Analysis
The prevalence of depression is considered to be one of the foremost reasons for healthcare issues. The level of depression defers according to gender. The general reasons for gender depression are gender inequality, gender malign, community barriers and cultural rituals. The females are the soft target of depression than that of men. The level of depression depends on social, behavioural and cultural factors. These aspects are considered to be the determinants of the level of depression in both male and female. However, the adaptation of various intervention processes can be helpful to mitigate the depression level. The depression among genders is considered to be a great concern for the healthcare policymakers. The development of healthcare policies focuses on several factors like social, behavioural, cultural, economic and political factors are there a key interventional process to locate and minimize the depression level. Thus, the study will unfold the effectiveness of the social, behavioural and cultural factors that impact on gender depression. These factors are analysed on several different target population to assume the efficiency of these healthcare determinants. It is notable that gender inequality is one of the most concerning factors for public health in Australia. The care service for depression is discriminated by gender, social, cultural and behavioural factors. The barriers create inequality in delivering care for depressed patients. The gender issue in the depression care will be analysed on the target population the aboriginals and TorresStraitIslanders Theoretical frameworks will be provided to analyse intervention process for gender depression level. The concluding part of the study will summarize the whole discussion and will refer to an overall recommendation to mitigate the gender issue in depression care.
Social factors on gender depression: The social determinants like social inequality, financial inequality and barriers to attaining healthcare services are considered to be the key reasons for gender depression. These social factors are used to undermine the depression care for different genders (Hodgins, 2014). For example- women and LGBT communities do not get sufficient chances to access social services. These factors lead them to a high level of depression. The social determinants of gender depression affect both the behaviours and biomedical factors for depression care (Richers Maruyama et al., 2016).
Figure social factors of public health
Source: https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/11ada76c-0572-4d01-93f4-d96ac6008a95/ah16-4-1-social-determinants-health.pdf.aspx
However, in the case of aboriginals, the social factors are different. Gender barrier is one of the most prevailing issues for the aboriginals. The females cannot participate to the social occasions and cultural programs properly. They are a socially disadvantageous population who do not sufficient opportunity to access to the public health standard (Marckmann, Schmidt, Sofaer & Strech, 2015). The national performance framework has been developed to locate the impact of social determinants on depression care among the aboriginal women. It is seen that around 69% of the aboriginal Australian cannot get access to healthcare services that increase their level of depression (“Home – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare”, 2018).
Social Factors on Gender Depression
Cultural factors on gender depression: The cultural factors are impactful on the gender depression issues in Australia. The aboriginal culture does not allow women to participate in social programs, prayers and healthcare (Glauber & Day, 2017). The rural communities in Australia are culturally obsessed and a bit partial towards the male population. Thus, this level of partiality leads the women to a depressed situation. Cultural discrimination often leads to gender depression (Glauber & Day, 2017).
Behavioural factors: The behavioural factors are most prominent depression care determinants for the several communities in Australia. The behavioural factors indicate the habits of the population and the association of risk of depression with that habit (Lowe, 2017). The predetermined habit too discriminates a few specific genders from the mainstream of the society are considered to be behavioural determinants. The occupational segregation as per gender in Australia is lowered from 18% to 11% and in the part-time employment from 14% to 4% (“Home – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare”, 2018). Thus, this gender-based discrimination leads to depression to the women. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders communities to segregate women from the social opportunities that lead them to depression and less positive in their workplace (“Home – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare”, 2018).
Figure: Behavioural attempt to gender inequality
Source: https://www.bain.com/insights/advancing-women-in-australia-eliminating-bias-in-feedback/
Socio-economic force on gender depression: Gender depression is considered to be one of the biggest concerns for the public health setting in Australia. The public health service is not the same for both the males, females and LGBT communities (Jain & Rao, 2018). The women use to get very little opportunity to explore their potentials. Moreover, the LGBT communities are not given sufficient scopes in the workplaces. Moreover, they are victim character malign (Stander & August Korb, 2015). These factors lead them to the depression. The aboriginal women to do not get to access for the depression care. Additionally, they are not permitted to avail any kind of healthcare opportunity (Stander & August Korb, 2015). Thus, the level of depression stays long. The aboriginal women do not have sufficient access to the social depression care services what the aboriginal male can avail.
Political forces on gender depression: Political forces imply the existing rules and regulations of the Australian public health service. The political factors are least impactful on the gender discrimination among the non-aboriginals than that of the aboriginals (Stander & August Korb, 2015). Thus, the level of depression is lower than in the non-aboriginal community than the aboriginal community. The Australian state regulation strictly opposes gender discrimination in healthcare services (Wohland & Jagger, 2013). The ethical consideration of the Australian political factors states that everyone gets equal healthcare treatment irrespective of their genders. The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (2010) strongly opposes the discriminate treatment in the depression care practices in Australia. The regulation suggests that people of different gender are eligible to get the healthcare process (Wohland & Jagger, 2013). The National Aboriginal Community controlled health Organisation (NACCHO) establishes the healthcare rights of the aboriginal population and helps to sustain public health equality irrespective of genders as the measure of the gender depression (“NACCHO – National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation”, 2018).
Cultural Factors on Gender Depression
The cultural difference plays a pivotal role in creating gender discrimination to avail sufficient depression care. Most of the rural women in Australia cannot get proper access to healthcare services due to their cultural barriers. 40% of the Australian women use to suffer at least one physical disability which is not treated properly. This difference is mostly found by differentiating the aboriginal population (Karnik & Kanekar, 2016). Cultural difference is one of the key reasons for what the aboriginals are unable to avail sufficient public health service.
Figure: Healthcare disability
Source: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/face-facts-disability-rights
The gender inequality has an impact on the depression level among both the aboriginal and non-aboriginal population in Australia. The outcome looks more fatal for the female population. The outcome is; increase of other healthcare issues among due to depression, the increase in life expectancy gap between the men and women population and an increase of poor healthcare services(“Home – Australian Institute of Health and Welfare”, 2018). A life expectancy comparison data among Australia, Canada and New Zealand can unfold the reason for gender depression in Australia.
Figure: Life expectancy comparison between aboriginals and non-aboriginals
Source: https://treasury.gov.au/publication/2015-intergenerational-report/chapter-1-how-will-australia-change-over-the-next-40-years/
The depression care treatment is essential for both the genders in order to get rid of from the gender depression. The rate of gender depression is high among the aboriginal population of Australia. The long-time deprive of the healthcare facility came to an end after the development of NAACHO. This framework was developed for the healthcare and social wellbeing of the aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders (“NACCHO – National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation”, 2018). This organisation ensures the depression care services to the aboriginal population. The development of aboriginal women can also reduce the gender inequality from the public health setting (Stander & August Korb, 2015).
The intervention process for the betterment of gender depression depends on various long-term processes. The overall scenario cannot be changed without changing the social perspective (Glauber & Day, 2017). However, the level of gender depression can be reduced by
- Creating various healthcare skims for women and the LGBT community
- Workplace and healthcare reservation for women and LGBT community should be enforced to r5educe depression
- The unbiased environment in the workplace and healthcare must be enforced
- Reservation for aboriginal women must be enforced in healthcare and workplaces
- Special mental counselling for the depressed gender must be arranged
- Cognitive care program must be arranged
Conclusion
The study has unfolded the socio, economic, political, behavioural and environmental factors of gender depression. The concept of gender depression intervention was developed for the betterment of healthcare wellbeing of all the people irrespective of their socio-cultural and economic demography. However, socio-economic factor, political and environmental factor create discrimination in gender depression care treatment. The poor and the aboriginals do not get proper treatment. However, the NAACHO framework, spreading of healthcare awareness, proper depression counselling and equal opportunity for all the genders in the healthcare and workplaces are recommended to prevailing sustainability in the gender depression.
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