Title: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Development in Australia: Supporting Our Nation(s) Agenda.
Author(s) and presenters: Ray Lovett (Wongaibon/Ngiyampaa), Jan Chapman (Taungurung), Makayla Brinckley (Wiradjuri), Nadine Hunt (Iamalaig and Kaanju).
Indigenous Peoples worldwide lack opportunity to develop and implement their community development agendas from their cultural framework. Instead, governments and others impose what they conceive as development. This constitutes a modern form of settler-colonialism which at a minimum has the potential to be ineffective and at worst is harmful to Indigenous Peoples. This presentation will highlight how Indigenous community driven processes in Australia were applied to develop a national level cohort study and community-based census, and how these are being used to influence Australian policy. We will also highlight how, at a community level, these data tools can be used for community development aspirations.
Biographies:
Dr. Raymond Lovett BN, RN, BHSc, MAE, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow with the Epidemiology for Policy and Practice group at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University. He also holds an adjunct Fellowship at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in the Indigenous Social and Cultural Wellbeing group. Ray is an Aboriginal (Ngiyampaa/Wongaibon) epidemiologist with extensive experience in health services research, large scale data analysis for public health policy development and evaluation.
Jan Chapman, BPubPol is Aboriginal (Taungurung) from Australia. She graduated from the University of Tasmania with a degree in Public Policy and Social Ecology. Jan is the Mayi Kuwayu Study Manager in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at the Australian National University. She has extensive Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy experience across Indigenous Chronic Disease and for the last ten years she has managed all Mayi Kuwayu data development and data collection, including through the extensive community networks. Together with Nadine, Jan is currently assisting one community to embed their own data systems and processes aligned with their community development agenda.
Makayla-May Brinckley is a Wiradjuri woman with family ties to Cootamundra, NSW. After graduating from Psychology Honours from the ANU in 2019, she worked as a research assistant in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program in the Research School of Population Health. Makayla is now an Indigenous Postdoctoral Fellow in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program, with much of her work based within Mayi Kuwayu: the National Study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing. Makayla is passionate about holistic health and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and taking a strengths-based and decolonial approach to health and wellbeing.
Nadine Hunt is an Iamalaig and Kaanju woman and a Community Researcher, based in Cairns with travel throughout Far North Queensland. Nadine has spent the last six years working with the Indigenous Marathon Foundation in Canberra, developing a national grassroots running program in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities. Nadine continues her volunteer work as a running coach with the Cairns Deadly Runners, and has recently begun a Bachelor of Business degree through James Cook University.
