According to Inter Press Services on 14 January 2010:
"Indigenous peoples suffer from poorer health, are more likely to experience disability and reduced quality of life and ultimately die younger than their non-indigenous counterparts," says the State of the World's Indigenous Peoples report released by the Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA) at the United Nations. This alarming statement is corroborated by statistics in the report which find that consistently, and internationally, indigenous communities are more likely to contract tuberculosis, malnutrition, diabetes, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and to commit suicide than non-indigenous communities. There are also significant gaps in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous people – a difference of as much as 20 years in Australia and Nepal. A collaborative study produced by the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada shows that the Inuit are over 150 times more likely to contract tuberculosis than the non-indigenous population. Suicide rates among indigenous youth are strikingly high when compared with non-indigenous youth, particularly in Brazil, where a study carried out by the Brazilian Ministry of Health found that between 2000 and 2005, the rate of Guaraní youth suicide was 19 times higher than the national average. The report also finds that indigenous women and children are particularly vulnerable to poor health, and women are disproportionately affected by violence because of structural discrimination and racism, and the added dimensions of gender bias and poorer levels of education. The report links the denial of certain fundamental rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to poor health among indigenous communities, and cites a failure of the Millennium Development Goals to identify and consider indigenous concepts of health, which, beyond the individual's physical and mental well-being accounts for the well-being and spiritual balance of the community.
The State of the World's Indigenous Peoples report is the result of a collaborative effort, organized by the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Chapters were written by independent experts.
The report acknowledges that in February 2008 the Australian Government formally apologized to the Stolen Generation and that in August 2009 it also endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, reversing the position of the previous Howard Government.
The UN report further noted the disproportionate percentage of indigenous Australians serving time in goals around the country and broadly linked this to discrimination in earlier stages of the justice process.
The report highlighted the fact that indigenous Australians generally live shorter lives, have poorer health care and education, higher than normal levels of inadequate housing and endure higher unemployment rates.
The Koori Mail reported on 15 January 2010 that the Rudd Government rejects elements of the UN findings:
A UNITED Nations report, The State of the World's Indigenous Peoples, is based on outdated information, according to the Federal Government. A spokesperson said rather than a 20-year gap in life expectancy, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced in May 2009 the new figures were now between 9.7 years for women and 11.5 years for men...
