Category: Injury Prevention
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Safety must trump profit when it comes to consumer products
Dr Catherine Niven, Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Health Services Professor Kirsten Vallmuur, Chair of Trauma Surveillance and Data Analytics, Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation & the Jamieson Trauma Institute Are you one of the millions of Australians that think businesses are legally required to ensure their products are safe…
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Injury is Everyone’s Business
Apu Karajagi Editor’s note: In the third of a series of Western Australia-based blogs, Apu Karajagi from Injury Matters summarises insights from the 2023 Injury Prevention Summit. The Injury Prevention Summit 2023, hosted by Injury Matters through the Know Injury program, was held on Thursday 11 May at the Perth…
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New ANZJPH article highlights drowning risk on long weekends
PHAA Australians were reminded to be vigilant about their water safety prior to the June long weekend, following research published last week in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (ANZJPH) which highlighted the increased risk of death and drowning on public holidays. The research, conducted by Surf…
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‘Drowning for love’ – 5 ways to protect your life while you’re trying to rescue someone in trouble in the water
Amy Peden, UNSW Sydney and Rob Brander, UNSW Sydney The news headlines show summer is a deadly period for drowning in Australia. Sadly, between December 1 and January 9, 35 people died due to drowning. There are a range of reasons why the season is one of heightened risk for…
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Aim for better data on firearms, says public health expert
Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin (left) told an audience at Parliament House that gun control is not and never should be a partisan issue. It is and must always be a community safety issue. On Tuesday 22 November 2022, PHAA Chief Executive Officer, Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, presented to parliamentarians…
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Cars have taken over our neighbourhoods. Kid-friendly superblocks are a way for residents to reclaim their streets
Matthew Mclaughlin, The University of Western Australia; Hayley Christian, The University of Western Australia; Jasper Schipperijn, University of Southern Denmark, and Trevor Shilton, Curtin University You might remember your time as a child playing outdoors with friends and walking to school. These activities had tremendous benefits for our health and…
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ANZJPH study highlights festive season risk hazards, or ‘Chrishaps’
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA By now, most are ‘back at work’ (physically or remotely) and we can look back at how the majority of us have ‘survived’ another period of Christmas craziness. That theme of ‘surviving Christmas’ is the subject of a new article in the Australian and New Zealand…
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Federal Election Call for Action: #ThreeTransportPriorities
Matthew ‘Tepi’ Mclaughlin, Stephen Hodge, Peter Bourke, Peter McCue, on behalf of the Australasian Society for Physical Activity (ASPA) and We Ride Australia. The 2022 Federal Election document was presented to the Co-Chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Cycling, a group that unites MPs and Senators with an interest in…
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New report justifies long overdue safety measures for quad bikes in Australia
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA It’s been another shocking summer for drownings across Australia. Royal Life Saving Australia tallied 79 drowning deaths (as of 31 January 2022), compared to 69 at this time last year. While the media focuses on drowning deaths every summer, other high-risk activities largely go unnoticed. A…
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PHAA salutes the positive health impacts of Australians of the Year 2022
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA The Public Health Association of Australia congratulates our 2022 Australians of the Year, four remarkable individuals who have dedicated their lives to improving the health of our nation. Your 2022 Australians of the Year 🙌 It was such an inspiring evening having all our state and…
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New study proves laughter is the best medicine
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Given the world remains in the vice-like grip of this once-in-a-century pandemic, and the start of 2022 sees no end to the COVID-chaos, maintaining a sense of humour hasn’t been easy. Research released recently in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, titled A systematic…
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When is the right time for children to learn to swim?
Amy Peden, UNSW Each year in Australia, an average of 23 children under five die from unintentional drowning, usually due to factors such as a lack of adult supervision, unrestricted access to water and not having the skills to stay safe in water. Teaching children to swim is crucial to…
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Every Moment Matters: The campaign to raise awareness of the risks of drinking alcohol while pregnant, planning a pregnancy, or breastfeeding and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
Sarah Ward – Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education (FARE) It’s the largest national campaign about alcohol, pregnancy, and breastfeeding that Australia has seen. Every Moment Matters emphasises the message that ‘the moment you start trying, is the moment to stop drinking alcohol’. I have been lucky enough to…
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Pandemic blamed for drowning spike as new studies highlight risks to children and migrants
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Australians’ love of the water is continuing to prove deadly, with a new report from Royal Life Saving Australia finding more than 500 young children drowned in Australia in the past 19 years. Of the 532 children who died, 40% were aged one, with 77% of…
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Freedom from lockdown but shackled to alcohol: How Australia’s glorification of alcohol is damaging to public health
Dr Michelle I Jongenelis – Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director, Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change I write this piece knowing that many in Australia will not respond favourably to the words that follow. I may be called a ‘party pooper’, a ‘killjoy’, or a ‘wowser’. Someone who is complicit…
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Footy Finals and Domestic Violence Spikes; Are Current National Initiatives Working?
Melanie Parker – PHAA intern Geraldine Vaughan – co-convenor, Women’s Health SIG PHAA The 2021 footy season ended with thrilling finals for both AFL and NRL codes. Yet, alongside the finals celebrations runs another thread: the known spikes in domestic violence rates on days of sporting significance. The Foundation for…
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Busted: 5 myths about 30km/h speed limits in Australia
Matthew Mclaughlin, University of Newcastle; Ben Beck, Monash University; Julie Brown, George Institute for Global Health, and Megan Sharkey, UNSW Five Australian states and territories are trialling or planning 30km/h speed limits and zones. However, some people question if 30km/h speed limits are actually urgent and necessary, or are instead…
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Let’s keep our kids water-safe this Easter
Public Health Association of Australia Today, millions of Australians are hitting the road to take a well-earned break for Easter, and in many states for the start of the autumn school holidays. While the greatest dangers at this time of year are on our roads, with the forecast return of…
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From cradle to grave: falls represent a lifetime of risk to us all
Public Health Association of Australia According to the World Health Organization falls are the second leading cause of accidental or unintentional injury deaths worldwide after road traffic injuries. Each year an estimated 646,000 individuals die from falls globally, and more than 80 per cent are from low and middle-income countries.…
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Indigenous families face soaring costs in treating burn injuries
When it comes to Closing the Gap on health inequities experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people there are many areas deserving urgent attention, and injury prevention is just one. But where injury has already occurred, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face yet another obstacle in then accessing…
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Head of World Health Organization tells global injury prevention conference poor people still at greatest risk of death, injury
Public Health Association of Australia Opening this week’s Global Injury Prevention Showcase, the World Health Organization Director-General said injuries and violence take the lives of 4.4 million people worldwide each year. ‘That’s nearly eight per cent of all deaths globally,’ Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the conference, ‘and road traffic…
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Global Injury Prevention Showcase tackles big issues: Why do Australian men keep drowning?
Public Health Association of Australia This week (22-26 March) the 2021 Global Injury Prevention Showcase is being held, bringing together more than 250 presentations from across the world tackling many of the biggest health and injury prevention challenges facing us today. The event is preceding next year’s global Safety 2022…
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Bee Aware: The critters that send us to the hospital – and the morgue
Terry Slevin There’s a kind of perverse pride I (and I suspect many) Australians harbour about growing up in a country which is home to 20 of the 25 most venomous snakes on the planet, including ALL of the top 10! Beyond snakes, we ‘boast’ spiders, jellyfish, flying and crawling…