SAHMRI leader guest edits MJA Indigenous research edition
07 July 2025
For the second year running Prof Odette Pearson, the Co-Leader of SAHMRI’s Aboriginal Health Equity Theme, has joined the panel of guest editors behind the Medical Journal of Australia’s Special Issue on Indigenous health.
The issue, titled Carving our path with spirit, strength and solidarity was released today to coincide with NAIDOC Week.
In their co-written editorial, the six guest editors celebrate the ancient wisdom and ongoing persistence of Indigenous cultures.
“Perseverance in the face of adversity is no novel concept for our people. Resilience has been the reality for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities for millennia, and this Special Issue seeks to honour that resilience,” they write.
The MJA’s Editor in Chief Virginia Barbour said the journal understands how important it is to publish these papers and to go some way to address the journal’s historical power imbalances.
“At the MJA, we understand the privilege that it is to publish articles from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers,” Prof Barbour said.
“We also understand that a journal like the MJA has a duty to acknowledge and address the imbalance of power that has led in the past to publication in the MJA being a hard and uncomfortable experience for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors,” she said.
The Special Issue also features new research from the National Indigenous Kidney Transplantation Taskforce (NIKTT) which is an initiative that is headquartered at SAHMRI and addresses inequities in access to kidney transplantation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The NIKTT paper — Am I on the List? — moves beyond simply showing that inequity exists. It provides the first national breakdown of clinician-reported reasons for why patients aren’t waitlisted, revealing where and how the system is failing. The data show that barriers occur at every step — from not starting assessments to being ruled ineligible — and that delays in completing work-up are far more common for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people patients.
The authors call for targeted, system-wide investment in referral pathways, assessment processes, culturally safe care, and ongoing accountability to close the transplant equity gap. This is the first national analysis of clinician-reported reasons for non-waitlisting, drawing on enhanced data from 26 renal units that care for the majority of Indigenous dialysis patients.
This is the second edition of the MJA edited by a guest panel of Indigenous researchers and dedicated to work that addresses inequalities in Indigenous health. The inaugural edition was launched at SAHMRI during NAIDOC week last year.
The Guest Editors of the 2025 Special Issue are:
- Professor Odette Pearson (Eastern Kuku- Yalanji and Torres Strait Islander) - South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and University of South Australia
- Professor Pat Dudgeon (Bardi) - University of Western Australia
- Professor Jaquelyne Hughes (Wagadagam) - Flinders University and Royal Darwin Hospital
- Associate Professor Michelle Kennedy (Wiradjuri) - University of Newcastle
- Professor Kelvin Kong (Worimi) - University of Newcastle
- Associate Professor Paul Saunders (Biripi) - University of Wollongong
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SAHMRI is located on Kaurna Country. We pay respects to the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are committed to embracing knowledge and culture as we continue our working journey to incorporate Aboriginal health research across all of our themes and further reconciliation.
Read more"Tirki nguta tappa tangka marninithi"
(Learning and knowledge are the pathway to alter the mind)
- Uncle Lewis Yerloburka O’Brien, Kaurna Elder
