Achieving Improved Health Outcomes for Urban Aboriginal People: Biomedical and Ethnomedical Models of Health

Abstract

Urban Aboriginal people could be expected to achieve positive health outcomes owing to their close proximity to mainstream health care services. The available data indicate that this is not the case, although people generally self‐report as being in ‘good to excellent’ health. Research indicates that Aboriginal people may not be benefiting from mainstream services owing to the emphasis placed on biomedical models of health that conflict with more culturally‐based, ethnomedical models. This paper looks at achieving an interface between the two models as a means of pursuing more positive health outcomes in urban settings.