Two major research projects at the Australian National University which are hoping to improve health outcomes for indigenous Australians are among those to receive a major boost in the latest round of funding.

The ANU has received more than $16 million from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Among those receiving funding is a $1.9 million project led by Dr Raymond Lovett from the ANU Research School of Population Health. His project aims to better understand how cultural factors affect health outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

“The project involves a series of surveys that will allow us to quantify the relationships between cultural factors like Indigenous language use, connection to country, and strength of identity with health outcomes,” said Dr Lovett, from the ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment.

The project aims to reframe the discourse around the effect that culture has on Indigenous health.

“At the moment the dominating view is that connection to culture diminishes health outcomes, but those of us who live and breathe it know that the opposite is true,” he said.

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