{"title":"Responding to family violence in Aboriginal communities: the NSW Aboriginal Family Health Strategy.","authors":"Helen Gardiner, Geraldine Wilson","doi":"10.1071/NB12067d","DOIUrl":"10.1071/NB12067d","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 3-4","pages":"59-60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30691035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Closing the gap in a regional health service in NSW: a multi-strategic approach to addressing individual and institutional racism.","authors":"","doi":"10.1071/NB12069","DOIUrl":"10.1071/NB12069","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Building a culturally safe and respectful organisation that genuinely addresses individual and institutional racism is a substantial and complex undertaking. Achieving this outcome requires sustained commitment and a comprehensive strategy, including the active involvement of Aboriginal stakeholders. This paper describes the journey of a large regional health organisation in NSW. A multi-strategic approach is broadly described, with three strategies explored in depth. These are: staff education and training; leadership; and consultation, negotiation and partnerships. Challenges are discussed in the context of promising progress and an ongoing commitment to this important organisational goal.</p>","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 3-4","pages":"63-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30691038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An ethical framework for public health immunisation programs.","authors":"David Isaacs","doi":"10.1071/NB11045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB11045","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper presents seven ethical principles associated with the implementation of immunisation programs. For a public health immunisation program to be ethically justifiable, its principles and operation should be based on sound ethical values: the program should benefit the individual and the community; targeted diseases should be sufficiently severe and frequent to justify the risks and expense of the program, and vulnerable groups within the population should be targeted. The principles also deal with the obligation to monitor for adverse events and for disease incidence to ensure safety and effectiveness. When immunisations are voluntary, vaccine recipients or their parents or carers should be given sufficient information to make autonomous, informed decisions and incentives to participate in public health immunisation programs should not be coercive. Public health immunisation programs depend on mutual trust, which may be threatened by circumstances such as excessive media publicity about adverse events associated with vaccines.</p>","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"111-5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30724011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evidence and ethics in public health: the experience of SARS in Canada.","authors":"Ross E G Upshur","doi":"10.1071/NB11044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB11044","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Making decisions on the basis of evidence is a central tenet of all health-care disciplines, including public health. However, it is not entirely clear what it means to base decisions on evidence; debates on evidence-based approaches often lack a clear understanding of the nature of evidence and obscure the normative underpinnings of evidence. Public health decision making requires an acceptance of limitations such as the availability of funding for research to provide complete evidence for any given decision, the ethical constraints on the creation of certain types of evidence and the ongoing dilemma between the need to take action and the need to gather more information. Using the example of the SARS outbreak in Canada, the inter-relationships between evidence and ethics are explored. I outline a set of critical questions for the global public health community to discuss regarding the nature of the relationship between evidence-based public health practice and ethics.</p>","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"108-10"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30724010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communicable diseases report, NSW, March and April 2012.","authors":"","doi":"10.1071/NB12078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB12078","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"123-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30721847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tuberculosis.","authors":"Evan Freeman, Stephen Conaty","doi":"10.1071/NB12060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB12060","url":null,"abstract":"Tuberculosis infection occurs in all countries of the world, and is caused by organisms of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. In recent decades the development of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and the presence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have combined to increase the global threat to public health posed by tuberculosis. In 2010 there were 8.8 million new cases of tuberculosis worldwide, with more than 50% from South East Asia and the Western Pacific Region. In 2009, the estimated global incidence of tuberculosis was 128 cases per 100 000 population; in Australia the notification rate was 6.2 per 100 000, and in NSW there were 508 notified cases with an incident rate of 7.2 per 100 000 (data not yet published).","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30724016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethical issues in obesity interventions for populations.","authors":"Craig L Fry","doi":"10.1071/NB12062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB12062","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Beyond the usual technical and evidentiary considerations, there are ethical questions that we must consider in the justification of our obesity interventions in the name of expected population health gains. These relate to the types of health identities that are permitted in society, the possible unintended consequences of preferencing certain health identities over others, and the manner in which public health policies and interventions are justified. The prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australia highlights some of the areas of uncertainty and identifies some important ethical questions that arise as a result of this uncertainty. I propose that the Australian obesity prevention strategy could be evaluated using the Nuffield Council on Bioethics stewardship model of public health to assess whether any current approaches exceed recommended intervention constraints or limits. My aim is to prompt further debate on this topic.</p>","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"116-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30724012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stacy M Carter, Ian Kerridge, Peter Sainsbury, Julie K Letts
{"title":"Public health ethics: informing better public health practice.","authors":"Stacy M Carter, Ian Kerridge, Peter Sainsbury, Julie K Letts","doi":"10.1071/NB12066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB12066","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Public health ethics has emerged and grown as an independent discipline over the last decade. It involves using ethical theory and empirical analyses to determine and justify the right thing to do in public health. In this paper, we distinguish public health ethics from clinical ethics, research ethics, public health law and politics. We then discuss issues in public health ethics including: how to weigh up the benefits, harms and costs of intervening; how to ensure that public health interventions produce fair outcomes; the potential for public health to undermine or promote the rights of citizens; and the significance of being transparent and inclusive in public health interventions. We conclude that the explicit and systematic consideration of ethical issues will, and should, become central to every public health worker's daily practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"101-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30724009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Detention to prevent transmission of tuberculosis: a proportionate public health response?","authors":"Stephen Conaty","doi":"10.1071/NB11046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB11046","url":null,"abstract":"Case study Trevor (not his real name) was a homeless man in his late 40s habituated to heroin and alcohol who presented to a hospital in Sydney with cough and shortness of breath in June 2009. A chest X-ray showed upper lobe changes and computed tomography (CT) scanning revealed a cavity in his left lung apex; his sputum smear was positive for acid fast bacilli (a marker of infectiousness). It was presumed and later proven that he had tuberculosis (drug sensitive) and he was started on standard four-drug therapy. These medications need to be taken for at least 6months to ensure cure. With regular meals and effective therapy, including daily methadone for opiate dependence, his health improved fairly quickly and he discharged himself 3 weeks after admission (without a plan for further treatment in place).","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 5-6","pages":"120-1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30724014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kate E Charlesworth, Sumantra Ray, Fiona Head, David Pencheon
{"title":"Developing an environmentally sustainable NHS: outcomes of implementing an educational intervention on sustainable health care with UK public health registrars.","authors":"Kate E Charlesworth, Sumantra Ray, Fiona Head, David Pencheon","doi":"10.1071/NB11018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1071/NB11018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Unlabelled: </strong>Environmental sustainability is a new and fast moving field in health. There is little evidence about how to teach it effectively to health professionals.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We conducted a pilot study of an educational intervention with more than 200 UK public health registrars. The intervention consisted of a day-long workshop with the aim of training participants to help make the UK's National Health Service more environmentally sustainable.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We measured outcomes in three areas: awareness, advocacy and actions. Comparison of baseline and post intervention questionnaire scores showed statistically significant improvements in the awareness and advocacy scores. Actions were assessed qualitatively. Our findings suggest that, while there are some pockets of good practice, many health professionals are yet to engage with sustainability in the workplace.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>We propose reasons why health professionals are yet to become involved in sustainability issues despite the related opportunities for health and health services.</p>","PeriodicalId":29974,"journal":{"name":"NSW Public Health Bulletin","volume":"23 1-2","pages":"27-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"30561832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}