
The proportion of non-Indigenous Australians without GP access, meanwhile, is more like one in 20.
In general, as rurality increased, GP access declined at an increasing rate.
According to the AIHW estimates, which were calculated using a three-step floating catchment model taking factors like drive time and population makeup into account, around 3% of Indigenous Australians in major cities have poor access to a GP, compared to 1% of non-Indigenous people.
Data was drawn from the 2018 census.
At the other end of the scale, around 70% of First Nations people in very remote parts of Australia have poor access to general practice, while the figure sits at around 60% for non-Indigenous Australians.
This pattern is inverted in inner regional, outer regional and remote parts of the country.
In inner regional areas, around 10% of people across the board had poor access to a GP.
For outer regional areas, the proportion of people without easy access to a GP was 16% for Indigenous Australians and 23% for non-Indigenous Australia, and in remote areas these were 35% and 43% respectively.
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“A higher proportion of First Nations people than non-Indigenous Australians live in regional and remote areas where residents are more likely to live in areas with poor access than in the major cities,” the AIHW said.
“This contributes to the overall difference in the proportion of First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians living in areas with relatively poor access.”
To compound the issue, further AIHW modelling indicated that Indigenous Australians living in remote areas have a higher per capita need for healthcare.
Further research from the institute will look at incorporating more recent census data and investigating the interactions between access and need.
