Search

Objective: To review and synthesise research related to the ageing farming workforce influence on the health and sustainability of agricultural communities. Design: Using the PRISMA framework as a guide, the CINHAL and Medline databases were searched. Search 1 used the key search terms of ageing OR aging, farm*, workforce. Search 2 used health, sustainability and 'agricultural OR farm communit*. Search 3 combined Searches 1 and 2. Search 4 followed journal citations to identify other relevant articles. A process of narrative synthesis was applied to the results through the prism of rural social capital that described the current state of knowledge and understanding under four themes. Result: Database searches and searching of citations identified 16 contemporary articles. Seven of the papers were from Australia, and the balance from five other high‐income countries. The four that themes emerged are: vulnerabilities of ageing farmers; economic and climatic drivers; social capital and sustainability; and integrative strategies, that might offer a way forward. Conclusion: Integrating these forces of nature, economics and sociology to address the ageing farming workforce and the associated health and sustainability of agricultural communities remains a major challenge for researchers, governments, the agricultural sector and rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no literature to guide mental health nursing in bushfire‐affected communities. Using autoethnographic methods, the author reflects on his experience of mental health nursing during the Australian bushfires of 2019–20 and the challenges of identifying existing practice guidance. Applying an existing nursing model and insights from gestalt, he analyses his field notes to identify and describe practices which he found important and useful for working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. Eight suggestions are provided to assist mental health nurses to practise in an informed way and promote recovery. This paper makes a contribution to a small body of existing mental health nursing research using autoethnographic methods, and it is the first contribution to the mental health nursing literature about working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the sociology of gender pay equality in leadership positions. Using a large compensation dataset, we examine the impact of gender pay inequality among directors and executives on firm performance. Based on a triangulation research design, quantitative outcomes are supplemented with semi‐structured interviews to study compensation expectations, negotiation skills and gender differences in teamwork on boards of directors. The findings show that remuneration transparency is becoming the norm. However, compensation inequalities still exist and undermine performance. The results indicate that diversity targets or specific policies regarding equality and equity of opportunity are insufficient if they are not supported by a cultural understanding and the application of equitable policies and procedures throughout the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aim: This paper reports on the findings from 6 focus groups conducted with Australian medical students. The focus groups sought students' perspectives on how the influence of commercial interests on medical practice and education could be managed. Method: We conducted 6 focus groups with medical students in New South Wales, Australia. Participants were recruited via student‐run medical society and faculty e‐mail lists. Forty‐nine students from 6 medical schools in New South Wales participated. The research team reflected on the extent to which students uncritically appealed to science in the abstract as a management solution for conflicts of interest. Data analysis was largely inductive, looking for uses of scientific terminology, EBM, and appeals to “science” in the management of COI and applied theoretical analyses of scientism. Results: The students in our study suggested that science and evidence‐based medicine, rather than ethics or professionalism, were the best tools to deal with undue influence and bias. This paper uses philosophy of science literature to critically examine these scientistic appeals to science and EBM as a means of managing the influence of pharmaceutical reps and commercial interests. We argue that a scientistic style of reasoning is reinforced through medical curricula and that students need to be made aware of the epistemological assumptions that underpin science, medicine, and EBM to address the ethical challenges associated with commercialised health care. Conclusion: More work is needed to structure medical curricula to reflect the complexities of practice and realities of science. However, curricula change alone will not sufficiently address issues associated with commercial interests in medicine. For real change to occur, there needs to be a broader social and professional debate about the ways in which medicine and industry interact, and structural changes that restrict or mitigate commercial influences in educational, research, and policy settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian research on poverty and income distribution has been subject to criticism over definitional, data quality and measurement issues that have undermined its validity and impact. In reviewing these issues, this paper addresses some of the problems that have been identified in the literature and illustrates their importance with examples that shed light on the validity of the arguments. It also seeks to establish whether poverty has increased or decreased in the decade to 2002–03 and examines the overlap between hardship or deprivation and income poverty, and reviews some of the emerging evidence on the dynamics of low income. After a detailed review of data problems, the significance of definitional issues is illustrated in relation to the measurement of income inequality and poverty. Attention then focuses on assessing the sensitivity of estimated trends in income poverty to how poverty is defined and measured. Although there is variation across the different measures, the evidence suggests that progress in reducing relative poverty has been slow. Our preferred measure (based on current income) suggests that relative poverty increased slightly over the decade, with most of the increase occurring between 1995–96 and 1999–2000. When poverty is measured in ‘absolute’ terms using a poverty line that is held constant in real terms, the poverty rate declined overall, but was more or less constant between 1996–97 and 2000–01. Estimates derived from wave III of Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data indicate that those who were income poor in 2002–03 experienced twice as many hardship conditions as those who were not poor, with around one-quarter of the poor having problems paying bills or seeking external financial assistance. HILDA data also indicate that many of those who are in poverty in any single year manage to escape within the next 2 years, although it is too early to know whether they escape permanently, or slip back into poverty or oscillate on its margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this era of reflexive sociology it is commonplace that subjectivity is of great sociological concern, and that the comprehension by social researchers of their own subject position is essential. Still, old habits die hard. Focusing on selected texts in the sociology of the Australian family, this paper traces the effects of failing to focus the sociological gaze on subjectivity and its variation across society. Highlighted are some patterns of analytic misconstruction of subjectivity, especially the substitution of measurement for a theory of practice, and the projection by sociologists of their own class-specific subjectivity onto society at large. Ultimately, this misconstruction turns works like those discussed in this paper into a powerful denial of alternative subjectivities, and a reinforcement of the socially dominant perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses several debates surrounding the reproduction of socio-economic inequality: (i) the persistent inequality thesis, which maintains that despite the increases in educational participation socio-economic inequalities in education have not declined; (ii) the related thesis of maximally maintained inequality, which proposes that socio-economic inequalities decline only when participation levels for the most privileged socio-economic group approach saturation levels; (iii) the meritocracy debate on the importance of ability vis-à-vis socio-economic background and changes in its influence over time; and (iv) the effect of policy changes on socio-economic inequalities in education. These issues are addressed using data from six Australian youth cohorts born between 1961 and the mid-1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Following 2016 legislation permitting limited access to cannabis for research and medicinal purposes, the number of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) investigating the effectiveness of medicinal cannabis (MC) on symptom burden relief in cancer contexts has increased in Australia. This study aimed to understand the perceptions, hopes and concerns of people with advanced cancer regarding the future availability and regulation of MC in Australia. Methods: This qualitative study draws on semistructured interviews conducted between February 2019 and October 2020 in Brisbane, Australia, as part of an MC RCT substudy. Interviews were undertaken on 48 patients with advanced cancer in palliative care eligible to participate in an MC trial (n = 26 participated in an RCT; n = 2 participated in a pilot study; n = 20 declined). Interviews included a discussion of patients' decision‐making regarding trial participation, concerns about MC and perceptions of future availability, including cost. Transcribed interviews were analysed inductively and abductively, informed by constructivist thematic analysis conventions. Results: Overall, participants supported making MC legally accessible as a prescription‐only medication. Fear of financial toxicity, however, compromised this pathway. Steep posttrial costs of accessing MC prompted several people to decline trial participation, and others to predict—if found effective—that many would either access MC through alternative pathways or reduce their prescribed dosage to enable affordable access. Conclusions: These findings suggest that—despite a relatively robust universal healthcare system—Australians are potentially vulnerable to and fearful of financial toxicity. Prevalent in the United States, financial toxicity occurs when disadvantaged cancer patients access necessary but expensive medications with lasting consequences: bankruptcy, ongoing anxiety and cancer worry. Interview transcripts indicate that financial fears—and the systems sustaining them—may pose a threat to RCT completion and to equitable access to legal MC. Such findings support calls for embedding qualitative substudies and community partnerships within RCTs, while also suggesting the importance of subsidisation to overcoming injustices. Patient or Public Contribution: A patient advisory committee informed RCT design. This qualitative substudy foregrounds patients' decision‐making, perceptions and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to an upswing in conspiracy theory beliefs, which creates challenges for effectively countering the pandemic, with higher rates of COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy found among conspiracy theorists. Research suggests health risk perceptions, trust in government and anomie may mediate the relationship between COVID‐19 conspiracy theory beliefs and vaccine hesitancy. However, the mediating role of trust in government and anomie on vaccine hesitancy have not been empirically examined in the context of COVID‐19, and it is not clear whether different conspiracy theories have distinct mediational pathways to vaccine hesitancy. The current study examines the extent to which perceptions of the health threat posed by COVID‐19, trust in government and anomie can explain the relationship between distinct COVID‐19 conspiracy theories and COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy. Drawing on data from a national online survey of 779 Australian adults, a series of path analyses examining the influence of three distinct conspiracy theories on vaccination hesitancy revealed two key mediational pathways, which varied across conspiracy theory types. Anomie and perceptions of the health threat posed by COVID‐19 were the most common mediators of this relationship. Implications for COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy and for conspiracy theory research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of 'precision medicine', which has gained increasing traction since the early 2000s, is now ubiquitous in health and medicine. Though varied in its implementation across fields, precision medicine has raised hopes of revolutionary treatments and has spurred the proliferation of novel therapeutics, the alteration of professional trajectories and various reconfigurations of health/care. Nowhere is the promise of precision medicine more apparent, nor further institutionalised, than in the field of oncology. While the transformative potential of precision medicine is widely taken for granted, there remains scant attention to how it is being experienced at the coalface of care. Here, drawing on the perspectives of 54 cancer care professionals gleaned through eight focus group discussions in two hospitals in Australia, we explore clinicians' experiences of the day‐to‐day dynamics of precision‐in‐practice. We illustrate some of the affective and temporal complexities, analysed here under the rubrics of enchantment, acceleration and distraction that are emerging alongside the uptake of precision medicine in the field of oncology. We argue that these complexities, and their dis/continuities with earlier iterations of cancer care, demonstrate the need for sociological analyses of precision medicine as it is being implemented in practice and its varied effects on 'routine' care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent change in many medical curricula has been the introduction of courses in the behavioural sciences. These courses, while introduced with the intention of emphasizing interpersonal and behavioural skills, have not been shown to lead to any of the changes towards which they are directed. Rather, there is evidence that students find these courses 'waffly' and boring. If the sociology component of these courses is to lead to change, then there is the need for a continuing process of evaluation and modification. In this paper we report upon one medical sociology course, its evaluation, subsequent modification and re-evaluation. Our evidence would suggest that sociology courses can lead to changed attitudes and values, but that such changes are contingent upon the overt application of relevant sociological concepts to the health care field.

Objective: The goal of this exploratory study was to identify and describe notable cases of consumer involvement in Australian health research to generate insights and concepts, and assist others to develop and build capacity in this area. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with nine organisations known to be active in this area. The interviews were supplemented with content analysis of relevant documentation to further examine involvement strategies. Results: Key attributes that aid consumer involvement competence and contribute to success in this area are identified, including the availability of time, resources and supporting policies, principles and attitudes that securely back opportunities for consumers to be involved in meaningful ways. Conclusion: This study provides an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of consumer involvement practice in Australian health research. The examples do not offer definitive approaches but rather highlights and lessons drawn from experiences in consumer involvement across a diverse range of organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Neighborhood environmental attributes are associated with physical activity and health status. We examined cross‐sectional associations of built and social environmental attributes with frailty among community‐dwelling mid‐to‐older aged adults in Australia. Methods: Data from 3419 adults aged 50–74 years living in 200 neighborhoods in Brisbane, Australia, were used. Frailty status was assessed by a frailty index comprising 32 items. The built environment attributes examined were residential density, street connectivity, land use mix, park area and bus stop density. Self‐reported levels of safety and social cohesion were used as social environmental factors. Associations were examined using multilevel logistic regression. Results: The prevalence of frailty was 12%. One standard deviation increment in street connectivity in a 1‐km network buffer around participants' homes and in a neighbourhood was associated with 23% and 13% higher odds of being frail, respectively. One standard deviation increment in land use mix at the neighborhood level was associated with 12% lower odds of being frail. Higher levels of safety and social cohesion were consistently associated with a lower odds of being frail. Conclusions: Consistent with previous studies, we found that social environmental attributes were relevant to residents' frailty status, whereas the relationships between built environmental attributes and frailty were not clear (frailty was associated with lower street connectivity but with higher land used mix). Community‐level initiatives to enhance safety and social cohesion might be effective to reduce frailty. Further research is required to explain the equivocal findings obtained for built environmental attributes and frailty. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2021; 21: 893–899. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study sought to draw new perspectives on how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is shaped and created within the resource sector. The study focused on examining the role of external stakeholders in influencing the CSR strategies implemented by Australian resource companies. Data were gathered by semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders involved with 25 resource companies located in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. Consistent with sociological theories of CSR, stakeholders such as business and community leaders, non‐government organizations (NGOs), and government employees were able to influence CSR by empowering communities to participate in CSR, bridging cultural divides between companies and communities, and linking companies to key society standards. This was facilitated by the expression of personal ethical values and knowledge sets by stakeholders and where relevant those of their organization. A range of stakeholders were active agents of change, bringing in new ideology, skills, and expertise, and, at times, challenging existing corporate practice. This process was underlined by relationship building and trust. Stakeholders effectively introduced higher ethical values to concepts of public accountability, environmental sustainability, and social justice in line with personal and organizational ethics. The study also identified factors which promoted stakeholder influence and gave stakeholders power within CSR. This included a range of institutional‐level factors such as regulatory and legal frameworks, company policy, and cultures, but also interpersonal skills and abilities of the individuals involved. The study highlights the strategic benefits of stakeholder involvement in CSR within the Australian resource sector and discusses implications for the broader resource industry. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of this multimethod and multimeasure study was to identify how the peer relationships of Australian adolescents (ages 9-15 years; N=5335) at school, including relational aggression and victimization, correlated with their symptoms of depression and anxiety. Moreover, relational aggression and victimization were measured via both self- and peer report, and discrepancies between reports were considered as correlates of symptoms and peer relationship status. Adolescents who reported more symptoms of depression and anxiety also self-reported more relational victimization and reported their peers as less trustworthy. Adolescents who overreported their own relational victimization and aggression compared with peer report had more symptoms compared with those who agreed with their peers or underreported their aggression and victimization. Adolescents who underreported their own aggression were not only more socially prominent but were also more disliked by their peers. When considered independent of self-reports, no measure of peer-reported peer status, aggression, or victimization was associated with depressive symptoms; but adolescents reported as more accepted by their peers had fewer anxiety symptoms. Longitudinal research should be conducted to examine adolescents' increasing socioemotional problems as correlates of discrepancies between self- and peer reports of relational aggression and victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connection between class and voting choices has been the subject of controversy in recent years. At one time, most scholars regarded class as the primary basis of political alignments in industrial societies, at least in those not sharply divided by religion or ethnicity. In the 1970s, however, researchers in several countries argued that the connection between class and party was now weakening. Several researchers hold that the political significance of class increases in the early stages of industrialization, but declines in advanced industrial societies. Thus, the leading position of social class was characteristic of a particular stage of society that is now passing. Although this view is widely accepted, it has attracted a number of critics, some argue that political alignments have not actually changed very much in recent years, while others stress the diversity of national experiences. A major reason for the continued disagreement is simply the scarcity of evidence. To measure the association between class and party choice precisely, one must have individual-level data, which are not available for most countries until the 1970s.

Like other liberal-democratic governments, Australia has been going through a process of dramatic change in political and administrative structures and processes. There has been the well-documented shift from controlling inputs to managing for results which has resulted in the desired enhancement of executive government's responsibility and accountability for outcomes. A clear understanding of the evolving process of cabinet decision making points the way ahead to the next phase of reform. What lies ahead could, indeed, be more revolutionary than what has been achieved to date. Weber's dynamic concept of authority and domination, when understood as Weber himself used it, can tell one much about change and future possible evolution. It helps, heuristically, to indicate that government decision-making processes have already evolved to a sophisticated level, However, there is still much development that should be undertaken to maintain the quality of decision making. For instance, the move to small policy-advising departments and separated administrative programme-delivery agencies could be seen as a natural evolution and quite predictable. Good governance relies much on attaining a balance, in Weber's terms, between the ethics of intention (means) and the ethics of responsibility (ends). Together, they make the 'true man' who can have a `vocation of politics' says Weber - but the 'true man' is hard to find. What is needed, therefore, are decision-making processes that are good at drawing out this balance. Well-established patterns of social action, encapsulated in Weber's sociology and typographically oriented hermeneutics, can help identify how this could be achieved. For instance, when one understands Weber's ideal types of authority structure as the core of a comprehensive conceptual model with constant interplay and movement over time, one can get a hint of how government decision making could be further enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]