For first time users
Return to site informationIf we can't show you through our site in person this guide is the next best thing! These information pages explain how the site works and will take you through each of the main pages to show the best ways of accessing the information. The guide will familiarise you with the different areas within our site. Some of the navigation buttons are 'live' - that is, they'll take you to that specific part of our site. You can check which ones are live by moving your cursor to the button - with live buttons your cursor's arrow changes to a hand with a pointing finger! Text in blue indicates also that this is a live link (it is underlined blue with Netscape Navigator, but not with Internet Explorer) - you'll see that the text changes to underlined red as well as your cursor changing when you move it to this text (you need to click on it for it to change with Netscape Navigator). After you've linked to a particular feature, you can return to where you were in this guide by clicking on the Back button of your Internet browser. For both Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, the Back button is at the top left.
All the main navigation for the site is accessible at all times. The black navigation buttons located in the upper right hand corner of every page are accessible at all times and constitute the first level of navigation for the HealthInfoNet website. They are accompanied by a second level navigation bar that can be seen in yellow on the left of the screen. This navigation bar lists the HealthInfoNet's major content areas and is also accessible from every page. Clicking on buttons within either the first or second level navigation bars will take you to distinct sections of the site within which you will find a third level of navigation. This blue navigation bar occurs at the top and bottom of each page and is specific to the chosen section. Together the three levels of navigation allow easy access to anywhere in the site.
Black navigation bar
By clicking on the Home button you will be able to return to the HealthInfoNet's
Homepage from anywhere in the site. There you will find a blue navigation
bar specific to the homepage.
Blue navigation bar
A number of pages are accessible from the homepage. They include:
About us
Thispage describes the philosophy
behind the HealthInfoNet. It provides background information and
outlines: how to best use the site; the progress we've made; and the peer
review process undertaken by the HealthInfoNet's Consultants.
Site information
Includes a site map and general information about how to best use this
site.
What's new
This page is a quick source of the most recent information that
has been added to the site, and is a useful page to check through when
looking for a wide range of current information. Repeat users of the HealthInfoNet
may find it helpful to check this page to identify what's happened at
the site since their last visit.
Associated sites
A number of websites have been, or are being, developed in collaboration with organisations that address Indigenous health issues.
Sponsors
Organisations, individuals and other bodies that support the HealthInfoNet
are acknowledged on this page.
This page gives you contact information for HealthInfoNet staff
including email and postal addresses. Listserve information is also accessible
from this page.
We have developed search tools to make our entire site fully searchable.
Make use of this powerful search engine if you are looking for very specific
topics. This will make accessing specific information from the 29.5MB
site [including 173 folders and 2,220 pages] much more efficient.
The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet also lists and provides
a direct link to other sites that have related topics. You can do this
by simply clicking on the links button. The link categories include journals,
government and non-government sites, Aboriginal Medical Services, research-based
centres and other related sites and topics.
Yellow navigation bar
 The
yellow navigation bar allows easy access to the extensive health and
health-related content contained within the site. |
The health section contains much of the Internet-accessible information on Indigenous health - either located at other sites, or compiled by the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet. This wealth of material has been organised by subject area, and includes abstracts of theses, full-text documents, journal articles, and reports. This page should be the first stop for anyone interested in a particular health topic.
The full development of this section is an enormous task which will take some considerable time to complete. Our aim is to provide current, comprehensive information about each of the subject areas. All sub-sections will be updated as new information becomes available. In this way, you will have confidence that you are accessing the most current information on the subject.
Births
Information on Indigenous
births is contained on this page.
Deaths
Issues pertaining
to Indigenous mortality may be found here.
Hospitalisation
This
page provides information on the hospitalisation of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people.
Specific aspects
The sub-section Specific aspects is divided into three further sub-headings
(chronic diseases, infectious diseases and other aspects) and contains
information on a range of discrete health conditions and issues.
Information about specific health conditions is being restructured progressively to maximise its usefulness to our variety of users. The new structures will include basic information about the particular condition; up-to-date summaries, overviews and reviews; a list of key references; a downloadable bibliography of relevant sources; details of recent journal articles, publications and conference presentations; a list of theses; preventive and clinical guidelines; and links to relevant organisations and other Internet-based materials.
This section provides information about the Indigenous population.
Population
and identification
Indigenous population estimates and distribution, and issues surrounding
identification of Indigenous people in data collections and the validity
of health information are addressed here.
Births
The information on Indigenous births contained within the Health section
is also pertinent to the Population section and has been reproduced here.
Deaths
As for births, information on Indigenous mortality can be found in both
the Health and Population sections.
Population sub-groups
Information on the health of various population sub-groups (infant and child health, adolescent health, women's
health, and men's
health) is contained here.
The overall environment in which Indigenous people live has a major influence on their health. This section covers a range of materials that fall under the environmental heading.
Cultural ways
Here you will find our new feature page, Images
of Indigenous Australia, where in the months and years ahead we will
bring to you exhibitions of Indigenous visual arts and crafts. We aim
to be adding information about Indigenous culture, traditional medicine,
cross-cultural training, programs and services.
Social issues
The social environment page includes details about a variety of social
aspects, including: education, income and employment. In the future this
page will be extended to include information about issues such as racism
and discrimination.
Physical environment
Information on housing and associated aspects (such as water and electricity
supply, and waste and sewage disposal) can be found here.
A wide range of information about programs and services related to Indigenous health is currently being compiled for this section.
Policies
Programs and services are developed and run within particular policy contexts,
which are summarised in this section.
Health
promotion
Information about Indigenous health promotion practice and resources.
This section is well developed, thanks to a grant from Healthway, the
Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation.
Other programs
Specific Indigenous health programs and services.
Health workforce
Information about and for Indigenous health workers, doctors, nurses and
other health workers.
Developed largely in response to users' queries, this section offers summaries, overviews and reviews of Indigenous health. It also poses questions and provides answers on a wide range of Indigenous health issues.
Summary
The latest HealthInfoNet summary of Indigenous health status.
Overviews
The general and state-based overviews of Indigenous health contained in
the health section are reproduced here.
Reviews
The HealthInfoNet is publishing a series of reviews, the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Health Reviews, in collaboration
with experts in the field. The first review Eye health of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people is available.
FAQs
This page poses a series of questions and answers on Indigenous health
issues. Questions are of the following type: 'What do we know about Indigenous
infant mortality?' with a brief, plain language summary given as the answer.
Bibliography
You may be interested in finding bibliographic information on a particular
topic, such as rheumatic fever. Clicking on Bibliography
in the navigation bar takes you to a searchable database.
Typing in 'rheumatic fever' in the search box and clicking 'search'
will bring up a bibliographic listing of all theses, conference papers,
journal articles, book chapters, and published and unpublished reports
about this topic. These references can then be printed out. The database
currently holds approximately 5,500 items directly related to Indigenous
health. [We apologise that this function is not yet available directly
from the HealthInfoNet, but the information can still be accessed
from our old site. The information is the same, but the format is slightly
different.]
This bibliography is available also on the CD-ROMs AUSThealth and ATSI-ROM
at your local library.
Theses
The Theses page provides an invaluable and unique resource - information
on theses can be very difficult to locate. Research material by Masters
and Doctoral students often never reaches publication, and is an under-utilised
resource. The HealthInfoNet attempts to collect and document all
theses on Indigenous health. Theses that are underlined have abstracts
available on the Website. Try going to this page - click on 'R' to be
taken to the theses of authors whose name begins with 'R', and then click
on Cheryl Rae's thesis to read her abstract. Clicking a few times on the
back button on your browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer) will return
you to here.
Ethics
Details of the special ethical considerations of research in the area
of Indigenous health are provided in this page.
Research
This page provides a practical list of research-related topics that may
be useful if you're interested in researching Indigenous health. These
include ethics, research centres, funding opportunities, research grants,
and previous grants provided to Indigenous health research projects.
Glossaries
Our glossaries - one medical and one technical - mean that you shouldn't
have to leave your computer to be able to use the sometimes complex information
available on our site.
Noticeboard
An electronic noticeboard enables organisations and individuals to display
on a short-term basis, via the internet, requests for information, job
vacancies, information about workshops/courses, and generally to distribute
information. It is most commonly used to advertise job vacancies or work
wanted, and to seek information on particular topics.
The HealthInfoNet also disseminates the 'Hot Issues' clippings which are provided courtesy of the Indigenous and Public Health Media Unit, Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. HealthInfoNet users can request to receive this weekly listing of Indigenous health issues that have been covered in the national media.
e-message stick
Electronic mail (email) is used to easily transfer messages to multiple
people interested in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. Individuals
choose to 'subscribe' to the listserve and are then able to send or receive
messages posted to the list. The listserve is designed to encourage networking
and information exchange on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.
The listserve now has around 280 subscribers, from government, educational
institutions and Aboriginal community controlled health services.
Conferences
Another page on the Website you may find valuable is the Conferencepagewhich gives dates, venues and details of conferences
that are relevant to Indigenous health. Underlined conferences have websites
that provide greater details and clicking on the text will take you to
those sites. These cover a wide range of issues and demonstrate that there
are more papers being presented by Indigenous people.
Courses
This page has an extensive list of courses on Indigenous health and training
offered by a wide range of educational institutions. Many link directly
to the Indigenous health programs.
Users of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet are able to make comments, recommendations and provide feedback via the guestbook. The development of the site has been assisted by constructive comments from the users of the site.
View comments
To read the latest comments sent in by users of the HealthInfoNet.
Add comment
This page
contains an interactive form which we encourage users to fill out if they
would like to make any comments (both positive and critical). This form
is then submitted and the feedback will appear on the guestbook page within
a few days.
Archives
To view past comments visit the archives section.
Summary
The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet attempts to bring
together most of the substantial information that exists on Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander health. Utilising the services provided by
the Australian IndigenousHealthInfoNet is like having a
research assistant working for you - efficiently and effectively putting
information on Indigenous health at your fingertips. We hope you find
it interesting and useful.
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