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The sale of raw drinking milk from cows is banned in Australia due to regulatory requirements that all milk must be pasteurised. Such a prohibition is based on concern about public health and safety risks, and was upheld in the most recent review of raw milk product regulation undertaken by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). However, this decision is not one that is universally accepted, with some people challenging the conclusion that raw milk is dangerous, and choosing to still source and drink it. In this paper, the contested regulation of raw milk is examined by questioning the normative assumption that the object in question, raw milk, is a singular entity, and one which is always dangerous. Drawing on analysis of six FSANZ documents released as part of its raw milk review, this paper discusses the practices that stabilise raw milk as always risky; processes that are found to wash away the possibility of other, potentially safe, versions of raw milk. It concludes by finding that such stabilisation has tangible impacts for public health policy and regulation, including limiting the parameters within which debate can occur, and precluding the possibility that other versions of raw milk could exist, or be accounted for in food safety regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Western society, the concept of risk is mostly linked related to negative or undesirable outcomes and used to explain unusual or abnormal events that have harmful consequences. Working in a poststructuralist framework, in this article we examine how risk shapes interactions between midwives and pregnant women in the context of public hospitals in Australia. We draw on data from an observational study of clinical encounters in three Australian hospitals between October 2014 and July 2015. The research teams recorded 83 health encounters and in this paper we draw on data from the recordings of 10 clinical consultations between 8 midwives and 10 pregnant women at various stages of gestation. We used these data to explore how a discourse of risk was mobilised through rhetorical strategies and practices of ‘hunting’ for the abnormal and attempts to control the body. Our findings demonstrate how a discourse of pregnancy and birth as risky operates within public hospital midwifery consultations. We found that in the midwifery consultations we recorded, pregnancy was constructed as a period of vulnerability and unpredictability. It was normalised through discursive practices of hunting for the abnormal and rhetorical strategies of attempting to control the body. Within this discourse, midwives occupied conflicting positions. They asserted that women, with the right support, were capable of spontaneous and intervention-free (pregnancy and) birth. Yet, they acted to enable medical professionals to assess a woman’s ability to give birth (un)assisted, or the potential for an adverse event. The women, while positioned as passive within the public health system, were positioned as active in surveilling themselves and responsible for taking steps to mitigate against adverse events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As antibiotics have become increasingly ineffective against bacteria, antibiotic stewardship has been introduced across a variety of settings world-wide. Members of the public have been entreated to use antibiotics strictly as prescribed. We interviewed ninety-nine participants who shared their understandings of antibiotics and reflections on antibiotic resistant bacteria. Some participants were eager consumers of antibiotics whilst others sought to avoid them. Overall, the participants expressed their desire to act in a responsible manner in relation to antibiotic usage. However, we also found considerable confusion regarding responsible action linked with risk management and trust in expert advice. Despite the encouragement of personal responsibility for health decisions, sick individuals are urged to enact a Parsonian-like sick role that abdicates personal decision-making powers and invests trust in the expertise of prescribers. We find this assumption of a responsible, knowledgeable patient and expert clinician is disrupted by 1) patients' contingencies when circumstances force them to seek and use antibiotics despite their misgivings, 2) patients' own embodied knowledge and assessment of their vulnerability and progression of infections and 3) doubts in the expert knowledge of clinicians, as considered in light of scientific debate. Accordingly, lay publics are left entangled in contrary expectations of responsibility and trust regarding the use of antibiotics with significant implications for antimicrobial stewardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several decades, the paradigm of risk has become increasingly salient for understanding how health care is provided. In more recent years, we have seen an expanding body of literature raising concerns of possible harms that a focus on risk may carry. Despite considerable research interest in risk, relatively little is known about the construction of risk in contexts of allied health resource allocation decision-making. This article reports on qualitative research exploring how allied health leaders construct the concept of risk and how this influences resource allocation decision-making. Data are drawn from forums held in August and September 2014, with a total of 59 participants who occupied leadership roles in allied health in Australia. The findings highlight three domains of risk: resource, patient and organisational risk. Some domains of risk received more attention from participants and exerted greater influence on decision-making than others. Relative to the other domains, patient risk was not a core focus. Risk had a distinct emotive element and some domains of risk led participants to focus on catastrophic outcomes. Patient risk did not evoke emotive responses, whereas both resource and organisational risk did. It appears that perceived risk may be costly for health organisations, as it can be a primary driver underpinning resource allocation decisions. We explore the relative lack of attention to patient risk, the role of fear and anxiety in decision-making, and discuss implications of the impact of a focus on risk in wider society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health guidelines in many countries advise women that not drinking alcohol during pregnancy is the safest option for their babies. This advice is based on a lack of evidence about what is a safe amount of alcohol and increasing concern about Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. While there is some knowledge of factors informing women's views and practices in relation to alcohol consumption during pregnancy, there is little knowledge or understanding of the ways women interpret and respond to the abstinence public health advice in Australia and its bearing, if any, on their own practices. In this article, we examine women's experiences of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and their views of the abstinence advice. We locate our analysis within the body of thinking that views pronouncements about risks during pregnancy as bound up with social and cultural values and ideas about what it means to be a 'good' or 'bad' mother, as much as they are about science. We draw on a study that we undertook in 2014 of 20 women, who were either pregnant, had recently had a child or who had young children, or who were planning for pregnancy, who took part in one-to -one qualitative interviews or participated in focus group discussions in Canberra, Australia. We found that the women in our study variously described receiving reassurance after drinking in early pregnancy; opting to abstain as the safest option in the face of uncertainty; and having an occasional drink if they felt like it. In response to the abstinence advice, we found that some women understood it as a responsible message, even if they had not necessarily adhered to it, while others criticised it as an example of policing pregnant women. Overall, the women in our study accepted that it was possible to drink responsibly during pregnancy and defended this view through strategies of normalising the occasional drink, emphasising a woman's right to make her own decisions, and associating low-level consumption with low risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Australians live in attractive urban-fringe and semi-rural environments which are said to be places that promote health and well-being. Yet, each summer, these residents are asked by authorities to prepare for episodic, intensely unpredictable bushfire emergency. In 2012/2013, we interviewed 17 people who lived on the rural fringe of Melbourne to gain insights into how people are able to feel secure whilst residing in bushfire risk environments. Our findings highlight the deep attachment that people have to place, the importance of learning from past experiences, recognition that any preparation has limitations, and the need to recognise one’s own limitations when confronted with fire. With reference to the bushfire preparedness narratives told in the interviews, we discuss the precariousness of living in a place that is seen as healthy and dangerous. The argument we develop furnishes insight into how individuals and families deal with the intensity and complexity of bushfire risk and more generally how they are taking on the emerging rationalities of disaster preparedness as a mode of risk management for survival. Such insights support policy makers to tailor advice that recognises the complexity of people’s understanding of fire risk. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]