The extent of violence inflicted on adolescent Aboriginal girls in the Northern Territory.

Background: Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are at very high risk of violence but there is little evidence about the age at which their higher exposure to violence commences. The aim of this study was to investigate violence inflicted on Aboriginal girls during childhood and adolescence, relative to Aboriginal boys and non-Aboriginal girls.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study using de-identified administrative data for NT residents aged 0-17 years.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's views of cervical screening by self-collection: a qualitative study.

Objective: This study aimed to describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's views of self-collection introduced in the renewed National Cervical Screening Program.

Methods: A total of 79 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander women (50 screened in previous five years, 29 under-screened) from five clinics across three Australian states/territories participated. Topics discussed were perceptions of self-collection, the instruction card and suggestions for implementing self-collection.

Access to Aboriginal Community-Controlled Primary Health Organizations Can Explain Some of the Higher Pap Test Participation Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women in North Queensland, Australia.

Background: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community-Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) provides culturally appropriate primary care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. The population of North Queensland has a higher proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a greater population coverage of ACCHOs, and higher cervical screening participation than the Rest of Queensland. The association between regional differences in the use of ACCHOs for cervical screening and variations in screening participation among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is currently unknown.

Investigating inequities in cardiovascular care and outcomes for Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: protocol for a hospital-based retrospective cohort data linkage project.

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) represents a significant burden of disease for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a population that continues to experience a lower life expectancy than other Australians. The aim of the Better Cardiac Care Data Linkage project is to describe patient care pathways and to identify disparities in care and health outcomes between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Queensland residents diagnosed with CVD in the state of Queensland.

Methods: This is a population-based retrospective cohort study using linked regional, state and national health and administrative data collections to describe disparities in CVD healthcare in primary and secondary prevention settings and during hospitalisation.

Patterns of child protection service involvement by Aboriginal children associated with a higher risk of self-harm in adolescence: A retrospective population cohort study using linked administrative data.

Background: A history of child maltreatment is known to elevate the risk of self-harm in adolescence. However, this link has not been investigated for Aboriginal children who experience a greater burden of both.

Objective: Identify patterns of involvement with child protection services by Aboriginal children associated with a higher risk of self-harm in adolescence.

Acute myocardial infarction incidence and survival in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations: an observational study in the Northern Territory of Australia, 1992-2014.

Objectives: To examine long-term trends in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) incidence and survival among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting, Participants: All first AMI hospital cases and deaths due to ischaemic heart disease in the Northern Territory of Australia (NT), 1992-2014.

Indigenous Australian women's experiences of participation in cervical screening.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (collectively, Indigenous Australian) women experience a higher burden of cervical cancer than other women. The National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) is failing to meet the needs of Indigenous Australian women, resulting in many women not regularly participating in cervical screening. However, one third of Indigenous Australian women do participate in cervical screening.

Recurrence patterns identify aggressive form of human papillomavirus-dependent vulvar cancer.

Background: Vulvar cancer is rare and, as a result, is understudied. Treatment is predominantly surgery, irrespective of the type of vulvar cancer, and is associated with physical, emotional and sexual complications. A cluster of human papillomavirus (HPV)-dependent vulvar cancer patients was identified in Arnhem Land Northern Territory (NT), Australia, in which young Indigenous women were diagnosed at 70 times the national incidence rate.

Possible role for glucagon in the control of Paget's disease of bone.

Paget's disease of bone is characterised by overactive osteoclasts that resorb bone at a higher rate than normal. Osteoblasts attempt to repair the damage by laying down new bone which in turn is resorbed leaving a chaotic pattern of lytic and dense sclerotic bone behind. Deformed bone enlarges, becomes vascularised, bends and fractures.

Aboriginal women have a higher risk of cervical abnormalities at screening; South Australia, 1993-2016.

Objective: Cervical cancer mortality has halved in Australia since the national cervical screening program began in 1991, but elevated mortality rates persist for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women (referred to as Aboriginal women in this report). We investigated differences by Aboriginal status in abnormality rates predicted by cervical cytology and confirmed by histological diagnoses among screened women.

Methods: Using record linkage between cervical screening registry and public hospital records in South Australia, we obtained Aboriginal status of women aged 20-69 for 1993-2016 (this was not recorded by the registry).

Comorbidity and cervical cancer survival of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian women: A semi-national registry-based cohort study (2003-2012).

Background: Little is known about the impact of comorbidity on cervical cancer survival in Australian women, including whether Indigenous women's higher prevalence of comorbidity contributes to their lower survival compared to non-Indigenous women.

Methods: Data for cervical cancers diagnosed in 2003-2012 were extracted from six Australian state-based cancer registries and linked to hospital inpatient records to identify comorbidity diagnoses. Five-year cause-specific and all-cause survival probabilities were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Establishing contemporary trends in hepatitis B sero-epidemiology in an Indigenous population.

Background: Indigenous populations globally are disproportionately affected by chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection however contemporary sero-prevalence data are often absent. In the Indigenous population of the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia the unique C4 sub-genotype of HBV universally circulates. There are no studies of the sero-prevalence, nor the impact of the vaccination program (which has a serotype mismatch compared to C4), at a population-wide level.

Progress in closing the gap in life expectancy at birth for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, 1967-2012.

Objectives: To compare long term changes in mortality and life expectancy at birth (LE) of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and of the overall Australian population; to determine the contributions of changes in mortality in specific age groups to changes in LE for each population.

Design, Setting, Participants: Retrospective trend analysis of death and LE data for the NT Aboriginal and Australian populations, 1967-2012.

Main Outcome Measures: LE estimates based on abridged life tables; mortality estimates (deaths per 100 000 population); and age decomposition of LE changes by sex and time period.

Frequent use of hospital inpatient services during a nine year period: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Frequent use (FU) of hospital services impacts on patients and health service expenditure. Studies examining FU in emergency departments and inpatient settings have found heterogeneity and the need to differentiate between potentially preventable FU and that associated with ongoing management of complex conditions. Psychosocial factors have often been reported as underpinning or exacerbating the phenomena.

Time to clinical investigation for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Queensland women after a high grade abnormal Pap smear, 2000-2009.

Objectives: To investigate time to follow-up (clinical investigation) for Indigenous and non-Indigenous women in Queensland after a high grade abnormality (HGA) being detected by Pap smear.

Design, Setting, Participants: Population-based retrospective cohort analysis of linked data from the Queensland Pap Smear Register (PSR), the Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data Collection, and the Queensland Cancer Registry. 34 980 women aged 20-68 years (including 1592 Indigenous women) with their first HGA Pap smear result recorded on the PSR (index smear) during 2000-2009 were included and followed to the end of 2010.

Different survival analysis methods for measuring long-term outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian cancer patients in the presence and absence of competing risks.

Background: Net survival is the most common measure of cancer prognosis and has been used to study differentials in cancer survival between ethnic or racial population subgroups. However, net survival ignores competing risks of deaths and so provides incomplete prognostic information for cancer patients, and when comparing survival between populations with different all-cause mortality. Another prognosis measure, "crude probability of death", which takes competing risk of death into account, overcomes this limitation.

Association between comorbidity and participation in breast and cervical cancer screening: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Comorbidity is associated with poor outcomes for cancer patients but it is less clear how it influences cancer prevention and early detection. This review synthesizes evidence from studies that have quantified the association between comorbidity and participation in breast and cervical screening.

Methods: PubMed, CINAHL and EMBASE databases were systematically searched using key terms related to cancer screening and comorbidity for original research articles published between 1 January 1991 and 21 March 2016.

Student academic performance in rural clinical schools: The impact of cohort size and competition.

Objectives: The Deakin University School of Medicine commenced in 2008 as a rurally focused medical school in south-eastern Australia. This research was designed to examine the effectiveness of the school's adoption of small regional clinical school settings.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of the first two cohorts of students was employed to assess academic performance at each of five geographically dispersed clinical training sites, with varying student cohort sizes.

Inhibition of cancer cell mitosis by reducing the availability of phosphate.

The addition of phosphate groups is an essential requirement for the proper functioning of cyclin and cyclin dependent kinase which control various stages in the mitotic division of cancer cells. Thus limiting the availability of phosphate is likely to interfere with the metabolism of rapidly growing malignant cells. The human hormone glucagon and the anti metabolite mithramycin reduce serum phosphate by increasing phosphaturia and are both very effective in treating Paget's disease of bone, a precancerous condition.

Trends in cancer incidence and survival for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.

Objective: To assess trends in cancer incidence and survival for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory.

Design: Retrospective analysis of population-based cancer registration data.

Setting: New cancer diagnoses in the NT, 1991-2012.

Long-Term Outcomes From Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease: A Data-Linkage and Survival Analysis Approach.

Background: We investigated adverse outcomes for people with acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and the effect of comorbidities and demographic factors on these outcomes.

Methods: Using linked data (RHD register, hospital, and mortality data) for residents of the Northern Territory of Australia, we calculated ARF recurrence rates, rates of progression from ARF to RHD to severe RHD, RHD complication rates (heart failure, endocarditis, stroke, and atrial fibrillation), and mortality rates for 572 individuals diagnosed with ARF and 1248 with RHD in 1997 to 2013 (94.9% Indigenous).

Quantifying the changes in survival inequality for Indigenous people diagnosed with cancer in Queensland, Australia.

The survival inequality faced by Indigenous Australians after a cancer diagnosis is well documented; what is less understood is whether this inequality has changed over time and what this means in terms of the impact a cancer diagnosis has on Indigenous people. Survival information for all patients identified as either Indigenous (n=3168) or non-Indigenous (n=211,615) and diagnosed in Queensland between 1997 and 2012 were obtained from the Queensland Cancer Registry, with mortality followed up to 31st December, 2013. Flexible parametric survival models were used to quantify changes in the cause-specific survival inequalities and the number of lives that might be saved if these inequalities were removed.

The first comprehensive report on Indigenous Australian women's inequalities in cervical screening: A retrospective registry cohort study in Queensland, Australia (2000-2011).

Background: The Australian National Cervical Screening Program, introduced more than 20 years ago, does not record the Indigenous status of screening participants. This article reports the first population-based estimates of participation in cervical screening for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian women.

Methods: This was a retrospective, population-based study of 1,334,795 female Queensland residents, aged 20 to 69 years, who participated in cervical screening from 2000 to 2011; 26,829 were identified as Indigenous through linkage to hospitalization records.