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A new national network will be established to advance the benefits from Genomic Medicine for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Australia.

The first inhabitants of Australia and the traditional owners of Australian lands are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are two to four times more likely to have systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) than the general Australian population.

To characterise the socio-demographic characteristics, aged and health care needs, and aged care services used by older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people assessed for aged care service eligibility.

The 2023 Australian guideline for assessing and managing cardiovascular disease risk provides updated evidence-based recommendations for the clinical assessment and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk for primary prevention. It includes the new Australian CVD risk calculator based on an equation developed from a large New Zealand cohort study, customised and recalibrated for the Australian population. The new guideline replaces the 2012 guideline that recommended CVD risk assessment using the Framingham risk equation. 

The rise of sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) studies has opened new possibilities for studying past environments. This groundbreaking area of genomics uses sediments to identify organisms, even in cases where macroscopic remains no longer exist. Managing this substrate in Indigenous Australian contexts, however, requires special considerations. Sediments and soils are often considered as waste by-products during archaeological and paleontological excavations and are not typically regulated by the same ethics guidelines utilised in mainstream 'western' research paradigms.

Alex Brown BMed, MPH, PhD, FRACP (hon.), FCSANZ, FAAHMS Professor of Indigenous Genomics +61421278314 alex.brown@anu.edu.au Professor of Indigenous

High quality intervention research is needed to inform evidence-based practice and policy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We searched for studies published from 2008-2020 in the PubMed database. A narrative review of intervention literature was conducted, where we identified researcher reported strengths and limitations of their research practice.

Conducting ethical and high-quality health research is crucial for informing public health policy and service delivery to reduce the high and inequitable burden of disease experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Opportunities for improved mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people lie in improving the capability of primary healthcare services to identify mental healthcare needs and respond in timely and appropriate ways.

It is known that the bacterial gut microbiome is altered in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but far less is known about the role of eukaryotic microorganisms in IBD.