Environmental Health Workforce Roadmap

National Strategic Roadmap for Establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Environmental Health Workforce Project

With funding from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA), NACCHO has commenced work to support government investment in a permanent, highly skilled, and nationally credentialled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Environmental Health workforce. As a first step, NACCHO has been tasked with developing a National Strategic Roadmap for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander environmental health workforce.

The project is supported by an Expert Steering Committee who provide technical and cultural advice to guide the development of the Roadmap.

NACCHO has not been funded through this project for staff positions or new services in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander environmental health. It is the intention of NACCHO that the Strategic Roadmap gathers the information for the support of governments, the sector and stakeholders to invest in an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Environmental Health workforce into the future. This includes bolstering current and future efforts of Affiliates and individual services in their efforts to maximise environmental determinants positive for health and wellbeing.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at ehw@naccho.org.au.

Dirt road leads through the saltbush plains to the ranges in outback Australia

“In mainstream Australia, hardly anyone recognises the role that environmental health plays. For the majority of the population, environmental health is silently present. Water, sanitation, rubbish, housing standards, food safety, everything is all taken for granted. In mainstream settings, there is no battle for recognition or resources for environmental health from finance departments. There is nothing more to prove and a fully resourced framework is in place. But Aboriginal environmental health is something else again. Aboriginal environmental health combines deep cultural knowledge of how things work in Aboriginal communities with these hard scientific facts about disease. Aboriginal environmental health must forge high-trust partnerships with community. Aboriginal environmental health is a community asset … and Aboriginal environmental health is needed now more than ever.”

Pat Turner, NACCHO CEO
NATSIEH Conference, Perth, 17 September 2019

Background

In 2021, NACCHO, member services and government stakeholders submitted an ambitious Health Sector Strengthening Plan to Joint Council as required under the tenets of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. As endorsed, this Health Sector Strengthening Plan has enabled a suite of critical projects to commence. One of these (Action A4) reflected the importance placed on growing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Environmental Health workforce.

States and Territories vary in their responses to persistently high rates of environmentally attributable disease experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This diversity of starting positions and policy readiness and capability impedes national achievement in preventable disease control.

Relevant Reports

NACCHO NATSIEH Workshop Report Final 25 November 2022.pdf

National Agreement on Closing the Gap

Health Sector Strengthening Plan

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workforce Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan 2021–2031

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2021-2030