Disseminating best-evidence health-care to Indigenous health-care settings and programs in Australia: Identifying the gaps

Abstract

Indigenous Australians experience a disproportionately greater burden of harm from smoking, poor nutrition, alcohol misuse and physical inactivity (SNAP risk factors) than the general Australian population. A critical step in further improving efforts to reduce this harm is to review existing efforts aimed at increasing the uptake of evidence-based interventions in Indigenous-specific health-care settings and programs. This study systematically identifies and reviews published Indigenous-specific dissemination studies targeting SNAP interventions. An electronic search of eight databases and a manual search of reference lists of previous literature reviews were undertaken. Eleven dissemination studies were identified for review: six for nutrition and physical activity as a component of diabetes care, three for alcohol and two for smoking. The majority of studies employed continuing medical education (n = 9 studies), suggesting that improving health-care providers' knowledge and skills is a focus of current efforts to disseminate best-evidence SNAP interventions in Indigenous health-care settings. Only two studies evaluated reminder systems, despite their widespread use in Indigenous-specific health-care services, and only one study employed academic detailing, despite its cost-effectiveness at modifying health-care provider behavior. There is a clear need for more Indigenous-specific dissemination research targeting the uptake of secondary prevention and to establish reliable and valid measures of Indigenous-specific health-care delivery, in order to determine which dissemination strategies are most likely to be effective in Indigenous health-care settings and programs.