Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and primary health care: patterns of service use, preferences, and access to services 2024

Consistently seeing the same health-care provider can promote good health through better coordination of health-care services, and through the development of trust and strong relationships, which are particularly important for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Nolan-Isles et al. 2021).

The NATSIHS results indicate that just under 693,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (85%) always used the same source of health care, with just under 58,000 (7.1%) using more than one source, and an additional 63,800 (7.8%) not having any usual source.^[1]

Nearly 93% of those who had an AMS/CC or a mainstream GP as their usual source of care always used them, compared with 88% of those whose main source of care was a hospital (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, always used the same source of health care, by usual source of care, 2018–19

Note: Columns may not add to 100% because of rounding.

Source: AIHW analysis of 2018–19 NATSIHS using TableBuilder (ABS 2019).

The likelihood of always using the same source varied across a number of the independent variables (Figure 5.2; Data: Descriptive analysis supplementary tables, Table S.4).

Figure 5.2: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, always used the same source of care, by selected characteristics, 2018–19

Source: AIHW analysis of 2018–19 NATSIHS using TableBuilder (ABS 2019).

Continuity of care was higher among females than among males (87% and 83%, respectively), with 10% of males saying that they had no usual source of care (compared with 5.5% of females). Among age groups, it was lowest among those aged 15–34, at 80% (compared with 91% of those aged 55 and over). The 15–34 age group also was most likely to have no usual source of care (11%), which is consistent with other research on this age group in Australia and internationally.

Those in the Australian Capital Territory (79%) and Victoria (80%) were least likely to always use the same source of care, while those in the Northern Territory (89%) and Tasmania (88%) were most likely to always use the same source.

There was no clear pattern with remoteness – those in Outer regional (89%) and Very remote areas (88%) were most likely to have consistency of care, while those in Inner regional and Remote areas had the same proportions (84%). Those living in Major cities were least likely to always use the same source of care (82%).

Those with poor or fair self-assessed health were slightly more likely to always use the same health care source (85%) compared with those reporting their health as good (84%), or very good/excellent (82%), but the differences were small.

Whether people use more than one source of care may be related to the number of services available in a person’s local area. While the NATSIHS data are unable to capture the absolute number of services in a person’s local area, we do know whether there are multiple types of services. Table 5.1 shows that those with only an AMS/CC in their local area have the highest proportion who always use the same source (88%). In areas where there is only a mainstream GP, 83% use the same, 6.8% use more than one, and 11% either do not have a source of care or report that they don’t know.

Source: AIHW analysis of 2018–19 NATSIHS (ABS 2019) using DataLab.

Note: This number differs slightly from the results in the ‘usual source of care’ question due to random adjustments in TableBuilder.