These current health inequalities and experiences of past adversity suggest that Koori and other Aboriginal Victorians may be particularly vulnerable to experiencing the effects of trauma. Concurrently, other Victorian Aboriginal population health statistics indicate significant disparities across multiple social determinants of health in comparison to other Victorians, including lower income and educational attainment, and higher rates of unemployment and financial distress. Documentation of the rates of interpersonal violence among Aboriginal Victorians is also readily accessible, with data from health surveys indicating higher rates of hospitalisation for assault and intentional self-harm, and a greater likelihood of being a victim of threatened physical violence in the last 12 months, in comparison to non-Aboriginal Victorians. Historical records, ethnographic research, and the recorded stories of Koori people themselves, show that colonisation for the Koori clan groups of Victoria involved systemic structural violence and oppression, the impacts of which are consistent with large scale collective trauma.

Both forms of violence hold significance for the Koori Footnote 2First Peoples of Victoria in South Eastern Australia. Intergenerational trauma and collective violence are often cited within the context of Indigenous Footnote 1 people’s historical experiences of colonisation, while elevated rates of interpersonal violence have been the subject of governmental and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 1 and other Indigenous-led reports. Human inflicted violence and its effects on individuals, communities and nations worldwide have been documented throughout history, occurring in every culture and across all nationalities and races of people.

Participant access to strength and resources that included connections to community and culture, moderated the relationship between trauma exposure and trauma symptom severity. Regression analysis revealed that trauma exposure, stressful life events, access to basic living expenses, and personal, relationship, community, and cultural strengths were all important predictors of posttraumatic stress symptom severity. Conversely, participants self-reported access to personal, relationship, community and cultural strengths was associated with lower trauma symptom severity. Two generations of child removal from one’s natural family, experiences of racism, stressful life events experienced during the past 12 months, being male, and not having access to funds for basic living expenses were all associated with greater trauma symptom severity. Participants commonly endorsed symptoms of distress consistent with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and cultural idioms of distress as documented in the Aboriginal Australian Version of the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire.

The study also investigated whether personal, relationship, community and cultural strengths and determinants of wellbeing, as detailed in the Aboriginal Resilience and Recovery Questionnaire, moderated the relationship between trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress symptom severity. The study explored potential relationships between trauma exposure, child removal from natural family, experiences of racism, gender, and trauma symptom severity. This study investigated whether a range of risk and protective factors, including cultural determinants of social and emotional wellbeing, were associated with posttraumatic stress outcomes among 81 Aboriginal help-seeking clients from an Aboriginal community-controlled counselling service in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to resilience and resistance, collective and personal experiences of trauma are commonly cited within the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and other Indigenous First People’s experiences of colonisation.

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