The healing journey: empowering Aboriginal communities to close the health gap.
OBJECTIVE
This paper presents two arguments relevant to both past and present efforts to improve Indigenous health. It advocates for ways of thinking about and doing health promotion that begin with empowerment to help people gain a greater level of control over their lives and circumstances.


CONCLUSIONS
A combination of the strengths of different approaches is in fact an empowering, dialectical view that can be achieved by considering Aboriginal people not as children in need, but as capable and efficacious individuals.
Laliberté
Arlene
A
Collaborative Research on Empowerment and Wellbeing, North Queensland Health Equalities Promotion Unit, University of Queensland, Cairns, QLD, Australia. arlene_laliberte@health.qld.gov.au
Haswell-Elkins
Melissa
M
Reilly
Lyndon
L
D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D003256:Community Participation; D003469:Culture; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006303:Health Services, Indigenous / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006304:Health Status; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D020377:Self Efficacy