Is identifying as Indigenous good for your health? Investigating the relationship between Indigenous status identification and management of cardiovascular disease

Improving the patient journey for Indigenous people has become an important focus to reduce the rates of cardiovascular disease and address underlying factors contributing to the disparities of care between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. This study has demonstrated that a culturally safe cardiac outreach service staffed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is capable of providing timely evidence based care to the standards of best practice. The findings of this study indicate that racism at an interpersonal, individual, organisational and societal level contribute, interact and conspire to influence the Indigenous patient journey within mainstream health services. Identifying as Indigenous is not good for your health because, significantly, the patient journey commences with the collection of Indigenous status, an act of defining race that reinforces the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.