New AIHW Report Shows Stolen Generations Survivors Face Far Greater Health and Socio-Economic Challenges

A report released this week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) – commissioned by the Healing Foundation – reveals that Indigenous Australians who were forcibly removed from their families under assimilation policies experience markedly poorer health outcomes than other Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Survivors are 2.7 times more likely to have severe or profound disability and 1.7 times more likely to have been hospitalized in the past year, even after accounting for age, sex and remoteness. Compared with non-Indigenous Australians, they are six times more likely to have kidney disease, 4.8 times more likely to have a severe or profound disability, and 3.9 times more likely to report high psychological distress.

The Guardian

Government assimilation policies that removed Indigenous children from their families were pursued by every Australian government up to the 1970s. Estimates suggest that between 1910 and 1970 at least one in ten, and possibly as many as one in three, Indigenous children were taken. The Healing Foundation, a peak advocacy body supporting Stolen Generations survivors and their families, commissioned the AIHW analysis, which builds on data first released in 2023.

The Guardian

• Approximately 200,0000 people (45 % of Indigenous Australians) have a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle who was removed.

The Guardian

• Survivors are six times more likely to have kidney disease than non-Indigenous Australians.

The Guardian

• Survivors are nearly twice as likely as other Indigenous peoples to report high psychological distress and 1.6 times as likely to report a mental or behavioural health condition.

The Guardian

• Descendants are 1.3 times more likely to report high psychological distress and to receive a mental-health diagnosis.

The Guardian

Dr Martin Edvardsson, acting head of First Nations health at AIHW, warned that “understanding the needs of Stolen Generations survivors through the existing data sources will be increasingly challenging as survivors grow older and become less well represented in household surveys.” He noted a lack of comprehensive data on survivors and their families, emphasizing the urgency of better representation in future surveys.

The Guardian

The report underscores persistent inter-generational inequities, linking health disparities to broader socio-economic hardships such as reduced ability to cover emergency costs and more frequent periods of unaffordability of essential needs. These findings highlight the long-term consequences of past assimilation policies and call for targeted health and social interventions for survivors and their descendants.

The Guardian

• “Understanding the needs of Stolen Generations survivors through the existing data sources will be increasingly challenging as survivors grow older and become less well represented in household surveys,” — Edvardsson, the acting head of First Nations health at AIHW

The Guardian