Fading photos of smiling children still adorn the staircase walls at the Ashigakubo primary school, one of thousands that have shut in ageing Japan over the past 20 years. It has 14.4 million children under the age of 15, barely 11.5 percent of the total population and four million fewer than at the start of the 2000s.
Indigenous Australians experience poorer health than non-Indigenous Australians, with cardiometabolic diseases (CMD) being the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Built environmental (BE) features are known to shape cardiometabolic health in urban contexts, yet little research has assessed such relationships for remote-dwelling Indigenous Australians. This study assessed associations between BE features and CMD-related morbidity and mortality in a large sample of remote Indigenous Australian communities in the Northern Territory (NT). CMD-related morbidity and mortality data were extracted from NT government health databases for 120 remote Indigenous Australian communities for the period 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2015. BE features were extracted from Serviced Land Availability Programme (SLAP) maps. Associations were estimated using negative binomial regression analysis. Univariable analysis revealed protective effects on all-cause mortality for the BE features of Education,