Knowledge, Language and Mortality: Communicating Health Information in Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory

Abstract

Here the difficulties that non-Aboriginal health professionals experience in discussing health information with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are considered. Communication of information is seen as critical to the process of primary health care but beset by problems of language, different ways of 'knowing' and different values. Specific examples of communication difficulties are given from a five year research project that focused on the social and medical issues behind a series of adult Aboriginal deaths. The purpose of providing information at a community level is two-fold: first, to demystify an issue, process or structure and second, to get people talking. It is useful in communicative practice to view health information as having two equally important components: statistics and stories. All statistics are built up from individual stories, and effective information programs incorporate the story approach. Suggestions are made as to how primary health care practitioners can improve their communication practices. Before practitioners ask 'What do people need?' or 'What are their problems and how can they be addressed?', they need to ask first 'What do people know?' and second 'What do people value?'