Background

In Australia Aboriginal adults experience higher levels of poor oral and general health than the non-Aboriginal population. This study compared self-rated oral and general health among Aboriginal adults in regional South Australia with participants in the National Survey of Adult Oral Health (NSAOH).

Methods

Data were obtained from the Indigenous Oral Health Literacy Project (IOHLP) based in South Australia. Three sub-populations from the NSAOH were utilised for comparison: National Aboriginal, National non-Aboriginal and South Australian Regional Non-Aboriginal adults. All data were standardised by age group and sex, utilising Census data.

Results

Just over 70 percent of South Australian Regional Aboriginal participants gave a rating of “excellent, very good or good” for general health, more than 17 percent lower than each of the other groups. Just over 50 percent rated their oral health highly, 20 percent fewer than the proportion for each other group. Stratifying by key socio-demographic factors did not account for all differences.

Conclusions

Proportionally fewer South Australian Regional Aboriginal adults had high ratings of oral and general health than the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal adults from the national survey, indicating that national level data may underestimate the proportion of regional Aboriginal Australians with poor oral health