Tag: Health equity
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This one language change can improve health equity
Anita Eseosa Ogbeide Migrants and multicultural populations in Australia are mostly categorised as ‘Culturally and Linguistically Diverse’ (CALD), a term preferred by government and community agencies. In Australia, CALD people are defined by having a specific cultural and linguistic affiliation by virtue of place of birth, ancestry, ethnic origin, religion,…
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Robust Pandemic Agreement needed to ensure equitable access to medicines in future
Leanne Coombe and Hope de Rooy-Underhill The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic represented a “catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity.” Pharmaceutical companies, supported by high-income countries seeking to be first in the vaccine queue, fought to protect…
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Walking the talk: reflecting on five years of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Special Interest Group
Brahm Marjadi, Paul Gardiner, Kristen Glenister and Joanne Flavel It was Thursday 26 October 2017, during the Public Health Association Australia (PHAA) Symposia in Sydney, and the country was in the thick of Marriage Equality debates. Brahm Marjadi (then International Health Special Interest Group Co-Convenor) asked the-then PHAA CEO, Michael…
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Food strategies need ingredients like equity, justice, and sovereignty
Dr Amy Carrad The ACT Government released a Draft Canberra Region Local Food Strategy in September 2023, which claims it will “increase community access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.” It aims to do so by leaning heavily on community gardens as a means of increasing fresh produce in the…
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Lack of access to primary care forcing asylum seekers into emergency departments
Dr Zelalem Mengesha Some asylum seekers in Australia are ineligible for Medicare, meaning they have restricted access to health care services and poorer health outcomes than their Medicare eligible counterparts. In NSW, these asylum seekers are allowed to access some health services under the Medicare Ineligible Asylum Seekers – Provision…
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Australia has a long way to go to achieve health equity for LGBTQIA+ people, conference told
Elspeth Hickey, PHAA Intern This March saw the largest LGBTQIA+ conference in the southern hemisphere take place on the Eora nation, the traditional land of the Gadigal people. The Sydney WorldPride Human Rights Conference from 1-3 March featured more than 60 presenters, including United Nations representatives, parliamentarians, activists, lawyers, health…
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Successes and challenges related to ending the HIV pandemic
Nwogo. I.Ekeji, Ph.D., MPH, PHAA member Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has thus far infected over 79.3 million people globally, leaving an estimated 40.1 million dead. In 2021, just over 38 million people were estimated to be living with HIV globally, of which 85% were aware of their HIV-positive status and…
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International Day of People with Disability: A day to recognise achievements and promote inclusion of people with disability
Joanne Flavel, University of Adelaide, PHAA Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Special Interest Group (SIG) Co-Convenor, and Chelsea Riviere, PHAA Diversity, Equity & Inclusion SIG member In 2018, the Australian survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers reported that there were 4.4 million people with disabilities, representing 17.7% of the population. This…
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How can we better understand and manage the effects of long COVID?
BF, current PHAA Intern As COVID-19 isolation requirements come to an end across Australia, experts warn the risk of developing potentially debilitating long COVID remains. Recognising the need to learn more about the effects of long COVID, the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport has launched an Inquiry…
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Leveraging COVID-19 disruptions to reorient governmental systems toward health equity
Michelle Morgan, PHAA member, Healthy Communities Officer at the Tasmanian Department of Health, and PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania Over the past few years, we have all experienced major disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. But our experiences have not been equal. The pandemic has exposed and worsened…
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Burning questions at ‘fireside chat’: three state public health chiefs provide insights
Melanie Parker, PHAA Three of Australia’s public health chiefs explored the past, present and future of public health in Australia during this year’s Population Health Congress 2022 in Adelaide. New South Wales Chief Health Officers Dr Kerry Chant PSM, Victorian Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton, and Tasmanian Director of…
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In public health, is ‘co-design’ the answer to all our problems?
Leonie M. Short, Seniors Dental Care Australia In the last ten years, ‘co-design’ has emerged as a hot topic in Australia’s broad public health arena. National Disability Services funded a co-design initiative in 2015, NSW Council of Social Service (NCOSS) promoted the principles of co-design in 2017, and a co-design…
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Food and drinks are getting sweeter. Even if it’s not all sugar, it’s bad for our health
Cherie Russell, Deakin University; Carley Grimes, Deakin University; Mark Lawrence, Deakin University; Phillip Baker, Deakin University, and Rebecca Lindberg, Deakin University Humans have an evolutionary preference for sweetness. Sweet foods, like fruit and honey, were an important energy source for our ancestors. However, in the modern world, sweetened foods are…
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While Australians line up for COVID boosters, low vaccination rates in poor countries continue to cost lives
Deborah Gleeson, La Trobe University and Brigitte Tenni, The University of Melbourne Two and a half years into the pandemic, more than 12 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, and more than 5 million are being administered each day. People in many high-income countries, including Australia, are now…
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Who gets a say in public health nutrition? Five perspectives from the field
Christina Zorbas, Andrew Brown, Phoebe Nagorcka-Smith, Veronica Nunez, Dheepa Jeyapalan Introduction: A core tenet of public health nutrition is identifying and enacting actions to equitably improve population nutrition. We should act in a manner that proportionately addresses structural drivers of social and/or economic disadvantage. The increased focus on better including…
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Dr Joanne Flavel and Dr Kristen Glenister bring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion expertise to co-convenor roles
PHAA As part of our 2022 Q&A blog series on new PHAA Special Interest Group (SIG) convenors, we spoke to Dr Joanne Flavel and Dr Kristen Glenister, both active PHAA members who have been appointed as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) SIG co-convenors. Name, title/position, and summary of Public Health…
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Long-serving MP Warren Snowdon retires
Malcolm Baalman, PHAA As happens at every federal election, several long-serving Members of Parliament have retired. Two in particular have influenced public health in Australia. Previously, we acknowledged the service of the Hon. Greg Hunt, former Minister for Health. Today we profile the Hon Warren Snowdon, former Member of the…
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55 years since the 1967 Referendum, what’s changed?
Malcolm Baalman, PHAA Senior Policy and Advocacy Adviser Today is the 55th anniversary since Australians voted in the 1967 Referendum on ‘Aboriginal people’. Widely regarded as a turning point in the nation’s relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the 1967 vote changed our national Constitution. It meant that…
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Public health student Annabelle Whitehead-Broad on the invaluable experience of attending the Preventive Health Conference 2022
Annabelle Whitehead-Broad As a Bachelor of Public Health student, walking into the Preventive Health Conference 2022 made me nervous. This conference was filled with people living everything I’d studied – working in fields as diverse as policy and modelling, nutrition and psychology, and they were advocating for the values and…
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The Sustainable Development Goals, setbacks, and COVID-19
Fran Baum1, Lauren Paremoer2, Joanne Flavel1, Connie Musolino1, Ron Labonte3 1Stretton Health Equity, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia. 2Department of Political Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa 3University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have impaired the world’s ability to reach the United…
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Rural Health Mythbusters
Author’s note [1] Kristen Glenister, Claire Quilliam, Olivia Mitchell, Lucinda Aberdeen, Carol Reid, Brahmaputra Marjadi. In Australia, approximately one third of people live outside of major cities, that is, in rural or remote locations. ‘Rural health’ emerged as a recognized field in the 1990s and focusses on inequities in health…
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Chelsea Riviere, on being a 2021 National Mentoring Program mentee, and working on a South Pacific project
Students & Young Professionals Committee – PHAA The PHAA’s nine-month mentoring program unites experienced public health professionals (mentors) with early career PHAA members (mentees) who have similar interest areas. The program aims to increase the skills of mentees, provide experience in mentorship to public health professionals, and offer valuable networking…
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ANZJPH study shows the benefits of heatwave warnings for our most vulnerable
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA As Australia swelters through another scorching summer, a new report published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (ANZJPH) reveals the economic and health benefits of heatwave warning systems. Already this summer, as of 25 January, Perth has broken heatwave records, with six…
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Free rapid antigen tests makes economic sense for governments, our analysis shows
Professor Jonathan Karnon, Professor Billie Bonevski and Associate Professor Hossein Haji Ali Afzali, Flinders University Following considerable public pressure over the past few weeks, the federal government has announced concession card holders will soon be able to collect up to ten free rapid antigen tests over three months. But everyone else…
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Addressing Inequalities in Access to Quality Maternal and Child Health Services in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors – Firew Bobo (PhD Candidate, University of Technology Sydney, UTS); Professor Andrew Hayen, (UTS); Professor Angela Dawson; (UTS) How long people live dramatically varies depending on socioeconomic status, education levels, place of birth, and country of residence. Higher levels of illness and premature mortality are more common among the…
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International Day of People With a Disability ambassador, Dylan Alcott OAM, on his story so far, and goals
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA 3 December is International Day of People With a Disability (IDPWD). Tennis superstar, Dylan Alcott OAM, is an IDPWD ambassador and his incredible positivity shines through in everything he says and does. Speaking after being named the Victorian state winner recently in the prestigious Australian of…
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The Code COVID19 International Update – 4 November 2021
Dr Priscilla Robinson The Code COVID19 International Update is a weekly snapshot of the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing efforts by nations around the world to test, track and fight the virus. It’s compiled by Dr Priscilla Robinson, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health at LaTrobe University, and an editor for…
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Pandemics are by definition GLOBAL. Will Australia share the solution?
Terry Slevin – PHAA “The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has approved booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine for people aged 18 years and older, six months after their second dose. “In high-income countries, over 60% of people have had at least one vaccine dose, compared to around 4% in low- income…
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The Code COVID19 International Update – 14 October 2021
Dr Priscilla Robinson The Code COVID19 International Update is a weekly snapshot of the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing efforts by nations around the world to test, track and fight the virus. It’s compiled by Dr Priscilla Robinson, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health at LaTrobe University, and an editor for…
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Health inequalities: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The poorest Australians are twice as likely to die before age 75 as the richest, and the gap is widening. People living in socially disadvantaged areas and outside major cities are much more likely to die prematurely, our new research shows.