Health Hardware Design: A Design Research Journey Towards a Healthier Australian Indigenous Living Environment

The Australian Prime Minister’s 2011 Closing the Gap report, acknowledged the poor health of Australia’s Indigenous population. Australia occupies the no. 2 position on the United Nations Human Development Index, but life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is still 20 years less than for non-Indigenous Australians. Yet it is the oldest living culture on earth. Evidence based research data identifies contributing reasons not as being very complex or difficult to address cultural issues. The reasons are instead products and services that are not of a quality suitable for the performance environment and therefore they cannot support the carrying out of Healthy Living Practices. This is the first time that design research and product based solutions for this field have been presented together in this way. This book aims to highlight that the product use context is of paramount importance - not mistakenly assumed cultural issues.