Health and Climate Change - Lancet report

Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health has been published by the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change.  It examines the impacts of climate change on the health of worldwide populations and suggests policy responses. This Commission includes 60 international experts from multidisciplinary fields and its central message is that tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century.

Using clean renewable energy sources, energy-efficient buildings and active transport options are considered by the report authors to be particularly important in the effort to reduce air pollution and improve the incidence of heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, mental illness and respiratory disease.

Healthy eating pyramid

Nutrition Australia has launched its Healthy Eating Pyramid as a simple visual guide to the types of foods Australians should eat for good health.  It's based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines (2013) for 19-50 year olds.

The bottom of the pyramid includes plant-based foods: vegetables and legumes, fruits and grains, and the guidelines suggest 70% of what we eat should come from this layer.  The middle layer includes dairy foods and alternatives as well as lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds.  The top layer has healthy fats (not saturated or trans fats).

Antimicrobial resistance strategy

Responding to the threat of antimicrobial resistance: Australia's first national antimicrobial resistance strategy 2015–2019 has been released by the Australian Government this month. It was developed in partnership with industry and government, including the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare and aims to guide actions by governments, health professionals, farmers and veterinarians to respond to the threat of antibiotic misuse and resistance.

The Strategy document discusses the looming public health issues globally and nationally related to antimicrobial resistance and “calls on all stakeholders to support a collaborative effort to change those practices that have contributed to the development of resistance and implement new initiatives to reduce inappropriate antibiotic usage and resistance.”

National opioid pharmacotherapy statistics 2014

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released the National opiod pharmacotherapy statistics for 2014.  Dependence on opioid drugs is associated with a range of health and social problems and this bulletin presents information on the clients receiving opioid pharmacotherapy treatment, the doctors prescribing these drugs, and the dosing points that clients attend to receive their medication.

On a snapshot day in 2014, over 48,000 clients received pharmacotherapy treatment for their opioid dependence at 2,432 dosing points around Australia. As in previous year, methadone was the most common pharmacotherapy drug, with around two-thirds (67%) of clients treated with this drug. There were 2,319 prescribers of opioid pharmacotherapy drugs, an increase of 15% from 2013.

Perinatal depression and existing mental health problems

The results of a study published in The Lancet made general news last week when it strongly supported the theory that perinatal depression is a continuation of mental health problems from earlier in life. The research involved tracking Victorian women from adolescence, and has been going since 1992. The researchers concluded that women with a history of persisting common mental disorders before pregnancy are an identifiable high-risk group, deserving of clinical support throughout the childbearing years. "Furthermore, the window for considering preventive intervention for perinatal depression should extend to the time before conception.".

One of the authors, George Patton from the University of Melbourne, wrote a summary piece in The Conversation explaining the study and its implications: Postnatal depression is a continuation of existing mental health problems.  

The full study: Patton, G. C., Romaniuk, H., Spry, E., Coffey, C., Olsson, C., Doyle, L. W., . . . Brown, S. (2015). Prediction of perinatal depression from adolescence and before conception (VIHCS): 20-year prospective cohort study. The Lancet.

Global Drug Survey 2015

The Global Drug Survey (an independent research organisation) each year attracts more than 100,000
online responses from individuals around the world about their drug use. The study looks at prevalence, price, purity, value for money and the proportion of people seeking medical treatment. The 2015 survey specifically focussed on:

• The dark net - with the closure of Silk Road, how are people buying drugs online?
• Nitrous oxide - the risks of neurological harm from this drug
• E-cigarettes - whether these might be used for something other than nicotine
• Performance enhancing drugs - weight loss agents and anabolic steroids
• Cognitive enhancers - Ritalin, modafanil and atomoxetine use among students and working people.

Health and welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

The health and welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 2015 is the eighth in a series of reports that provide a comprehensive statistical picture of a range of topics considered important for improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people. The report presents up-to-date statistics, as well as trend information. It examines differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, as well as differences by factors such as age, sex and, in particular remoteness. 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Cat. no. IHW 147.

My Aged Care website

From 1 July 2015 the aged care system is changing, with the aim to make it easier for Australians to understand their options, the costs involved and how to access this support. 

My Aged Care is the first step for individuals and their families seeking advice on their options and how to access this support. It has been established by the Australian Government to help people navigate the aged care system.

Total and domain-specific sitting time among employees

Prolonged time spent in sedentary behaviours (e.g. too much sitting) has emerged as a new behavioural risk factor for chronic diseases, independent of the amount of time spent in leisure-time
physical activity. Desk-based employees reported that more than half of their total daily sitting time was accrued in the work setting. Given the high contribution of occupational sitting to total daily sitting time among desk-based employees, interventions should focus on the work setting.
This free article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health concluded that health strategies to reduce daily sitting levels in desk-based workers should particularly focus on younger,
overweight/obese and insufficiently active individuals, as it seems that they are at the highest risk of this health-risk behaviour.
Bennie, J. A., Pedisic, Z., Timperio, A., Crawford, D., Dunstan, D., Bauman, A., van Uffelen, J. and Salmon, J. (2015), Total and domain-specific sitting time among employees in desk-based work settings in Australia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 39: 237–242. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12293

A nurses' guide to Qualitative research

This article provides a breakdown of the components of qualitative research methodology. Its intention is to simplify the terminology and process of qualitative research to enable novice readers of research to better understand the concepts involved. The content of this article is intended to support the novice investigator to move towards higher levels of clinical competence  with regard to understanding and using research.

Ingham-Broomfield, Rebecca. (2015) A nurses' guide to Qualitative research. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(3) 34-40.

Urinary tract infections in adults

 This quality standard covers the management of suspected community‑acquired bacterial urinary tract infection in adults aged 16 years and over. This includes women who are pregnant, people with indwelling catheters and people with other diseases or medical conditions such as diabetes.
The standard from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK, includes diagnosis, urine culture and antibiotic treatment.
Urinary tract infections in adults. NICE quality standard [QS90] June 2015

Ageing Well: A guide to planning ahead for older people who live with mental illness

Planning ahead is about preparing for issues related to living arrangements, physical and mental healthcare, financial and lifestyle matters. 
Even though planning ahead is important to maintain wellbeing, SANE Australia’s research found that the majority of people living with mental illness, and their carers, struggle to plan for the future.
Discussions about a person’s wishes and needs as they age can be difficult, but are crucial to ensure choice, comfort and quality of care.
SANE’s new resource, the Ageing Well guide, has been developed to make the process of planning easier, with a checklist to help people develop a plan.

Ageing Well: A guide to planning ahead for older people who live with mental illness, their family and friends. 2015. Sane Australia

Melanoma Management

Skin cancer is on the rise. According to the World Health Organization 132,000 melanoma skin cancers occur globally each year. While early-stage melanoma is usually relatively easy to treat, once disease spreads prognosis worsens considerably. Therefore, research into combating advanced-stage melanoma is a high priority. The journal Melanoma Management presents both issues for 2015 as open access.

Nutrition advice from bariatric surgeon

Dr Garth Davis is a Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and manages a weight management clinic in Houston, Texas. Our Misplaced Obsession With Protein & High Fat, Low Carb Diets* is a podcast where he discusses his own improved health and weight since adopting a plant-based diet, and presents evidence to support plant-based diets as being the most healthy way to improve longevity and wellbeing.  Davis delivers his message clearly and with conviction.

*Please note, this podcast may not work on every browser. Try an alternative if you have problems.  

Be Nice to Your Casuals

Jess Morton is a casual EEN and has written an informative piece for the blog Nurse Uncut. The post "Casual Nurse and Proud of it" writes honestly about the difficulties presented to her when working in different wards. "I’ve walked into a department or ward and in my bubbly manner introduced myself , “Hi, I’m Jess. I’m the EEN working this afternoon”, more times than I could count. Of the hundreds of times I’ve made that introduction, a good number of them have been met with a glance up and down and, well, nothing!" Lets hope that this isn't the reception facing casuals in our hospitals.

Casual nurse and proud of it!               

The practice of system leadership: Being comfortable with chaos

This report published by the Kings Fund looks at the challenges facing the NHS in England, and what type of leadership skills are needed to be a system leader. The system needs leaders who can motivate staff and managers to work differently, across service and organisational boundaries. That is the only way to meet the needs of the growing number of people with complex and long-term conditions, many of whom rely on care and support from different services.

The Practice of System Leadership. The Kings Fund 2015    

Recommendations for prevention of weight gain

This guideline, "Recommendations for prevention of weight gain and use of behavioural and pharmacological interventions to manage overweight and obesity in adults in primary care", has recently been published by the  Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. The objective of the guideline was to provide evidence-based recommendations for structured interventions aimed at preventing weight gain in adults of normal weight. And to also provide recommendations for behavioural and pharmacologic interventions for weight loss to manage overweight and obesity in adults, including those at risk of type 2 diabetes.

Read the guideline here.

Patient Experiences in Australia: Statistics

This publication from the Australian Bureau of Statistics presents information from the 2013-14 Patient Experience Survey. The ABS Patient Experience Survey is conducted annually and collects data on access and barriers to a range of health care services, including general practitioners (GPs), medical specialists, dental professionals, imaging and pathology tests, hospital admissions and emergency department visits. It includes data from people that accessed health services in the previous 12 months, as well as from those who did not, and enables analysis of health service information in relation to particular population groups. Data are also collected on aspects of communication between patients and health professionals.

4839.0.55.002 - Patient Experiences in Australia: States and Territories, 2013-14 

Young Australians, Illness and Education

This report by Julie White and Karen Rosauer of the Victoria Institute, provides a detailed summary of education, health and demographic information about Australian children and young people who live with significant health conditions. This study closely examined a national database of 2360 such individuals through the socio-economic indexes developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.The major purpose of this study was to provide an empirical base for policy recommendation and further investigation. An important secondary aim of the study was to contribute to the growing body of evidence about pressing educational issues related to these children and young people.
Click here to access the report for free.

American Cancer Society Magalog

The American Cancer Society has grouped together a large number of articles into ACS Magalog. All of these articles are free and  present some of the latest emerging therapeutic strategies, evidence based care practices, screening and prevention tools, and trends and risk factors in cancer. The articles are relevant to people in research, clinical practice, or public health.

American Cancer Society Magalog 2015           

Oxford Medical Case Reports

Oxford Medical Case Reports (OMCR) is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal. It publishes original and educational case reports that expand the field of medicine. The journal covers all medical specialties comprising a comprehensive resource for physicians in all fields and at all stages of training. You can either browse the current issue and archive or look through case reports via subject specialty.