Measuring the impact of innovative Aboriginal-led health programs

Evaluations

Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services provide a range of innovative, holistic primary care programs that directly support their communities. These programs are often not adequately funded, making it difficult for ACCHSs to evaluate them to demonstrate their effectiveness, improve their own practice and share their learnings with other services.

ILEAP: Indigenous-led evaluations of Aboriginal programs

The Indigenous Led Evaluation of Aboriginal Programs (ILEAP) project aims to provide much needed evidence about the effectiveness of innovative Aboriginal-led health programs in critical health areas, such as Aboriginal youth suicide and adult chronic disease. The outcome of this project will see increased Aboriginal-led evaluation of their programs, better translation of evidence into practice in ACCHSs and increasing access to essential primary care services.

ILEAP project aims to:

  • Respond to the need of ACCHSs to enhance their capacity to design and undertake real-world evaluations
  • Create an evidence base for ACCHS-designed programs in critical health areas, such as Aboriginal youth suicide and adult chronic disease
  • Use this evidence to build capacity in ACCHSs to translate evaluation findings for continuous program improvement
  • Provide the needed evidence about what works in priority areas in Aboriginal primary health and mobilise action at local, state and national levels.
Image 1 – Flow chart depicting ILEAP project aims.

The project is led by three partner ACCHSs and the Sax Institute. It is founded on the Institute’s strong, long-term collaborations with the Aboriginal health sector and Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council.

ILEAP is funded by the Medical Research Future Fund and is planned to run until 2024.

ILEAP will lay the foundations for ongoing innovation in Aboriginal-led primary health service delivery and improvement in the health outcomes for Aboriginal people.

Sandra Bailey

Senior Adviser, Aboriginal Health at the Sax Institute