Sherry Saggers

Beating the grog: An evaluation of the Tennant Creek liquor licensing restrictions

Objective : To review the effectiveness of, and community attitudes towards, increased restrictions on the availability of alcohol in Tennant Creek.

Men who have sex with men's sexual relations with women in Bangladesh

Studies of men who have sex with men in South Asian countries including Bangladesh have tended to focus mainly on measuring male‐to‐male sexual risk behaviours, with less attention being given to understanding the nature and meaning of their sexual relations with women. This can result in missed opportunities for HIV/AIDS‐related intervention. This paper, based on a small scale qualitative study, attempts to develop a cultural model to understand men who have sex with mens sexual relations with women within a gender and masculinity framework. Findings reveal that in Bangladesh men who have sex with men frequently surrender to societal pressures to marry, become husbands and shoulder fatherhood. This forces some women to become the silent sufferers of some of the negative consequences of hetero‐normative patriarchal practice. Importantly, however, men who have sex with men consider sex with women a form of real sex within a framework of masculine sexual potency irrespective of preference, desire or eroticism. Thus, challenges exist to undertaking sexual health promotion and HIV/AIDS prevention in culturally sensitive ways.

Measuring Community Development: Perspectives from Local Government in Western Australia

Local government in Australia has become an important site for discussions about community development and community well being, as increasing numbers of community services are being devolved to this level. Pressures towards greater accountability and demonstration of competitiveness, stemming from the implementation of National Competition Policy have led to attempts to better measure community development activities. In this paper we report on research conducted among management, elected members and community workers at five Western Australian Local Government Authorities which explored the nature and appropriateness of community development measurement. We found workers at all levels of employment struggling, not simply with notions of measurement, but also with fundamental understandings of community development.

Theorising Indigenous health: a political economy of health and substance misuse

Abstract For more than two decades we have been engaged in a program of research which examines the health of Indigenous people. More recently this work has focused on ways in which substance misuse affects communities, and their responses to it. Our work is framed by understandings derived from political economy, which directs attention to the web of political and economic relations surrounding individuals and social groups. We have stressed that this framework should not be interpreted in a crudely deterministic fashion, which neglects the nuances of the social determinants of health, or individual and community agency. Much of our recent work documents such agency in community-based actions throughout Australia. In this paper we examine Indigenous drinking and its consequences, outline a political economy approach to drinking, and discuss how this has informed our work. We conclude with a discussion of some criticisms of this approach and our responses.

'My Journey Map': Developing a qualitative approach to mapping young people's progress in residential rehabilitation

Young people with substance misuse issues are at risk of harm from significant negative health and life events. Contemporary research notes both a historical failure to recognize the unique needs of adolescents, and the ongoing need for dedicated adolescent treatment programs and outcome measures. It is concerning that there is so little literature assessing the quality, availability, and effectiveness of adolescent-focused treatment programs, and no adolescent-specific measurement tools centered on a young persons progress in residential treatment. This article reports on the process of developing a qualitative approach to mapping progress in treatment over time. The research seeks to develop an approach that captures, at three points in time and from multiple viewpoints, the progress of young people in four residential rehabilitation services located in New South Wales and Western Australia, across several dimensions of the personal and social aspects of life. Our aim is to develop an approach that is accessible to the alcohol and other drug workforce, and that informs the development of a psychometrically robust quantitative measure of progress that is meaningful and useful both to practitioners and to the young people themselves.

'Now we can drink, too': changing drinking practices among Polish- Australian women

Abstract This paper examines the effects of migration on the drinking patterns of a group of Polish-Australian women. Contrary to other Australian research on migrant women’s drinking practices, this small, qualitative study indicates that many Polish women quickly adopted Australian drinking patterns. However, on special occasions some also took on the so called ‘Polish drinking’ pattern of consuming mostly spirits, frequently undiluted, to intoxication, characteristic of male drinking in their homeland. In contrast, drinking patterns of young, Polish-Australian women in tertiary education and those who completed their education in Australia, were very similar to those of Australian-born young women. This study suggests that there is a need for further research on drinking patterns among migrant women, drinking practices in the home country and the age of migration.