Aboriginal children have the worst ear health of any people in the world, with prevalence rates 10 times that of non-Indigenous children. Ear disease often results in an avoidable hearing loss in early childhood, and children who can’t hear, can’t learn.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) specifies that rates of Otitis media above 4% in children constitutes a “massive public health problem” requiring urgent attention (WHO/CIBA Foundation, 1996).
Costs to the community of middle-ear disease (OM):
lost well-being (estimated between $1.05b and $2.6b a year);
productivity and other non-financial costs ($67 m annually); and
the total top-down health system expenditure on OM ($391.6m a year in 2008)
Costs to WA education systems arise from children suffering educational and developmental delays, low levels of literacy and numeracy, school absences, behaviour issues and disengagement, leading to increased risk of contact with the juvenile justice system.
Around 74% of juveniles in detention in WA are Aboriginal children, a massive overrepresentation. High rates of recidivism can lead to life-long entanglement in the justice system. Aboriginal children in Australia experience an average of 32 months of middle-ear infections between the ages of 0 and 5 years, compared to just three months for non-Aboriginal children.
OM is highly treatable, but left undiagnosed and untreated it has multiple flow-on effects that ultimately perpetuate the very poverty that gives rise to the disease in the first place, thus continuing the cycle. With effective treatment, children can avoid sustained hearing loss and have their opportunities to learn and succeed at school fully restored.
“...hearing impairment is a significant contributor to the causal pathway that represents a failure basically of education and health to deal with those issues and they get picked up by the justice system...hearing loss may not cause criminal activity, when considering the stigmatizing effects of hearing impairment on self-concept, educational attainment and social skills, there is a causal link to criminal activity.”
- Senate Committees on Community Affairs
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“There is a crisis in Aboriginal ear and hearing health in Australia. Aboriginal people suffer ear disease and hearing loss at up to ten times the rate of non-Aboriginal Australians, and arguably the highest rate of any people in the world”
- Senate Community Affairs References Committee, 2010,
Earbus Foundation is a WA-based Children's charity that works to reduce the incidence of middle ear disease in Aboriginal and at-risk children in our state. The Foundation brings together experts from Education, Health, Culture and Communities