James A. Smith

Editorial - Health promotion: essential to a national preventative health strategy

In April 2008 the Australian Government announced the establishment of a National Preventative Health Taskforce (NPHT) with the primary function of developing a national preventative health strategy. In October 2008 a discussion paper and three technical reports1 were released with a call for input from individuals and organisations, professional and consumer groups. This editorial outlines four key issues from the Australian Health Promotion Association’s (AHPA) submission: • the importance of a broad social determinants of health approach; • clear explanations of ‘prevention’ and ‘health promotion’; • establishing health promotion high on the political agenda; and • building the capacity of Australia’s highly skilled health promotion workforce to strengthen health promotion action across Australia.

Participation in higher education in Australia among under-represented groups: What can we learn from the Higher Education Participation Program to better support Indigenous learners?

In 1988 the release of the Higher Education: A Policy Statement White Paper focused Australia’s national higher education equity policy on “changing the balance of the student population to reflect more closely the composition of society as a whole” (Dawkins 1990, 2-3). While improvement in access and participation has been noted for women, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and people with disabilities, the interventions has remained less effective for people from Lower Socio-Economic Status (LSES backgrounds), Indigenous peoples; rural, regional and remote residents; (Gale & Tranter, 2011; Koshy & Seymour 2014). In 2009, in response to the Bradley Review (2008), the Australian government set a new agenda again focused on equitable participation in higher education, along with associated equity targets (which have since been abandoned), and funding to enable this reform as well as increased participation. Funding was delivered through the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP), renamed the Higher Education Participation Program (HEPP) in 2015 (Australian Government Department of Education and Training, 2015). A range of national partnerships, policy initiatives and programs has been used to facilitate improved achievement in schools as well as enable access, participation and achievement in higher education. These actions have included targeted programs through the use of intervention strategies aimed at widening participation in, and improving access to higher education.

The medicalisation of prevention: Health promotion is more than a pill a day

Colin Binns, Peter Howat, James Smith and Jonine Jancey School of Public Health, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia. Collaboration for Evidence, Research and Impact in Public Health, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia. Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT 0909, Australia. Corresponding author. Email: j.jancey@curtin.edu.au

What Do We Know About Community Engagement in Indigenous Education Contexts and How Might This Impact on Pathways into Higher Education

Community engagement is often cited as a critical component of working with Indigenous communities in both Australia and other countries. Ideally, this involves engaging in ‘bottom-up’ approaches that scope, identify and subsequently respond to community needs and aspirations. Community engagement is usually participatory and developmental in nature. It is often used as a means to shape policy and program development, scope research approaches and support enhanced service delivery in a range of settings, including the education sector. However, the physical, social, cultural, economic and political contexts in which community engagement occurs can be different. As such, there is no definitive approach to what community engagement both ‘looks’ and ‘feels’ like within different Indigenous education contexts. This chapter systematically explores what we already know about Indigenous community engagement, and how this relates to Indigenous education, and more specifically, Indigenous higher education contexts in Australia. We argue that there are four key factors that can impact on pathways into higher education for Indigenous students, which include ‘redefining community engagement from Indigenous standpoints’; ‘appropriately resourcing Indigenous community engagement activities’; ‘continuing to build an evidence base to learn from recent Indigenous community engagement investments’ and the need to ‘move beyond the rhetorical language used in many policy documents and frameworks.’ We conclude by suggesting that improvements in the quality and quantum of Indigenous community engagement work occurring in higher education in Australia will ultimately enhance opportunities for successful Indigenous pathways and transitions into university.

Optimising camera trap deployment design across multiple sites for species inventory surveys

Camera traps are being increasingly used in biological surveys. One of the most common uses of camera trap data is the generation of species inventories and estimations of species richness. Many authors have advocated for increased camera trap-nights (long deployment times or more cameras in an array) to detect rare or wide-ranging species. However, in practice, the number of traps and the duration of surveys are constrained; a survey leader must make decisions about allocating the available cameras to sites. Here we investigate the effect of deployment time, camera array size and number of sites on detection of saxicoline mammal and varanid species obtained from surveys of discrete vegetation pockets in tropical Australia. This paper provides an analysis method for optimising decisions about how a limited number of cameras should be deployed across sites. We found that increasing the number of sites leads to larger species richness estimates in a shorter period. Increasing the number of cameras per site also leads to higher species richness estimates in a shorter time, but not to the same extent as increasing the number of sites. With fewer sites used or smaller arrays deployed at each site, a longer deployment duration is required, especially for rarer or wider-ranging species, or those not attracted to bait. Finally, we compared estimates of species richness generated by our camera trapping to those generated by live trapping at a subset of our sites, and found camera traps generated much larger estimates.

Understanding the Nexus Between Equity and Indigenous Higher Education Policy Agendas in Australia

In 2008, the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education highlighted the importance of ‘increasing the number of under-represented groups within Australia’s higher education system – including Indigenous people, people with low socio-economic status, and those from regional and remote areas’ (Bradley et al. Review of Higher Education in Australia: final report. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra, 2008). Building on over two decades of equity policy development in higher education in Australia, these ‘equity groups’ were subsequently afforded a more legitimate place in the future national higher education policy arena. One notable example was a greater focus on Indigenous higher education, including the commissioning of the Behrendt Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Behrendt et al. Review of Higher Education access and outcomes for aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: final report. Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, Canberra, 2012). This review, in tandem with incremental investments in Indigenous higher education over the previous decades, has led to dedicated funding streams for Indigenous higher education initiatives. We argue that the parallel policy focus on the broad national equity agenda and the more specific Indigenous higher education agenda can be both complementary and divergent. These contrasting positions are particularly evident in the implementation of respective equity and Indigenous programs in higher education institutions across Australia. In this chapter we discuss the unique theoretical dimensions and principles underpinning each of these higher education policy agendas and explore the synergies and tensions between them. We adopt a strengths-based perspective to explain what the future possibilities and opportunities might be in promoting greater cohesion, integration and interdependence between equity and Indigenous higher education agendas in Australia.

Investing in men’s health in Australia

esearch has consistently shown a sex differential in illness and mortality between men and Rwomen.1 It is widely acknowledged that this difference relates to a combination of biological and sociological factors, including the social construction of gender. Empirical evidence shows that life expectancy among men in Australia has raised slightly over the past decade. However, the report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare The health of Australia’s males indicates that some men make healthy lifestyle choices and have positive health outcomes. About two-thirds of men participate in sports or physical activities, nearly 40% discuss health lifestyle concerns with a health professional, 20% rate their health as excellent, and survival rates for prostate cancer and testicular cancer in Australia are improving. Yet, popular wisdom would have us believe that men are stoic and do not seek help or use health services. There are clear indications that the tides are changing.

Maintaining connection to family, culture and community: implications for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pathways into higher education

ABSTRACT Maintaining connections to family, culture and community is essential for strengthening an Aboriginal child’s educational achievements. The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects self-reported information on a range of factors that can assist in understanding what influences Aboriginal children to complete school. The 2014–2015 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) provides a national snapshot about how various characteristics influence the educational experience of Aboriginal children in remote Australia. In this article, findings from NATSISS have been used to interrogate qualitative data from the Whole of Community Engagement initiative led by Charles Darwin University. This is a multi-site participatory action research project working across six remote communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. We use Indigenous community perspectives to describe why maintaining connection to family, culture and community is important for both Aboriginal high school completions in remote Australia, and the subsequent impact this has on pathways into higher education.

Ten years on from the World Health Organization Commission of Social Determinants of Health: progress or procrastination?

Ten years have passed since the release of the final report of the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH),1 a landmark document that provided a global blue‐print for the health promotion community and the stakeholders we work with. Three overarching recommendations were outlined, improving daily living conditions; tackling the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources; and measuring and understanding the problem and assessing the impact of action.1 The extent to which progress has been, and continues to be, made is contested. This editorial briefly reflects on what has been achieved over the past decade—in broad terms—about action on the social determinants of health (SDH) in Australia. We deliberately take a balanced view by highlighting the weaknesses and strengths in what has been achieved by governments, non‐government organisations, research institutions, peak bodies and civil society. We also reflect on the ongoing role that the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA) has played in advancing our understanding about, and action on, the SDH.

Indigenous Pathways and Transitions into Higher Education: An Introduction

University is not for everyone, but a university should be for everyone. To a certain extent, the choice not to participate in higher education should be respected given that there are other avenues and reasons to participate in education and employment that are culturally, socially and/or economically important for society. Those who choose to pursue higher education should do so knowing that there are multiple pathways into higher education and, once there, appropriate support is provided for a successful transition.