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Many countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have established national screening programs in the effort to advance the early diagnosis of cancers. Australia has population screening programs for breast, bowel and cervical cancers, and this article focuses on breast and cervical cancer screening as the two longest running programs in Australia. While these screening programs are well-established and report relatively high participation rates, the effectiveness of population screening is a contested issue, subject to significant, ongoing debate about its purported benefits (Armstrong, 2019). In this article, we draw on ideas from sociology of science on the construction of scientific facts to analyse how evidentiary claims are presented in policy documents for Australia's breast and cervical cancer screening programs, and the implications for those who are the targets of screening. We explore how screening-related information assumes the status of scientific 'facts', and argue that presenting information as neutral and objective obscures the political choices involved in its generation. Importantly, some of the claims presented in the policy documents have a tendency to emphasise the benefits, and minimise the risks and harms of population-based screening. In doing so, we suggest that the current national policies may be contributing to sustaining expectations of screening that are higher than warranted. Higher expectations may bring with them unintended societal and economic costs to the public. We conclude by noting how deeply ingrained socio-cultural meanings of cancer shape public expectations of the protective value of screening, which allows current screening approaches to become further entrenched and resistant to challenge. • National cancer screening programs are justified on the basis of selective evidence. • Screening policy emphasises the benefits of interventions and downplays the risks. • Minimising the risks of screening sustains higher expectations than are warranted. • Screening is entrenched due to a risk management ethos and the fear of cancer. • Screening policy needs to better address the fragile balance of benefits and risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety is conceptualized in different ways across hazardous industries, but it is often expressed in terms of compliance. Compliance is about rules in various forms, including standards. Standards are core reference points that guide the design, construction and management of hazardous infrastructure such as high pressure gas pipelines. While standards are critical, we argue that neither their application nor their relationship to safety should be taken for granted. In this article, we investigate the ways in which safety as compliance in relation to standards manifests, the ways it is contested, its strategic use and implications for major accident risk management. Building on the framing literature, this article reveals where these frames reside and their interactions. We use qualitative methods to examine the framings of safety present in accounts of Australian pipeline industry members. We argue that the frames (compliance as expert judgment and compliance as process) are contested, which leads to the creation of a hybrid or compromise frame – one which integrates the underlying concerns of both frames. Best case, a dialogue between people using both frames results in a hybrid frame involving expert use of standards, with consideration of industry context. Worst case, standards are thoughtlessly applied, or are used as a way to displace organizational responsibility for safety that may be in conflict with business pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study aimed to determine the replicability of a pedometer-based telephone coaching intervention by comparing the outcomes of a study conducted in rural and urban settings to a study that previously found the same intervention effective in a semi-rural setting.Methods: Replication studies are conducted to assess whether an efficacious intervention is effective in multiple different settings. This study compared the outcomes of a pedometer-based coaching intervention implemented in urban and rural settings (replication study) with the same intervention implemented in a semi-rural setting (reference study) on physical activity levels.Results: Improvements in total weekly physical activity time in the replication study were significant from baseline to six weeks (p<0.001 urban, p=0.006 rural) and remained significant at six months (p=0.029 urban, p=0.005 rural). These increases were comparable to those achieved in the original efficacy trial conducted in a semi-rural setting.Conclusions: The pedometer-based telephone coaching intervention increases physical activity levels of people with cardiac disease referred to a CR program in diverse settings. This replication study indicates the suitability of this minimal contact, low-cost intervention for further scaling-up to address unmet need in community-dwelling cardiac patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Systemic disadvantage may contribute to child removal for parents with AOD issues (84 characters) • Conflicting demands from government agencies can act as a barrier to reunification (85 characters) • Insecure housing and limited social support may inhibit family reunification (79 characters) • Residential substance use rehabilitation can support parent/child reunification (82 characters) • Interviews reveal that poverty and trauma can contribute to parents' substance use (85 characters) The challenges and experiences associated with child removal and reunification from the perspective of mothers experiencing substance-related harms is under-researched in Australia. Our qualitative study employed a socio-ecological model to better understand the background to child removal, and perceived barriers and facilitators to achieving reunification of mother and child. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 women, 8 of whom self-identified as Australian First Nations People. At the time of the interviews, these women were either living in substance use rehabilitation facilities, their own home or with relatives. Findings highlighted a history of complex disadvantage and trauma among the women, along with a deep and enduring commitment to their children. Key barriers to reunification included limited social support networks, insecure housing, and challenges in meeting conflicting requirements from the child protection, social welfare and justice systems. An important facilitator to reunification was access to a residential substance use rehabilitation facility that offered holistic wrap-around services with links to community support. This study highlights the inadequacy of individual approaches focused on parents' substance use and emphasises the need to address significant structural disadvantages that underpin increasing numbers of children being placed in government mandated care in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Takes an organisational view of safety and expertise development. [•] Case study of the Australian gas pipeline industry. [•] Investigates learning methods engineers identify as important for professional development. [•] Suggests informal and experiential learning methods play an important role in learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Accompanying patients from active treatment towards specialist palliative care is a complex sphere of clinical practice that can be fraught with interpersonal and emotional challenges. While medical specialists are expected to break ‘bad news’ to their patients and ease their transitions to specialist palliative care if required, few have received formal training in such interpersonal complexities. Furthermore, there also often exists clinical ambiguity around whether to continue active treatment vis-à-vis refocusing on quality of life and palliation. In this paper we explore the experiences of twenty Australian medical specialists, focussing on issues such as: dilemmas around when and how to talk about dying and palliation; the art of referral and practices of representation; and, accounts of emotion and subjective influences on referral. The results illustrate how this transitional realm can be embedded in emotions, relationships and the allure of potentially life-prolonging intervention. We argue that the practice of referral should be understood as a relational and contextually-bound process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now recognised as a social, cultural, economic and political phenomenon, positioning the social sciences as central in responding to this global health threat. Yet efforts to address AMR within hospital settings, for example through antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs, continue to focus primarily on the prescribing practices of individual clinicians, often with little effect. There has been less attention to the role of healthcare administration, and managerialism therein, in explaining the limited progress to date in reining in antimicrobial misuse. To explore this, drawing on interviews with senior executives and managers from two Australian hospitals, we examine how these stakeholders navigate between management practice and AMR solutions, revealing that antimicrobial optimisation is frequently obscured by accountability structures attuned to other agendas. This has led, we argue, to the institutionalisation of micro-improvements that frequently 'tick the box' of having an AMS program, yet do little to effectively counteract rising AMR. Our analysis illustrates how sociological attention to the structural and ideological settings within which prescribing behaviour is carried out will be crucial to any attempts to successfully rein in AMR. • Behavioural approaches to antimicrobial misuse are having only minimal effects. • Managerial principles are ubiquitous in healthcare service provision. • Current accountability structures lend themselves to micro-improvements. • Ideology must front and centre of the examination of continued rise of AMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses social evolution of the artistic enterprise. The main direction of development of social systems of artistic activity can be described as evolutionary and conceptualized on the basis of a generalized evolutionary model adapted from Service. If plastic art is produced, it tends to be created by all members of the society for their own use, or for the use of their neighbors and relatives. Little art, other than ornamentation of clothing, is created by women who, at this level, frequently have a more regularly time-consuming economic responsibility than the men. Men, women, and children may produce the more "secular" art, but the most "sacred" art objects are made by men. in Australia, children of both sexes play at art-making, but in adulthood only males create art, "unless a woman shows a special interest and ability. Should this be the case she too will be given the same opportunity" as the men. Individual bands tend to specialize in the production of particular kinds of artistic objects, which they may then exchange with other bands.

'Community' has a long history in both lay and academic discourses, but as contemporary rural societies are recognized to be both diverseand rapidly changing, one may ask whether `community' is still relevant to notions of rurality. This paper extends both recent studies ofrurality and discourse to consider how small and rapidly changing 'communities' in Australia and New Zealand still subscribe to (and practice) forms of `community'. It proposes that a reworking of the concept of `community' can embrace both the discursive and socially diverse nature of rural societies. In so doing the paper draws upon a framework for reading `communities' published earlier in this Journal (Liepins, 2000a. Journal of Rural Studies, forth coming) and illustrates its application with case studies from Australia and New Zealand. Results show that `community' is still an important notion for many rural dwellers and that it is constructed and maintained through a wide set of meanings, practices and spaces. Moreover, these analytical features are seen to be related in processes which maintain or challenge any case-specific notions of `community'; thus creating a sense of the term as a fluid and negotiated phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]