Does living in a disadvantaged area mean fewer opportunities to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables in the area? Findings from the Brisbane food study

Understanding the particularly low intake of fruits and vegetables among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups is an important issue for public health. This study investigated whether access to retail outlets is similar across areas of varying socioeconomic disadvantage in an Australian urban setting, in terms of distance, the numbers of local shops, and their opening hours. This ecological cross-sectional study used 50 randomly sampled census collection districts and their nearby shopping environment (i.e. within 2.5 km), and generally found minimal or no socioeconomic differences in shopping infrastructure. Important methodological and social/economic issues may explain this contrast with overseas findings.

Ethical issues in social research

There are numerous ethical issues that one must consider when developing a research project; however, much discussion about ethics in health research has focused on experimental studies such as clinical trials. As a result, there remains some ambiguity as to the ethical issues that need to be considered in health-related social research. This paper outlines a number of important ethical issues that CAM researchers should be aware of when developing, running and writing up social research. Maintaining high ethical standards is extremely important in social research as it protects participants and researchers, improves the quality of the data retrieved and ensures that future researchers will have access to participants within the community. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The importance of considering social issues in reforestation schemes

This paper reports the results of a survey of north Queensland landholder attitudes with respect to a number of issues relating to participation in forestry. The survey explored the reasons why landholders plant trees, perceived obstacles to greater farm forestry, and attitudes to tree planting programs such as the Community Rainforest Reforestation Program (CRRP) and Private Joint Venture Scheme (PJVS). The results of the survey are discussed in the context of possible policy prescriptions that can be made at local, state and federal government levels to facilitate greater tree planting in the region. Many of the problems faced by local landholders are shared by landholders in other parts of Australia and throughout the world. This survey can thus serve as a case study, providing information on a number of issues concerning small-scale forestry policies that are of general relevance to the development of farm forestry programs.