Allied health service–learning student placements in remote northern Australia during COVID-19

Allied health services play a critical role in preventing and managing the disabling consequences of disease and injury,1 which occur at disproportionately higher rates in northern Australia than for Australia as a whole.2 Northern Australia supports a population of only 1.3 million people widely dispersed across 3 million square kilometres over a varied and often harsh geographical environment (cyclones, flood, high temperatures). The region includes the whole of the Northern Territory, and those parts of Western Australia and Queensland that are north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The northern Australian population includes over 190 000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (~30% of Australia's Indigenous population,3 most of whom live in remote communities). Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people have significantly poorer health status than the non‐Indigenous population,4 which makes them more vulnerable to the health and well‐being impacts of disasters, including pandemics, both as individuals and as a community. Its vast size, small population and limited infrastructure mean that health service delivery in northern Australia is characterised by travel over vast distances.