We speak to Dr Millie Rooney from Australia ReMADE and Amanda Kelly, the CEO of Women’s Health Goulburn North East, about a joint project called ‘Care through Disaster’ that looks at what would happen if we put care at the centre of disaster decision making.

People want to be seen, be safe and be supported, with people in the community best placed to know how that looks. Amanda Kelly says if you know one regional town, you know one regional town. What works in one place might not work elsewhere.

Disasters will no longer be unprecedented. They will be expected. Therefore, we need to start the work now, and this episode outlines exactly what that could look like.

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Dr Millie Rooney is the Co-Director for Australia ReMADE, an independent, non-profit leadership network where Australian civil society leaders can collaborate with one another and engage in long-term proactive agenda-setting. Dr Rooney has a research background with expertise in local community and social norms around neighbourhood sharing and community building.

Amanda Kelly is the CEO of Women’s Health Goulburn North East. Amanda works within a community context because when everyone participates, the best outcomes are achieved. Engaging stakeholders, identifying objectives, assessing the risks involved, working out a strategy, and then planning and managing the process are Amanda’s interest areas.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, a physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Caring through disaster appeared first on Policy Forum.

Sharon Friel and Fran Baun look at the challenges of health inequality, over-consumption and how we move forward toward a better future.

To have healthy people we need to have a healthy planet, and in order to do that we need to be prioritising the health and wellbeing lens as a powerful tool for policy shifts.

“It can’t be biomedical, it’s about social. It can’t be economic, it’s about social. It can’t be colonisation, it’s about social,” Sharon Friel says.

Professor Sharon Friel is the Director of the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse, and the Australian Research Centre for Health Equity at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), here at the Australian National University. She is also Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Governance.

Professor Fran Baum, AO, is a public health social scientist, and a professor of health equity at the Stretton Institute, at the University of Adelaide. She has a special interest in creating healthy, equitable and sustainable societies. Fran received an Office of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2016 for her service to public health.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, a physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes on the Crawford School of Public Policy LinkedIn account.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Power and policy: from despair to action appeared first on Policy Forum.

Dr Leigh, a former Economics Professor at the ANU and prolific author on the subject, shares his views on the benefits of randomised trials and what he hopes the newly established Australian Centre for Evaluation will accomplish in a data-rich world.

Understanding the strengths and limitations of each data collection method is crucial. This can include awareness of the knowledge framework that underpins the design of a trial, the structure of the data that’s being collected and the subsequent analysis. Dr Leigh emphasizes the need for better evidence and an evidence-based strategy to improve support and public policies for Australians as we work towards a wellbeing economy.

Dr Andrew Leigh is Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard, is a lawyer and former Economics Professor here at the ANU and has published widely on the topic of economics, public policy and law. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, a physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes on the Crawford School of Public Policy LinkedIn account.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Hierarchies of evidence: reimagining social policy appeared first on Policy Forum.

The pair, along with host Sharon Bessell discuss how this framework can be applied across multiple disciplines from health to climate change to work through complex policy challenges.

Its goal is to break down the silos of thinking, and enable insights from diverse disciplines to not just be ‘bolted on’ to ideas, but be included right from the beginning. Anthea Roberts encourages experts to learn to speak ‘policy pidgin’ and communicate in an interdisciplinary dialogue, while still maintaining their specialty knowledge and perspective.

The discomfort of ideas, rather than just agreement, is beneficial under this framework. Arnagretta Hunter also raises how uncertainty should be incorporated into best practice, not just in health care settings, but across a broad range of policy spheres.

Implementing the framework will require changing how we listen to create a space that will inform and broaden our thinking.

Anthea Roberts is a Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) at the Australian National University. She’s an interdisciplinary researcher and legal scholar who focuses on new ways of thinking about complex and evolving global fields.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Show notes:

Risk, Reward, and Resilience Framework: Integrative Policy Making in a Complex World by Anthea Roberts (2023)

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science Of Belief, Opinion, And Persuasion by David McRaney (2022)

Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters by Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp (2021)

Globalisation and the search for common ground – Policy Forum Pod with Anthea Roberts and Nicholas Lamp (2022)

The post Podcast: Integrating risk, reward and resilience in policy appeared first on Policy Forum.

WARNING: This episode and the below show notes discuss child abuse, sexual assault and suicide.

Listen here:

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study was published in The Medical Journal of Australia. It is the first national survey in the world to examine in detail the experiences of all forms of child maltreatment and the associated health and social consequences.

Maltreatment types that were studied were physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, exposure to domestic violence and neglect. Researchers uncovered that exposure to these types of abuse increased all health risk behaviours. These range from binge drinking, cannabis dependence, smoking, obesity, self-harm and suicide attempts.

The authors state there needs to be more of a focus on multi-type maltreatment, as it is more common for children to be exposed to more than one type of abuse. In order to start making progress, Higgins says we must redefine the health care system as a trauma response service.

Professor Higgins notes in the research that girls are more likely to experience multi-type maltreatment and their associated health consequences. However, he is clear that boys experience all forms of maltreatment and support needs to be in place for all genders.

Horrifically, on top of gender disparities, there are factors that more than double the risk of multi-type maltreatment. This includes socioeconomic factors, divorce, mental illness and/or alcohol or drug dependence in the family.

It is also vital we do not just concentrate on children, but on the parents too. “Parents themselves will come to this task of parenting having likely experienced their own child maltreatment.”

If this podcast has raised some issues for you, or someone you know needs support, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. For children and young people, there is also Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. 

Daryl Higgins is a Professor and director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies at the Australian Catholic University. Before joining ACU, Daryl was Deputy Director (Research) at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes | The following was mentioned during this episode

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study: National prevalence and associated health outcomes of child abuse and neglect – Medical Journal of Australia (2023)

Bob Hawke’s speech on ending child poverty (1987)

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2017)

Global Health: Holding industries accountable – Sharon Friel on Policy Forum Pod (2023)

Women in leadership with Natasha Stott Despoja – Policy Forum Pod (2021)

Preventing violence against women and girls with disabilities – Patty Kinnersly on Policy Forum Pod (2022)

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Uncovering a cycle of child abuse in Australia appeared first on Policy Forum.

Professor Sharon Friel joins Sharon Bessell and Arnagretta Hunter for a challenging conversation about the commercial determinants of health, and what can be done to save and improve lives.

You can listen here.

We discuss how there is no silver bullet fix, and it would take a multilevel and multi-pronged approach to commercial determinants of health and if it is done right, it could save a third of preventable global deaths. However, the implications are far more wide-reaching than that. If we take into consideration the indirect impact that industries have, from health and health inequities, income inequalities and changes to our lived environment, “well above half of the global burden of disease could be eliminated” Professor Friel states. The challenge is enforcing change across unregulated industries, and on transnational corporations.

“The most basic public health question is not whether the world has the resources or will to take such actions, but whether humanity can survive if society fails to make this effort.”

Sharon Friel is a Professor of Health Equity and an ARC Laureate Fellow in Planetary Health Equity at the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance. Her research is focused on the intersection of social, commercial, political and environmental factors that contribute to health inequities and what changes policy and governance can make. Professor Friel and her colleagues have recently published a remarkable series of papers on The Commercial Determinants of Health in The Lancet.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes | The following were mentioned during this episode:

Commercial determinants of health published in The Lancet by Sharon Friel, et al. (2023)

21st-century capitalism: structural challenges for universal health care by Susan Sell (2019)

The collateralization of social policy by financial markets in the global south – A freely available chapter can be found in the Routledge international Handbook of Financialization. by Lena Lavinas (2020)

Taxing Extreme Wealth An annual tax on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires: What it would raise and what it could pay for  by Oxfam (2022)

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Global Health – holding industries accountable appeared first on Policy Forum.

In 2022, living with COVID-19 guided decision-making in much of the region. From managing Omicron outbreaks at the start of the year to lifting restrictions for overseas travellers, Pacific nations have re-opened to the rest of the world and the pandemic with it.

The virus has revealed the devastating consequences of the dual crises of pandemic and climate change, along with the difficulty of returning to normal as the economic impacts continue to devastate some communities. However, the pandemic response has continued to show the Pacific’s resilience, as nations have shown ingenuity and embraced regional cooperation to deal with the virus.

In Melanesia, low vaccination rates remained a source of concern as Vanuatu and Solomon Islands reported their first cases of community transmission early in the year. The outbreaks placed immense strain on local health systems, with COVID-19 patients reportedly dying on the hospital floor due to a bed shortage in Honiara. Papua New Guinea remains the Pacific nation with the lowest vaccination rate, with just 3.4 per cent of the population fully vaccinated as of 26 November 2022, according to the World Health Organization.

An important development for Papuans living close to the Torres Strait came in October, with the reinstatement of a free movement treaty with Australia. The treaty, which was suspended for two and a half years during the pandemic, enables coastal communities to cross the international border with permits to continue traditional trade relationships.

More on this: Supporting climate displaced peoples

In Fiji, the first Pacific state to welcome back international travellers, the economy is slowly getting back on track. The country’s net revenue in June 2022 exceeded forecasts by 8.5 per cent, however pre-existing economic and unemployment issues – compounded by the pandemic – remain.

In Polynesia, the double impacts of natural disasters and the pandemic were stark. Tonga’s recovery following the January Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai eruption and resultant tsunami was complicated by the country going into lockdown, with non-government organisations such as Red Cross forced to limit services for weeks due to restrictions.

The adoption of a ‘contactless aid’ system – conducted mostly by community members – has highlighted the benefits of localising humanitarian assistance.

Tuvalu was the last Pacific state to lose its COVID-free status on 2 November this year. Despite a high vaccination rate of 97 per cent, cases exceeded 2,000 in less than three weeks. In response to a request from Tuvalu for support, members of the Fiji Emergency Medical Assistance Team went on their first international assistance mission to help with managing the outbreak.

Samoa experienced significant outbreaks early in the year, sparking a series of lockdowns. Schools closed, re-opened, then closed again, meaning children had to be taught via remote classes that were broadcast on national television stations. Then, after reaching a 98 per cent vaccination rate, the country reopened its borders in August.

More on this: Can Asia and the Pacific get on track to net zero?

Palau’s borders reopened to tourists in May, but visitor numbers remained low, with only one-twelfth of the number of annual pre-pandemic tourists arriving in 2022. Palau’s tourism industry had already suffered a hit after China banned tour groups in 2018. In response, Palau is looking to increase two-way travel with Taiwan.

Elsewhere in Micronesia – which was home to some of the last of COVID-free nations at the beginning of 2022 – a number of countries reported community transmission in the second half of the year. The Federated States of Micronesia reported its first case in July, followed by Marshall Islands in August. Kiribati was affected by the start of year surge, when more than half of the passengers arriving on a flight from Fiji tested positive.

Now that every Pacific Island country had COVID-19 in the community, some remnants of the pre-pandemic world are coming back, with regional meetings such as the Pacific Islands Forum being held in person this year for the first time since 2019. However, the economic devastation the pandemic has wrought on the Pacific, from the loss of tourism and national lockdowns, has left many Pacific states in debt stress and recession.

For most of 2021 and the first half 2022, the focus was on vaccinating the Pacific. Now, the attention has shifted to how the region manages ongoing domestic issues and reconnects with the world, with the economic crisis being just one of the myriad of security issues the Pacific will face in 2023.

As for COVID-19, with restrictions by-and-large removed, the pandemic is no longer at the top of the region’s long list of challenges.

The post COVID-19 – the Pacific response: 2022 in review appeared first on Policy Forum.

Over the past 20 years, policing in Australia has changed dramatically.

But unlike past periods of transformation, this has not come from changes in legislation or court decisions that affect the scope of policing. This time, it is expectation from the public for better policing that has demanded change.

It has had a dramatic effect on the way policing is provided, and without intervention, could set up policing to fail.

There is growing pressure being placed on police to focus not on traditional police work, like investigating organised crime and protecting order in the community. Instead, police are increasingly called upon to perform what are essentially mental health care interventions.

More than a law enforcement agency, policing has become responsible for addressing widespread societal challenges that police forces that are not readily equipped to handle.

For decades now, the mental health system has been unable to meet growing this demand for care. Australia’s collective response has failed to build enough capacity or capability to manage risks and deal with this demand.

Brought about by a shift in mental health care from institutionalisation to community-based models, people experiencing mental illness now encounter police much more regularly. When this happens, things don’t always go well.

The fact that Australia continues to identify these encounters as caused by the execution of the police response, rather than by a deeper division of labour problem, is causing massive issues.

More on this: Podcast: Navigating the mental health system

As overall mental ill-health proliferates, police providing first responses to mental health crises will proliferate too. A recent report published in July 2022 identifies that this is particularly acute among specific age groups, particularly younger people, and in Indigenous communities.

It also shows that police are responding to large numbers of mental health calls, and that officers often don’t have the time or training to manage this in a way that is respectful of the caller and the problem.

For those who argue that police forces simply need to better train the police to manage this challenge, the stark reality is that this is a poor use of police resources. An officer should not be expected to be a policing and security professional and a mental health professional at the same time. Trained mental health experts with strong knowledge and experience should be the ones on the front line.

A recent book published in Canada looks at this specifically, and argues that a use of police resources to meet a problem that is health-related, rather than crime-related, is negatively impacting both patients and law enforcement.

It also identifies that managing mental illness at the community level has become one of the wicked problems facing policing.

More on this: Rethinking the police’s role in mental health support

So, not only is this problem being handled by the wrong professionals, but because police need to protect their status in the community, negativity directed toward police for the way these situations are often handled then further distracts from their core work of public safety.

While some mental health crises would fall into the category of endangering public safety, the vast majority would not.

Because Australia has failed to explicitly ask itself what police should actually do, it has inadvertently tasked them with a large responsibility for one of the most difficult tasks in health care, mental health crisis response. This is increasingly a problem in other countries too.

The truly wicked problem emerges when police are blamed for the job they do when handling these situations, but then nothing it is done to address the root causes of the issue. Police in many countries have called for increased mental health resources to deal with this, and they must be listened to.

If the Australian community wants to see an effective response to the growing issue of mental health, the most important thing isn’t to ‘better train’ police. While this is as an admirable goal in general and may provide some benefits, Australian policymakers need to address the systemic problem beneath police response issues. They need to invest in training many more frontline mental health professionals and increase the capacity and capability of those currently in the health system.

Continuing to approach this problem in the same way into the future will only ever address its symptoms, leaving the disease that causes them untreated.

Of course, reform would not totally remove the police from mental health crisis response – and nor should it, as police are often required to support and protect professionals engaged in this work. Police reform that puts officers firmly in this supporting role, rather than asking them to lead the response to a huge range of complex mental health challenges, will ultimately make Australia a safer and more healthy place.

The post Reforming Australian policing appeared first on Policy Forum.

How can policymakers and health professionals reduce ‘low-value care’, improve outcomes for patients, and address the health system’s carbon footprint? What is the impact of waste and inefficiency on the wellbeing of healthcare workers? And how can the policy debate be reframed so that patients – and meaningful relationships – are at the centre of health care? On this episode of Policy Forum Pod, Professor Rachelle Buchbinder AO from Monash University and Kylie Woolcock, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, join Dr Arnagretta Hunter to discuss low-value care and transforming the health system. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3Qtti7y

Rachelle Buchbinder AO is a rheumatologist, a clinical epidemiologist, and Professor in the Monash University Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine.

Kylie Woolcock is Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, Australia’s national peak body for public and not-for-profit hospitals and healthcare providers.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes | The following were mentioned during this episode:

Choosing Wisely Australia

Hippocrasy: How Doctors Are Betraying Their Oath by Ian Harris and Rachelle Buchbinder, NewSouth Books (2021)

‘Low-value care in Australian public hospitals: prevalence and trends over time’ by Tim Badgery-Parker et al, BMJ Quality & Safety (2018)

‘Value-based healthcare’, Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group.

The post Podcast: Low-value health care and its impact on patients appeared first on Policy Forum.

Why is it ‘no longer’ possible to provide best practice mental health care for everybody in Australia’s public health system? What needs to change to improve the wellbeing of healthcare workers? And how can policymakers ensure there is greater equity for patients in terms of access to quality mental health care? On this episode of Policy Forum Pod, Dr Louise Stone and Dr Philip Keightley from The Australian National University (ANU) Medical School join Dr Arnagretta Hunter and Professor Sharon Bessell to examine what changes are needed in Australia’s mental health system. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3CN9Y1E

If you, or anyone you know needs help you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via http://www.lifeline.org.au/ or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36 or via https://www.beyondblue.org.au/.

Louise Stone is a general practitioner with clinical, research, education and policy expertise in mental health, and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Social Foundations of Medicine group at ANU Medical School.

Philip Keightley is a Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School and works clinically in perinatal psychiatry. He has clinical and research interests in psychotherapy in the medically ill, clinician wellbeing, and perinatal psychiatry.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Sharon Bessell is Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Show notes | The following were mentioned during this episode:

‘Taking the temperature of Australian health care’ featuring Claire Skinner and Lesley Russell, Policy Forum Pod (2022)

National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-21, Australian Bureau of Statistics (2022)

‘Clinical update on psychiatric outcome measurement’ by Jeffrey Looi et al, Australasian Psychiatry (2022)

Experiences of Health Workers in the COVID-19 Pandemic by Marie Bismark et al, Routledge (2022)

‘Time for work to change’ featuring Lyndall Strazdins and John Falzon, Policy Forum Pod (2021)

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group.

The post Podcast: Navigating the mental health system appeared first on Policy Forum.