Prior research has shown that health inequities worsen during pandemics. In this blog piece Professor Helen Dickinson and Professor Anne Kavanagh highlight the health inequities already faced by people with disability and how the Covid-19 pandemic could make these worse. They outline steps the Government urgently needs to implement to protect people with disability as the pandemic progresses.
Read MoreThe issue of school closures in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic has been polarising the political and public discourse in Australia. In this blog post Professor Peter Collignon from ANU Medical School discusses why the Australian Government recommends keeping schools open for now.
Read MoreThe Covid-19 pandemic is exposing a raft of issues with social welfare policy in Australia. Australia’s lack of social housing and lack of affordable rentals means many people are living in crowded or inadequate housng, or are homeless. In today’s blog post Nicole Gurran, Peter Phibbs and Tess Lea discuss the issues Australia is now facing as Covid-19 intersects with homelessness and inadequate housing, and what governments need to do to help.
Read MoreCovid19 is creating massive employment upheavals with significant implications for peoples’ mental health. In today’s blog Post Aurora Elmes discusses the role social enterprises can play in providing flexible and supportive workplaces for vulnerable people and the need for government to consider how they can support these businesses to help cushion some of the economic and social fallout from Covid-19.
Read MoreThere is a very real fear that Covid-19 will have a worse impact on people with disability and yet, as Professor Helen Dickinson discusses in today’s blog post, they are being left out of the Government’s response.
Read MorePaige Fletcher, a PhD Candidate at Flinders University, is examining the influence of actors outside government on public policy through a case study of feminist organisations and policy addressing gendered violence. She explains here why this research is needed and how to get involved.
Read MoreCOVID-19 is rapidly changing the world around us, and disability peak organisations in Australia have called on government to move quickly to guarantee continuity of essential services, support and information for people with disability, and to curb the risk of infection for people with disability and their support workers. People with disability are rightly worried about the particular risks this health crisis poses for them. This message from the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, Children and Young People with Disability, Disability Advocacy Network Australia, First People Disability Network, Inclusion Australia, National Ethnic Disability Alliance, People with Disability Australia and Women with Disabilities Australia explains what needs to be done.
Read MoreFew people are aware of co-design’s political roots. The concept first emerged in Scandinavia in the 1970’s through union insistence that workers be included in the major restructuring of their industries as a way of “emancipating workers at the workplace” (p. 145). Central in its philosophy is the tenet to equalise power as a prerequisite for true collaboration. For International Women’s Day, Summer May Finlay (@SummerMayFinlay) of University of South Australia explains why the government has shown bad faith in failing to adopt the full recommendations from the Uluru Statement from the Heart. As long as full citizen rights are withheld from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, women’s rights will also fail to be achieved.
Read MoreLast month, Labor announced a proposal to create a ‘wellbeing budget,’ similar to that introduced in New Zealand. While Josh Frydenberg found this a ‘laughable’ idea, there is nevertheless a logic that one of the wealthiest countries on Earth could do more to focus on those struggling at the margins. In today’s post, Dr Megan Weier (@MeganWeier) and Isabella Saunders (@Isabellasaund) share the logic for the newly-introduced Social Progress Index, which identifies and tests indicators that could be measured alongside GDP. You can explore more on the Social Progress Index, including accessing the full report.
Read MoreDr Adam Hannah (@adamjhannah; University of Western Australia) draws on his recent article in Policy & Politics to consider the growing prominence of Medicare for All in US politics and what lessons can be drawn for those advocating for systemic change.
Read MoreHere Professor Jenny Lewis (@JennyMLewis1; University of Melbourne) reports on her study of public sector innovation laboratories in two nations, outlining the challenges and opportunities for design thinking in policymaking. Jenny’s article with Dr Michael McGann and Dr Emma Blomkamp is free to read in Policy & Politics until 29 February 2020.
Read MoreWhat’s the difference between involvement, access and prominence for interest groups participating in the policy process? Professor Darren Halpin (@darren_halpin; ANU) and Dr Bert Fraussen (@BertFraussen; Leiden University) think about why some groups seem to make more headway than others when it comes to influencing policy.
Read MoreIntimate Partner Homicide (IPH) is a serious social and criminal justice issue and statistics suggest the problem is increasing. This puts serious pressure on those who respond to domestic abuse, coercive control, and intimate partner stalking, to be able to confidently assess the risk, or spot risk escalation. In this blog Dr Jane Monckton Smith discusses her research tracking intimate partner homicide risk escalation.
Read MoreGeneral practice in the United Kingdom has long had an international reputation as a positive exemplar of primary care. Free at the point of access, funded on basis of population and needs (i.e. not a fee for service), and led by clinicians, our model is seen to have a better chance than most of providing the support that is preventative, coordinated, and with continuity of care. In this post, Professor Robin Miller considers how over recent years, it has become apparent that our traditional model will struggle with expected demographic changes such as an ageing population, the rise of obesity, and increasing people living with multiple long-term conditions. These combined pressures are indeed leading to frustration for patients in relation to accessing appointments, and considerable stress for general practice.
Read MoreMany people have childhood memories of being pushed around and being punched by other pupils when we felt you couldn’t retaliate. They may also remember being the topic of nasty rumours or being excluded by others. Unfortunately, being bullied is not an unusual experience, even today. Similar to maltreatment, bullying involves abusive behaviours where it is more difficult for the victims to defend themselves. But in contrast to maltreatment, these abusive behaviours are perpetrated by others of the same age. In this blog post, Professor Louise Arseneault discusses research that she has been conducting for the past 15 years – alongside great collaborators – and emphasises the importance of moving away from the common perception that bullying is just an unavoidable part of growing up.
Read MoreEURIPIDES is the short title for Evaluating the Use of Patient Experience Data to Improve the Quality of Inpatient Mental Health Care study. EURIPIDES aimed to understand which of the many different approaches to collecting and using patient experience data are the most useful for supporting improvements in inpatient mental health care.
Researchers from the EURIPIDES study team have made a series of recommendations for improving the way that NHS mental health trusts collect and use patient feedback to improve the quality of care for mental health inpatients. In this post, Dr Sarah-Jane Fenton summarises some of the key findings ahead of the full report being published in early 2020 as health research academics call for NHS to act on mental health patient feedback.
Read MoreIn the once separate fields of politics and governance, the narrative is everything. Perhaps more. Mark Kenny from Australian Studies Institute looks how the government controls the storyline across Newstart, refugees and the Uluru Statement from the Heart and concludes it is the ‘back story’ that lends the government legitimacy.
Read MoreAt the recently-held Power to Persuade Symposium, the talk given by Aurora Milroy (@AuroraMilroy) of ANZSOG (@ANZSOG) was a stand-out. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, her talk was not captured on film. We are therefore pleased to present a summary of her talk and her slides here. Aurora spoke of “black swan theory” which highlights the deficits of western knowledge and ways of working. Acknowledging and honouring the ‘black swans’ that Indigenous ways of being and knowing represent brings a more holistic understanding and can mend broken relationships.
Read MoreWhat happens if we classify climate change as a threat, not an emergency? Liz Boulton from the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment and Society explains how military strategy can be combined with new ideas from philosophy to understand climate change as a ‘hyperthreat’ – and describes what that might mean for crafting effective policy solutions. This is the second in the Narration as Regulation series from ANU’s School of Regulation and Global Governance (Regnet)
Read MoreThis blog is the first in a series examining narration and renarration as regulation from the School of Regulation and Global Governance (Regnet) at ANU. Here, Miranda Forsyth and Philip Gibbs tell us what we can learn from attempts to curb sorcery accusation related violence in PNG.
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