The Wire

The national health survey conducted by ABS began in march this year and involved 50,000 random sampled children and adults across Australia, with one exception, indigenous children. The ABS has been attacked because of this exclusion, However ABS statistician in charge of the health survey Paul Jeffs says that indigenous children were excluded because there were concerns that the survey was insufficient to cover all the health concerns and expressed concerns on whether participation of indigenous children would be enough for the survey. Nevertheless Aboriginal community health testing is a touchy and important issue because information about the health of Aboriginals is vital to ‘closing the gap’ programs.