29 August 2013

Mailout to Network Subscribers

Attachments can be sourced by request....

1. Australian Political Party Poverty Audit August 2013
ASAP Oceania’s report, Australian Political Party Poverty Audit (August 2013), assesses the policies of the three major political parties for their implication on poverty. ASAP Oceania ASAP (Academics Stand Against Poverty) has recently being established under the auspices of the Social Justice Network at the University of Sydney.

In their report, Australian Political Party Poverty Audit, leading academics, examine the poverty implications of the policies of the the ALP, the Coalition, and the Australian Greens, in key policy areas including education, Indigenous policy, housing, foreign aid, migration and others.

To access the report, click on the link or cut and paste to your browser:
http://sydney.edu.au/images/content/news/2013/aug/ASAP_Australian_Political_Party_Poverty_Audit.pdf

2. You are invited to complete a survey for 3P Consulting in Tasmania on the Social Determinants of Health
This research is being undertaken for the Tasmania Medicare Local.

For more information contact:
Michelle Strickland
3P Consulting
Ph:  (03) 6334 7028
Mob:  0409 745 698

3. Bridges Out of Poverty Training – TML:
Tasmania Medicare Local is coordinating a series of workshops (Bridges Out of Poverty) as part of its Social Determinants of Health initiative to provide practitioners with practical tools to assist Tasmanians affected by poverty and disadvantage. The all-day workshops will be held on 3 and 9 October 2013 at the Tramsheds, Launceston.  Please see attached flyer for more information and registration details.

If you would like more information about our Social Determinants of Health and Health Risk Factors projects please send a return email requesting our Fact Sheets.

With best regards
Maree

Maree Gleeson
Manager - Social Determinants of Health

4. Health activism: the way forward to improve health in difficult times: http://ped.sagepub.com/content/20/3/49.abstract?etoc
Glenn Laverack
Flinders University – SACHRU, Australia
Abstract
Health activism is an action on behalf of a cause, action that goes beyond what is conventional or routine in society. It involves a challenge to the existing order whenever it is perceived to lead to a social injustice or inequality. Today social injustice is killing people on a grand scale and it is timely for health activism to be used as a way forward to improve health during difficult economic and political times. Health activism is essential because it can create the necessary conditions for people to take control over their own lives when others cannot or will not act on their behalf. Health promotion agencies and the practitioners that they employ, professional organisations and researchers can also play an important role. What is clear is that if greedy corporations and complacent governments are not challenged, we will continue to have limited success in improving health.

5. A  call to move beyond SDOH framing to talk about strengths-based cultural determinants of health:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2013/08/23/a-case-study-of-twitter-power-for-aboriginal-health-advocacy-and-self-determination/

6. Australian Health Promotion Association – Election Campaign Material – attached. Invest in health promotion – it makes good cents.


7. Carers Australia Election Campaign – attached.

Latest news sent to Network subscribers

1.       The Our health – who decides? Forum is shaping up really well with thanks to a very active organising committee. Next month we will launch the draft program and provide registration information – so stay tuned.

I’d really like to hear from anyone who would like to be involved in the forum in some way-shape-or form. I will send out more information about opportunities shortly but if you are keen to participate, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line with your ideas. This is after-all, our collective event.

We won’t be calling for abstracts as we don’t have the capacity to manage that process but we will provide you with lots of ‘open-space’ across the two days to share  your thoughts/ideas/perspectives/experiences. More soon.

2.       The next Gavin Mooney Book Club meeting will be held on Friday 13 September at 8:50am – please let me know if you intend to come along and we can work out a suitable venue.

3.       Below are some items that may interest you.

Local Items (Tas & Interstate)

1. Launceston – Child Friendly City:
A group of us (Launceston City Council, UTAS, Anglicare) has commenced a working group to get the ball rolling on a Child Friendly City initiative for Launceston.  The first step will be inviting people to a forum in September who have access to data to assist with deciding which indicators will be used to get a baseline of how children in Launceston are faring now.
Would you, or other members of the network, be interested in participating?

Kind regards
Ruth

Ruth Chalk
northern area manager, children families & community services
Anglicare Tasmania Inc.
122 Elizabeth Street, Launceston, Tasmania 7250
GPO Box 1620, Hobart 7001
Ph    (03) 6333 3017      

2. SDOHAN Members – Social Circus Tasmania:
We (Social Circus Tasmania) are delighted to announce a second season of circus workshops in Hobart and the South of Tasmania, during the October school holidays. We are available for bookings from schools, community organisations and groups for workshops taking place during the period of 4th October to 13th October, inclusive. 
Best regards, 
Christian Parr

3. Lifeline Tasmania: Out of the Shadows Walk
Dear colleagues,
It is just under a month until the ‘Out of the Shadows Walk’, an event which seeks to raise awareness about suicide prevention.
It would be greatly appreciated if your organisation could assist in advertising the event either through your newsletters, fliers at front desks, or by putting up a poster.
I can send through printed copies of the poster and flier (just let me know your address and how many), or you can find them attached to this email.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
Kind regards,
Kate Taylor
Policy Officer
Lifeline Tasmania
6282 1515
Contact me for these attachments.

4. Forum on challenges new arrivals to Tasmania face, Hobart 27 August
TasCOSS will host a forum on the challenges facing people seeking asylum and humanitarian entrants in Tasmania on Tuesday 27 August, 10am-12.30pm, at the Glenorchy Civic Centre, Hobart.
People seeking asylum and humanitarian entrants face some of the greatest disadvantage in Tasmania, yet their situation is not broadly known or understood.  What are the legal, practical and emotional challenges they face? What services are currently available to them? What services are still needed? Come and discuss how the community sector can reach out and assist. 
Presenters include Al Hines, Red Cross; James Norman, Centacare; Emily Conolan, Tasmanian Asylum Seeker Support; Wynne Russell, TasCOSS, plus a representative of a newly arrived community. For more information, download a New Arrivals forum flyer. 
Register online or RSVP to attend the forum to admin@tascoss.org.au

5. Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Newsletter In Respect of Rightsto sign up visit: http://createsend.com/t/j-FAA0BE3151C623E8#In%20respect%20of%20rights,%20edition%2017,%20August%202013

6. Community needs strong say in hard decisions on health - Australian Health Care Reform Alliance:

“Hard decisions are looming for the increasingly expensive health care system in coming years and decisions cannot be left just to politicians and clinicians. Citizens needs a much stronger say in health care decisions, especially about how Australia is going to afford health care in the future,” says Mr Bo Li, spokesperson for the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance... http://www.healthreform.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Citizen_engagement.pdf

 

7. Government releases first State of Preventive Health report:

Two-thirds of adults and one in four children are overweight or obese and harmful alcohol consumption is widespread in Australia, the first ever State of Preventive Health report has found. Published by the Australian National Preventive Health Agency (ANPHA), the report highlights the work already under way to reduce key risk factors for chronic disease, including obesity and physical inactivity, tobacco use and the harmful use of alcohol. While Australia is considered a world leader in addressing public health challenges, ANPHA recognises that some of the figures in the report are "alarming". http://www.anpha.gov.au/internet/anpha/publishing.nsf/Content/state-of-prev-health-2013

8. Productivity Commission staff working paper on ‘Deep & Persistent Disadvantage in Australia:
ENTRENCHED DISADVANTAGE HASN'T SHIFTED IN A DECADE....Speaking after the release of the The Deep and Persistent Disadvantage in Australia Productivity Commission's study, National Director, Lin Hatfield Dodds said "a combination of inadequate financial support and access to services is forcing vulnerable people into deeper poverty, entrenching their disadvantage, and making it increasingly difficult for them to get ahead." Disadvantage is dynamic. Most people who become disadvantaged are able to move out of it relatively quickly, but a small group remain disadvantaged for extended periods of time. Between 2001 and 2010, 3 per cent of Australians aged 15 years plus experienced deep social exclusion for five or more years and less than 1 per cent for seven years or more. http://pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/124549/deep-persistent-disadvantage.pdf


10. Health Promotion Policy and the Federal Election: Attached are some summaries of the various parties’ health promotion positions. Contact me for this attachment.

 

11. Social Determinants of Health Alliance gathers in Sydney.
Dozens of people from the areas of health, public policy, social services, education and a range of other backgrounds attended the Social Determinants of Health Alliance public forum in Sydney on Tuesday, hearing from a number of speakers on the importance of action on the social determinants as well as advice on how to get politicians to bring about change. Former Victorian Minister of Health, Housing and Aged Care the Hon. Rob Knowles said something as simple as a change of language could help see social determinants, or "pathways out of poverty", pushed up the political agenda. Mr Knowles also said social determinants weren't a hot-button political issue because the issue doesn't resonate with swing voters in marginal electorates, where political parties are concentrating their energy.
Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton spoke about the importance of factors like education, employment, poverty, social cohesion and food quality in determining someone's health outcomes. He said "when it comes to moving upstream from illness and tackling the root cause of health inequities, governments have been slow to act. The AMA wants our governments to make health equity and health impact explicit goals of all public policy in every portfolio." Read the speech Dr Hambleton gave at the forum - https://ama.com.au/media/ama-president-dr-steve-hambleton-social-determinants-health-alliance-public-forum-13-august.

 

12. Social determinants highlighted in this week's Health Matters Youtube video.
As the five-week election campaign moves into its second half, Catholic Health Australia CEO Martin Laverty has focussed on the urgent need for action on the social determinants of health in this week's Health Matters video. CHA, along with a number of other groups around Australia, has been calling for governments to adopt the World Health Organisation's action plan on the social determinants of health, outlined in a 2008 report. That was one of the key recommendations of a Senate Inquiry that tabled its report in March, but politicians have seemingly ignored the topic in the five months since. Mr Laverty calls on whoever forms the next government to adopt the WHO recommendations as a first step in addressing health inequity in Australia. To watch the video http://youtu.be/JG-bjB_Mji4.


13. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework 2012: detail analysis

14. Inquiry into the Mental Health System: The Mental Health Council of Australia (MHCA) has welcomed this week's announcement of Government support for a Productivity Commission inquiry the mental health system. Minister for Mental Health and Ageing Jacinta Collins made the announcement at the Mental Health Services conference in Melbourne. MHCA chief executive officer Frank Quinlan said such an inquiry would be important because it will give insight into the effectiveness of current mental health spending, including the role of factors beyond clinical services. He said it will also provide strong rationale for investing in mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention. It should also help to determine mental health spending priorities, Mr Quinlan said, adding that he hopes there will be bi-partisan support for the inquiry. MHCA has been in discussion with both major parties for several months about possible terms of reference for an inquiry. Click here to read the MHCA media release - http://mhca.org.au/index.php/component/rsfiles/download?path=Media%20Releases/2013/MHCA%20welcomes%20Productivity%20Commission%20Inquiry%20Announcement.pdf

International Items

15. Confronting what makes us sick (Canadian article): A paper released by the CMA on the role of the physician in achieving health equity tackled the issue head-on, and encouraged doctors to think differently about how they can address the social determinants of health in practice.

16. Child well-being in rich countries A comparative overview: http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc11_eng.pdf

17. New Global Handbook on Non-Communicable Diseases and Health Promotion, free e-book. Chapter on trade and NCDs by Ronald Labonte, Katia Mohindra and Raphael Lencucha. Visit:  http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-7594-1/page/1

18.  Raising income could dramatically improve health outcomes for mothers and babies
Aligning method with theory: a comparison of two approaches to modeling the social determinants of health. Maternal and Child Health Journal. 2012; 16 (9): 1870-8. If you can’t access the full article and would like to please let me know and I will try and help.
Issue: Health equity researchers generally study the links between having a low income and a single health problem like diabetes. But a low income doesn’t simply lead to one disease or another. It has an overall negative effect on physical and mental health and leads to multiple, concurrent health problems.
What we did: We looked at health survey data from more than 6,000 Canadian women who had recently given birth. We looked at their experience of these health problems: adverse birth outcomes, postpartum depression, serious abuse, hospitalization during pregnancy and frequent stressful life events. Typically, researchers would look at how income impacted each one of these conditions, separately. In this study, we looked at income and the chance of having multiple health problems (3-5 problems) at the same time.
What we found: Lower income was directly related to having multiple health problems. New mothers with very low incomes were nearly 20 times more likely to face multiple health problems than new mothers with high incomes.
Implications for policy: This study suggests that if new mothers did not have to live on low household incomes, they could see substantial increases to their health and the health of their babies. We found that if all new mothers had household incomes of at least $50,000 a year, the occurrence of multiple health problems around pregnancy could be reduced by 60%.
Implications for research: By focusing on single diseases, researchers can inadvertently obscure the fact that low income poses pervasive, generalized harm to health and leads to multiple health problems. Researchers should adopt alternative research models that reflect the overall health impacts of socio-economic inequality.

19. Rising Inequality, Declining Health, Health Outcomes And The Working Poor (Canadian publication)

20. War and Health
Hi friends .....
You are aware that wars have killed billions of humans.... Wars are public health catastrophes... They bring all our health advances and developments to naught..overnight! 
Can we do anything about this situation?  
A window of opportunity is coming our way in 2015 when the current Millennium Development Goals come to an end, and the United Nations launches its post-2015 Development Goals. This set of post-2015 goals will pledge the 189+ nations around the globe to a set of agreed goals and targets. Global civil society (that is you and me) has a place in deciding these goals through a series of consultations and inputs....
I have therefore written a petition to demand the UN to include global peace and an end-to-wars as a post-2015 development goal. To read it, please cut-and-paste the following link in your search window... It will take you less than 2 minutes..... 
Best wishes 
Saroj Jayasinghe
MBBS, MD (Col), MD (Bristol), FRCP (Lond), FCCP
Physician and Professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

21. Youth Resource 
"YouThrive is a practical resource that was developed in a partnership involving Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario (CMHA Ontario), Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Ontario Lung Association (OLA) and Ophea. It is for leaders in communities and schools across Ontario who work with youth aged 12 to 19. It is designed for people who want to create communities in which young people can thrive and develop capacity to realize their own abilities, make a contribution to society and learn how to take control of their own lives. It shows how using a health promotion approach supports positive mental health and prevents risk-taking behaviour among young people." www.youthrive.ca

22. Consumer Cooperatives and Social Enterprise in Health CareConsumer Cooperatives and Social Enterprise in Health Care
International Working Group
Planning Forum
Dublin Ireland | 6 December 2013

Dear colleagues

As policy makers around the world search for better models of health care, consumer cooperatives in health are flourishing and new social enterprise models are emerging. Globally, there are many locally-generated membership-based health organizations that link consumer ownership and empowerment with holistic, preventative, and integrated health care.

In Quebec, there are 20 health cooperatives running primary care centres. In Poland, Spain and Brazil there are many worker cooperatives of health practitioners running primary care and day surgery services. The Japanese Health Cooperative has developed networks of thousands of mutual support health groups (HAN groups) in neighbourhoods across the country. In Australia, there are 9 cooperative hospitals and 58 cooperative pharmacies owned by consumers.

Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, USA is a cooperative of 800,000 consumers which runs two large hospitals, a network of primary care clinics and pharmacies, and a consumer-governed health insurance fund. It has consumer-governed structures at all levels of the cooperative, with a Board made up entirely of consumers.

Health cooperatives like this have evolved in many countries, with no template, and no coordinated development. As an alternative to both provider-owned and state-owned health care, the consumer cooperative model in health care has great potential for development.

An International Working Group to coordinate development of health cooperatives and social enterprises internationally has been created, and is seeking expressions of interest from consumers, practitioners, health innovators and funders in participating in its agenda.

We would like to hear from people with interests in:

primary care
chronic illness management
mental health
local hospital and acute care services
pharmacy
consumer-governed electronic health records
peer-support models for good health
self-directed services and individual budgets
health insurance funds and financing

We aim to develop several models of consumer-based enterprise in health care that can be developed around the world on a large scale, in partnership with supportive international networks and collaborating agencies.

A Planning Forum in Dublin Ireland on 6 December 2013 has been scheduled for participants in the International Working Group, in conjunction with an international civil society forum.

Register your interest in participating in development and extension of the consumer cooperative and social enterprise models here: http://www.partnerships.org.au/FORMS/HealthCooperativesGlobalEOI.htm

Liz Stewart
liz@partnerships.org.au
Social Enterprise Partnerships