Swine flu controversy

This morning's Rear Vision program on ABC's Radio National focused on the H1N1 virus and whether the World Health Organisation made the right call in declaring a pandemic in 2009. In True diligence or conspiracy: The WHO's handling of Swine Flu? Annabelle Quince interviews Dr Deborah Cohen, one of the co-authors of a recent BMJ article criticising WHO, and Dr Gregory Hartl, The World Health Organisation's spokesperson for H1N1. The program is repeated on Sunday at 1.30 pm.

In Australia, 21 million doses of swine flu vaccine were purchased in accordance with WHO's pandemic guidelines. A year later, only 9 million of those have been distributed and the remainder is unused. Cohen's article, "WHO and the pandemic flu 'conspiracies'" (BMJ 2010;340:c2912) is available free online and criticises the procedures used by the WHO, claiming that a number of the WHO experts have had financial links with pharmaceutical companies producing antiviral drugs and influenza vaccines. Read Margaret Chan's response in "WHO Director-General responds to the BMJ" published only yesterday.

Finding the Evidence: workbooks and toolkits

The Centre for Clinical Effectiveness is an evidence-based practice support unit that encourages and supports health professionals, managers and policy makers to use the best available evidence to improve healthcare. They provide information, expertise and resources to assist health service personnel in getting evidence from research into everyday clinical practice and evaluating the effect on patient care. A number of workbooks and toolkits are provided online and can be downloaded for personal use but must not be distributed without permission from Southern Health.

CPD, education and national registration for nurses

National registration of nurses is fast approaching. From July 2010, all nurses Australia-wide will be required to undertake a minimum of 20 hours continuing professional development each year to meet the annual registration standards. This is a new development for nurses in some states. The College of Nursing offers a number of short courses which support learning in key content areas.
There is more information about national registration at the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia’s Website: http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/index.php.

Indigenous Smoking Project

This report on the outcomes of the Indigenous tobacco advocacy workshops and consultations, also provides recommendations on future funding directions for Indigenous tobacco control in Western Australia.
Read the full report here.

Suicide in Australia

The Hidden toll : Suicide in Australia is a report just released by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, which makes 42 recommendations to governments on how the impact of suicide can be reduced.

"At least six Australian lives are taken by suicide every day, however there continues
to be a lack of public awareness about the impact of suicide on the community. The
title of the Committee's report The Hidden Toll: Suicide in Australia reflects this
situation as well as the hope that increased public attention and support for suicide
prevention can reduce the damage it causes." The recommendations include the urging of special strategies and funding for men, Indigenous communities, children, people from rural and remote areas and recently released prisoners.

Australia's Health 2010 - AIHW

Australia's health 2010 is the 12th biennial health report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and is available free online. "It's the nation's premier source of statistics and informed commentary on: determinants of health and keys to prevention; diseases and injury; how health varies across population groups; health across the life stages; health services, expenditure and workforce; the health sector's performance."

99 Life-saving Reasons to Celebrate

The Federal Government’s reform of organ and tissue donation in Australia is reaping dividends with a significant jump in donation and subsequent transplant rates last month.
Transplant Australia, the national community stakeholder organisation representing those waiting for transplants and recipients, today welcomed figures that showed that a total of 99 Australians had their lives saved through transplantation in May.

Many Australians do not realise that, even if they have registered to be a donor, it is the people close to them that will be asked to give the final OK. One organ and tissue donor can save up to 10 lives and improve the lives of many more. Donate Life has information for the public as well as packages for GPs.

• DISCOVER the facts about organ and tissue donation.


• DECIDE about becoming an organ and tissue donor.


• DISCUSS your decision with the people close to you.

Find out more at http://www.donatelife.gov.au/

Multicultural Mental Health Australia

Multicultural Mental Health Australia (MMHA) develops a range of mental health resources, tools, multilingual information for the community and the mental health sector.

• Fact sheets and pamphlets in a variety of languages and topics


• Books and reports on mental health issues affecting people from CALD backgrounds and mental health in general


• Magazine Synergy published 3 times per year


• Posters and other merchandise for promotional purposes


• This site also has a range of publications and resource listings

Multicultural Mental Health Australia is funded by the The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing through the National Mental Health Strategy.

Ageing, dementia and adult survivors of childhood sexual assault

Aware is the newsletter for the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault. The latest issue focuses on two discussions. The first discussion has a focus on dementia and elderly survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The second discussion is about public education media campaigns, with a focus on the recent (and controversial) "Father of the Bride" campaign initiated by the Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA).

Publications from the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA) are available from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). If you would like to receive future publications as they are released please register your details for the ACSSA mailing list.
Aware Newsletter.

Tropical Medicine and Dermatology

Read the new IJD Virtual Issue on Tropical Medicine and Dermatology FREE online.
The International Journal of Dermatology has an historic interest in tropical skin diseases and dermatology from all areas of the globe. This Virtual Issue pulls together a selection of recent tropical medicine articles published in the Journal. Click here to view for free until July 16.

Immune system podcast

Exploring the immune system’s first lines of defence is a Podcast from the NHMRC in which Professor Francis Carbone, a 2010 NHMRC Australia Fellow, tells Carolyn Norrie about his work studying the immune system’s first lines of defence – the skin, gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts - and efforts to understand how we can stop infections at these sites before a microbe gets in and starts to fester within the body.

Mens Health online

With Men's Health Week occurring this week, an initiative of the RACGP, the M5 Project, has introduced a new online health risk assessment tool aimed at getting men to take an active role in focusing on their health and wellbeing. M5 HEALTH ONLINE is designed to engage men with a personalised experience that includes targeted health information and interactive risk assessments, coupled with professional ongoing support and advice. The "5" is the five steps men can take straight away to reduce their risk of dying from preventable conditions:

• Share your family history with your GP
• Know your healthy weight
• Check your blood pressure
• Stop smoking – it’s the only health option
• Maintain a healthy mind and a healthy body

Evaluation of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program

An evaluation of the Kitchen Garden program, now in 140 primary schools around Melbourne, finds encouraging positive health-behaviour change in participating children.
It was found ...
• High level of enthusiasm for cooking and gardening
• Keen to be involved in food purchasing decisions
• Willing to try new foods - at least sometimes.
• Majority “limited eaters” with limited “food literacy”
• Majority showed basic or limited cooking and gardening skills and knowledge.
Download the full report and key findings here.

Australian hospital statistics 2008-09

This report presents a detailed overview of Australia's 1,317 public and private hospitals. In 2008-09, there were 8.1 million separations from Australia's hospitals including: 4.5 million same-day acute separations; 3.3 million overnight acute separations; almost 300,000 non-acute separations. There were 7.2 million presentations to public hospital emergency departments, with 70% of patients seen within the recommended times for their triage categories.

Download the report here.

Beyond life expectancy

For over 20 years, the popular press has been trumpeting the pending and imminent disaster that is 'the ageing of the Australian population'. We are told that our hospitals are filling up with 'sick old people', the demand for aged care services will drain resources from all other areas of social service, and the need to pay pensions (or repay investments in superannuation) will bring the nation to its knees. "The ageing of the 'baby boomer' generation is portrayed as something akin to a horror movie."

This essay by Diane Gibson, is the fifth in a series of essays based on data from the 2006 Census, produced in cooperation with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. It identifies the population is ageing and we will need to change and we will need to learn new individual behaviours and identify and implement changes in our health, social and economic systems.To see the full paper click here.

The shocking cost of turnover in health care

An article in the latest issue of Health Care Management Review looks at turnover costs at a major medical center. Here, turnover includes hiring, training, and productivity loss costs. Minimum cost of turnover represented a loss of >5 percent of the total annual operating budget. Cost of turnover-a non-value-adding element in the organizational budget-forces managers to focus on retention. The huge recurring expense created by turnover offers opportunities to improve employee satisfaction, reduce turnover, improve quality, and cut costs by diverting the current financial drain into programs and policies that encourage retention.
NSW Health staff can access the fulltext of this article via CIAP.
Health Care Management Review
Issue: Volume 35(3), July/September 2010, pp 206-211

Access to primary health care report

Measuring what matters: Do Australians have good access to primary health care? This study from the Australia Institute shows that the majority of Australians would be willing to see a nurse practitioner for a wide range of services now commonly provided by doctors. It presents the first data collected for the Measuring what Matters indicators; access to primary health care. The paper begins by presenting new data on why people say they wish to see a doctor and then reports the degree of difficulty that Australians experience as to their ability to make appointments with doctors at a time that is appropriate. The paper concludes with new data suggesting that the majority of Australians would be willing to see a nurse practitioner for a wide range of services now commonly provided by doctors.

Women and cardiovascular disease

The AIHW has released a new report and summary: Women and heart disease : Cardiovascular profile of women in Australia. It focuses on the impact of cardiovascular disease on the health of Australian women - a group who may not be aware of how significant a threat this disease is to them. The report presents the latest data on prevalence, deaths, disability, hospitalisations, services, treatments, risk factors and expenditure, as well as comparisons to other important diseases among women. This report is a useful resource for policy makers, researchers, health professionals and anyone interested in cardiovascular disease in Australian women.

Participate in clinical trials

A new service called Trialspotting gives Australians, for the first time, direct access to a wide range of medical research studies needing volunteers. The free on-line service has the support of leading Australian research institutes because it releases researchers from the time consuming process of trying to find volunteers. Now researchers can concentrate on scientific discoveries and treatments, while Australians interested in volunteering for important medical research can use the new trialspotting service to search for trials and studies by location, key health words or research centres.

Health of Australia's prisoners

The health of Australia's prisoners 2009, from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, is the culmination of several years' development of national indicators in relation to prisoner health in Australia. This first national report shows that prisoners in Australia have poor health compared to the general community. A week-long snapshot of prison entrants in Australia during 2009 showed: · 25% had a chronic condition (such as asthma, cardiovascular disease or diabetes) · 81% were current smokers; 52% consumed alcohol at risky levels; and 71% had used illicit drugs during the previous 12 months · 37% of prison entrants reported having received a mental health diagnosis at some time; 43% had received a head injury resulting in a loss of consciousness; and 31% had been referred to prison mental health services.

The report also contains data relating to communicable diseases, educational attainment, deaths in custody, the use of health services and the types of medications used by prisoners.

Link between asthma and diet?

Professor Charles Mackay believes a connection between the immune and metabolic systems might be causing the increase in certain inflammatory diseases such as asthma in western countries.
Download this NHMRC podcast, or read the transcript of Australian Fellow Professor Mackay's interview with Carolyn Norrie, where he asserts that this discovery is potentially one of the most exciting things to happen in immunology. He explains that his Fellowship team’s investigations will cover a number of strands, including the immune-metabolic system connection, how newly discovered ‘helper’ T cells influence B cells, and how cells migrate around the body.

WHO tobacco report

WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2009: Implementing smoke-free environments has just been released. It is the second report in a series tracking the status of the tobacco epidemic and the impact of anti-smoking interventions.

The report provides a comprehensive overview of the evidence base for protecting people from the harms of second-hand tobacco smoke through legislation and enforcement. There is a special focus on the status of implementation of smoke-free policies, with detailed data collected on a global basis. Additional analyses of smoke-free legislation were performed, allowing a more detailed understanding of progress and future challenges in this area.

Educating patients in using Internet health sources

Patients researching health conditions on the internet should use reputable and frequently updated websites and not see online research as a replacement for consulting healthcare professionals, according to a paper in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing by Weber et al. The authors recommend the use of the GATOR acronym, Genuine, Accurate, Trustworthy, Origin and Readability when evaluating sources of health information.

A research review carried out by a team from the University of Florida, USA, found that 86 per cent of adult patients use the internet to get answers to health-related questions, but only 28 to 41 per cent consult primary healthcare providers about the information they find out.

Educating patients to evaluate web-based health care information: the GATOR approach to healthy surfing can be found in the Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol 19, pages 1371–1377. Access the full text through CIAP or contact your librarian.