Food in remote communities

Handwashing is important for food safety too! Environmental Health Trachoma Project World Health Organization (WHO)

Meet Takilisi from Yulella Aboriginal Corporation. He delivers food packages via the community-led Vision shop, to families in Meekatharra every Tuesday and Wednesday! What a great initiative to promote food security in remote communities 🙏 Gary Heir Christopher Rusten Mel Stoneham Curtin University Christina Pollard Roger Cook

And that’s a wrap on the data collection phase of the project. Now we deal with the enormous amount of data, so stay tuned for results. The team would like to sincerely thank all the Environmental Health Workers, remote families and community stores who supported this important work. Here’s a couple of photos from our last visit in Wiluna. Mel Stoneham Christina Pollard Christopher Rusten Gary Heir Amanda Lee Curtin University Ngangganawili Aboriginal Health Service

A remote Aboriginal community in Western Australia has six weeks' worth of food remaining and no truck driver is willing to travel down the notorious road to reach it. This is a food security crisis & action is needed: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-09/punmu-roads-pilbara-community-food-supplies-running-out/106534374?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web Gary Heir Christopher Rusten Mel Stoneham Christina Pollard Environmental Health Trachoma Project

Unusable road may be the end of remote community as food supplies dwindle A remote Aboriginal community in Western Australia has six weeks' worth of food remaining and no truck driver is willing to travel down the notorious road to reach it.

The co-CEO of the remote Aboriginal community of Balgo says the East Kimberley township has experienced food insecurity due to the recent extreme weather events.

Mick Hickey says food supplies, which generally come by road from Darwin via Kununurra, are running low in the community because of road closures.

He says planes flew in with supplies last week for the first time in four weeks.

"We are just hoping this cyclone does not mess it up too much, and we can keep the roads open to get a truck in," he said.

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Housing is an important environmental and social factor for health and wellbeing. Many conditions in remote homes impact food security. Some homes do not have functional taps, sinks, plugs, lights, kitchen drawrers, cupboards & benches, stoves, ovens or fridges. Others cannot access cutlery, crockery and cleaning products. These issues all affect whether families can store, cook or prepare food and if they can clean cooking utensils and kitchens. Our team has entered over 200 kitchens across 17 very remote WA communities. We see all of these issues. But we don’t just collect data. We offer plumbing fixes to unblock kitchen drains, replace blown bulbs in kitchen areas, replace broken or leaking taps, provide pest control and then report any issues we are unable to rectify. A cleaning kit and plunger is left with the household and we yarn about hygiene and kitchen design. We firmly believe that even if families can access affordable food at the community store, but do not have functional kitchens, health and well-being will continue to be compromised. Here’s the team in some of the remote NG Lands & Goldfields communities last week Christina Pollard Mel Stoneham Curtin University Robert Mullane Suvd Gansukh

Loving this vege patch in the NG Lands- they enrich their soil with camel poo, cardboard and vege scraps, have vermicomposting and also provide excess produce to the local community! This all helps to improve food security & health. Christina Pollard Vegetable Gardening and More Food Gardening in Remote Australia

Our protocol paper has now been published. The article identifies that this is the first study in Australia to explore the environmental health drivers of food insecurity in very remote Indigenous communities from the perspectives of the tenant, in-house functional health hardware, and in-store retail practices. We are doing this study to create evidence to promote culturally
appropriate and practical solutions to improve living conditions and health of families living in remote communities.
International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/71697
https://www.researchprotocols.org/2025/1/e71697
JMIR Res Curtin University Mel Stoneham Christina Pollard Miranda Hendry Scott Mackenzie Gary Heir Christopher Rusten Rural Health West Croakey - Informed, engaged communities for health

Benchmarking Environmental Health Influences on Food Security in Very Remote Indigenous Communities in Australia: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study Background: Many factors including the impact of colonization and subsequent intergenerational trauma contribute to health inequalities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, respectfully referred to as Indigenous Australians. The unacceptable health gap is higher for the Indigenous Austr...

Merry Christmas from the Food in Remotes project team 🤶🎄 Curtin University Christina Pollard Gary Heir Christopher Rusten

A range of local practitioners partnered up this week in Derby to talk about food security. An advocacy plan to encourage the local school to expand the current breakfast program to integrate food prep and cleaning by the students was developed. The team wanted to increase the young people’s life skills around food & nutrition. Great ideas…driven by passion. Derby, Western Australia Curtin University Gary Heir Christopher Rusten Foodbank Australia Rural Health West Christina Pollard Mel Stoneham Kelly Blackburn