Vitamin D status of women in the Geelong Osteoporosis Study : association with diet and casual exposure to sunlight

Objective: To assess vitamin D intake and casual exposure to sunshine in relation to serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) levels.

Design: Cross-sectional study of a population-based, random sample of women aged 20-92 years, assessed between 1994 and 1997.

Setting and participants: 861 women from the Barwon Statistical Division (population, 218 000), which includes the city of Geelong (latitude 38° south) in Victoria.

Main outcome measures: Vitamin D intake; serum 25OHD level; season of assessment; exposure to sunshine.

Results: Median intake of vitamin D was 1.2 μg/day (range, 0.0-11.4 μg/day). Vitamin D supplements, taken by 7.9% of participants, increased intake by 8.1% to 1.3 μg/day (range, 0.0-101.2 μg/day) (P < 0.001). A dose-response relationship in serum 25OHD levels was observed for sunbathing frequency before and after adjusting for age (P < 0.05). During winter (May-October), serum 25OHD levels were dependent on vitamin D intake (partial r2 = 0.01; P < 0.05) and were lower than during summer (November-April) (age-adjusted mean, 59 nmol/L [95% CI, 57-62] v 81 nmol/L [95% CI, 78-84]; P < 0.05). No association was detected between serum 25OHD and vitamin D intake during summer. The prevalences of low concentrations of serum 25OHD were, for <28 nmol/L, 7.2% and 11.3% overall and in winter, respectively; and, for <50 nmol/L, 30.0% and 43.2% overall and in winter, respectively.

Conclusions: At latitude 38° south, the contribution of vitamin D from dietary sources appears to be insignificant during summer. However, during winter vitamin D status is influenced by dietary intake. Australia has no recommended dietary intake (RDI) for vitamin D, in the belief that adequate vitamin D can be obtained from solar irradiation alone. Our results suggest that an RDI may be needed.

Casual indifference : why does media ignore indigenous health?

The way mainstream media reports indigenous health influences how policies are developed, communicated and implemented, participants at the University of Canberra’s Media and Indigenous Policy symposium heard last week. Research presented at the symposium confirmed what those working in the indigenous health field already know  — the dominant feature of mainstream media attention to indigenous health is a lack of interest.

Walking My Talk as an Intentional, Embodied, (Co)constructed Environmental Educator

Exploring the question (how) can I use personal change to inspire educational and social/cultural change, this work was embodied and action orientated with a thesis that the doing (action) is as important as the thinking and talking about it. A three-dimensional model of exploring personal change through transformative education leading to social/cultural change was employed throughout this research. A critical poststructural ecofeminist frame undergirded an autoethnographic self-study where I changed my living practices to become more sustainable while living within society, and used this as a platform for how I could become a better environmental educator and activist. I reduced my ecological footprint from 16.4HA to 1.8HA and taught a pre-service teacher course in environmental education, where I explored student resistances, power and relationships, a critique of curriculum, and personal change as a result of transformative education. One particular pedagogical strategy, the Action Learning Group Project, was developed and used to support others to undergo personal change through transformative education leading to social/cultural change. And finally, I use this work as an opportunity to undertake environmental education activism working to generate social/cultural change.

Resistance and reconstruction: Older women talk about childhood sexual abuse

Research which explores the experiences of women, who have experienced childhood sexual abuse is, in the main, focused on young and middle aged women. The perspectives of older women is often absent or hidden in the literature. This study explores the experiences of 16 Australian women aged 57 years and older who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. It aims to privilege their views and highlight their particular contexts in order to redress professional assumptions regarding the notions of recovery. Additionally, in discussing their experiences, the women contribute to insights regarding the patterns of inequality which are produced as a result of dominant discourses that promote ageist and sexist prescriptions in the construction of the self. These insights demonstrate how the women have resisted a range of oppressive patterns in their everyday lives. The study follows a feminist research framework and aims to contribute to the fields of social work practice and critical feminist gerontology.

We need to talk

We need to talk was a collaborative creative work by the feminist collective LEVEL - Rachael Haynes, Courtney Coombs, Caitlin Franzmann, Anita Holtsclaw and Courtney Pedersen. LEVEL was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) to stage this event as part of the Re-School Program. This work utilises reflexive and discursive strategies to move beyond the script of feminism as a historical moment and back to the lived experience of feminist art as political understanding and social engagement.

We need to talk

'We need to talk' examines the discursive framework of LEVEL as a feminist art collective and engages with conversation as a strategy for bringing diverse individual voices to the forefront of the feminist discussion. The words in the audio works, were recontextualised from a series of dinner party conversations, which focused on the role of women and feminism in the 21st century. The thoughts and ideas of sixty women have been transcribed, edited and re-recorded through the artists’ individual voices. Placed in a specially constructed ‘lazy susan’, this audio installation speaks of the experience of sharing information, ideas and experiences ‘around the table’. The fabric patterns on the floor cushions have been designed from banners created in collective workshops with women in Brisbane and Melbourne, Australia, as a way of translating personal statements and political ideas into the everyday.