Tag: Public Health
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The Code COVID-19 International Update – 7 January 2022
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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“It is not just about feeding people, it’s about feeding people well,” UK expert to tell 2022 Food Futures Conference
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA With many of us preparing to shed those unwanted festive season kilos, what better time than now to plug our upcoming PHAA Food Futures Conference, which is only two months away. The online conference will be held over two days (Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 March)…
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All I want for Christmas is an Australian Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
Terry Slevin, PHAA CEO Mariah Carey’s classic Christmas hit is a commercial radio and shopping centre staple every December. If I could tweak her lyrics, I’d change them to emphasise how essential a Centre for Disease Control and Prevention could be for Australia, and our near neighbours. The wariness many…
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Collaborating to take an active role to improve heart failure: Heart Foundation and NPS MedicineWise
Brooke Atkins & Amanda Buttery, National Heart Foundation of Australia PHAA’s Note: This article does not constitute medical advice. If you have heart failure, please see your doctor before starting exercise or physical activity. Heart failure is a serious condition where the heart does not pump blood to the rest…
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Significant steps towards a healthier Australia: The 2021-2030 National Preventive Health Strategy
Terry Slevin – PHAA CEO Today marks a ‘red letter day’ for the health of our nation. At least it should. With the launch of Australia’s 10-year National Preventive Health Strategy, the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, has put in place the framework for what could be…
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Hundreds join the rally cry for greater investment in Australia’s public health workforce
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA In one of the biggest demonstrations of support for significant new investment in Australia’s over-stretched public health workforce, well over 500 people registered for an online symposium on 7 December 2021. The symposium brought together many of Australia’s leading public health experts in the field. Victoria’s…
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On World AIDS Day, peak body says elimination can be achieved in Australia by 2025
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Today, 1 December, is World AIDS Day. After 40 years of trying to control the spread of HIV in Australia, the peak national organisation for Australia’s community HIV response, says 100% elimination should now be our goal, and is achievable. Every year 900 Australians are diagnosed…
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New PHAA Board member Aziz Rahman hopes to raise profile of SIGs
Associate Professor Muhammad Aziz Rahman has recently joined the PHAA Board as a co-convenor of the Health Promotion SIG. Currently the Associate Dean Research and Associate Professor of Public Health, School of Health, at Federation University in Victoria, he’s enjoyed a varied career on several continents. This has included studying…
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Digital futures: the intersection of technology and health
Anna Alex – PHAA intern The world is witnessing an era of accelerated and interlinked environmental, technological, economic and societal transformation, brought on by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. In such a scenario, health futures unfold increasingly linked to these changes. The past two years have…
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Prisons still failing First Nations people, Justice Health conference told
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Three decades after the landmark Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a leading expert on the impact of incarceration on First Nations people told the PHAA Justice Health Conference, things have worsened, not improved. Professor Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law at University of Technology Sydney,…
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Tonight I’ll be having…poison! On-demand alcohol delivery services and the danger they pose to public health
Dr Michelle I Jongenelis, Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director, Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change In case you were worried about how you would survive when you can’t get to the bottle shop, fear not! UberEats has launched a campaign to make sure you know just how easy it is to…
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Government promises action and money to counter Indigenous incarceration, Minister tells Justice Health 2021 conference
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA More action at a local level. More partnerships. More targeted funding. Greater research. And real targets to reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in custody in the next decade. Opening the 2021 PHAA Justice Health Conference, Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Hon…
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Study tracks sun protection behavioural changes as world meets for COP26 climate summit
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA For the first time in nearly two years the world’s attention is about to switch from the battle against COVID-19 to the fight to control global warming. World leaders will gather in Glasgow in the next week for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also…
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Ageing population, climate change create new drowning risks: study
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Background With the days lengthening, the weather and water warming, and COVID-19 restrictions lifting, many of us are planning our first dip or trip to the beach. Water safety and drownings remain a significant public health issue in Australia, and a leading cause of mortality and…
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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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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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This ain’t no ‘puff piece’: John Safran takes aim at Philip Morris and doesn’t miss
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA John Safran has made a career out of probing society’s fringes for satire. Now the perpetual provocateur takes on the biggest cigarette company on the planet. Three years ago, tobacco giant Philip Morris shocked the world when it announced it was moving away from cigarettes and…
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Pandemic lessons learnt, legacies, and the need for greater investment
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA The PHAA’s Australian Public Health Conference 2021, while virtual in nature due to COVID, is being widely acclaimed as having some of the best content in years. That old saying of ‘saving the best till the last’ may ring true yet again, following the conference’s final…
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Worldwide workforce problems & national professional constraints
Charles Guest, Honorary Professor, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne “The government has had 18 months to prepare for a large surge, yet we find ourselves in a situation where hundreds of staff are being furloughed, staff are working overtime and becoming burnt out, and there are…
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A rare COVID silver lining – Lauren Richardson on meeting ‘her people’ in VIC Department of Health
Jeremy Lasek, PHAA Our recent request for your stories to capture the essence of a career in public health has uncovered fabulous case studies. Today, we meet Lauren Richardson, who found herself swept up in the Victorian Department of Health’s COVID-19 response. Let’s start at the beginning. Lauren says she…
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Drugs, advocacy, and understanding public health’s ‘new frontier’: it’s conference week
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA The Australian Public Health Conference 2021 starts this Thurday 23 September, and features a stellar line-up of presenters. One final reminder, this year’s conference is virtual only, so if you haven’t cancelled your travel plans and accommodation in the national capital, please make that a…
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Chief health officers are in the spotlight like never before. Here’s what goes on behind the scenes
Patrick Harris, UNSW and PHAA NSW Branch President Aryati Yashadhana, UNSW, and Evelyne de Leeuw, UNSW Until COVID-19, few people knew anything about Australia’s chief medical officer or the state and territories’ chief health officers. Now they are front and centre of the news cycle. But media coverage misses the nuances…
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Australian Public Health Conference just 2 weeks away
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Australia’s experiencing a range of chronic disease challenges including tobacco use, obesity, and unhealthy foods. Climate change looms as a national and worldwide health problem. And the Australian Government is close to finalising a comprehensive national policy on Prevention. Oh yes, and we’re also dealing…
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Our public health workforce – Meet the Healthy Cities Illawarra (NSW) team
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Introduction Since the pandemic began more than 20 months ago, Australia’s public health workforce has experienced its toughest test in a century. Our army of public health workers have pulled out all stops to save lives, and work against the odds to keep the nation as…
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FGM: A human rights violation that affects Australian women
Angela Dawson – PHAA member and Melanie Parker – PHAA intern Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a traditional practice that involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia of women and girls or other injury to their genitals for non-medical reasons. FGM is a violation of human rights…
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A Q&A with a WHO expert on Defeating Meningitis
Melanie Parker – PHAA Intern The global COVID-19 pandemic has overshadowed much of the other work public health professionals and researchers are involved in. This includes climate change, obesity, and other communicable diseases such as meningitis. Meningitis can have devastating impacts on individuals and increase financial burden on the…
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The worrying impact of COVID on cancer screening and detection
Public Health Association of Australia While the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated our lives and public health efforts over the past 18 months, there is still a need to be urging Australians not to ignore the other ‘Big C’. Cancer remains one of the biggest killers in Australia, but with so…
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Immunisation in the COVID pandemic era – conference to dissect our biggest global challenge
The COVID-19 pandemic – the worst global public health emergency in a century – has changed the way we live. Many lives have been lost, economies brought to their knees, and it is fair to say that nothing is as it was just 18 month ago. Today marks the beginning…
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Chief Health Officers Forum – Preventive Health Conference 2021
Chief Health Officers back calls for a more sustainable public health workforce Before the arrival of COVID-19, Australia’s Chief Health Officers (CHOs were relatively unknown, going about their business quietly, efficiently, and effectively to keep our communities healthy and safe. Each state and territory has a CHO, and the Commonwealth…
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Standing against the slide to fascism: what can public health do now?
It is said that democracy is a frail flower in need of constant nurturing. Having decried our slip toward fascism (in Croakey and the Public Health Association of Australia blog) I thought it useful to think about actions the public health movement might take to stand up for democracy.