A nine-year study of ear disease in Australian Aboringinal children

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Abstract
Australian aboriginal children suffer an unusually high prevalence of ear disease and associated hearing impairment. In Queensland [Australia], past estimates of tympanic membrane perforations alone have ranged across different communities, from 11.5% to as high as 26%. Conversely, the prevalence of perforations in European children living in country towns adjacent to large aboriginal populations has been assessed as less than 2% whereas a perforation rate of < 1% was reported in a representative sample of urban school-children. To find prevalence statistics similar to those obtained from aboriginal children in Queensland, one must look to the pertinent literature from North America, in which it is claimed that ear disease is some 15 times more common among Indian and Eskimo groups than among the general population.

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