'no through road'? Disadvantage in rural education

Investigates educational disadvantage for students completing their secondary education in rural schools. For these students rural location has contributed reduced exposure to a broad range of literacy practices, and involvement in student cohorts with lower levels of socio-economic status, less extensive cultural knowledge and lower post-school aspirations.

Rural parents, teenagers and alcohol: what are parents thinking?

INTRODUCTION: The fundamental role of alcohol in the lives of young Australians is mirrored in the level of drinking by adolescents. In 2001, more than one in four Australian adolescents aged 14-19 years consumed alcohol weekly. Teenagers in rural areas are more likely to consume alcohol than their metropolitan counterparts. Parents are key 'gatekeepers' of adolescent behaviour and as such are a salient group to consider in relation to adolescent alcohol use. The aim of this study was to explore parents' attitudes, beliefs, concerns and receptiveness to harm minimisation strategies with respect to teenage use of alcohol.

METHODS: A convenience sample of parents with adolescent children attended a series of focus groups across the north and north-western area of the State of Victoria, Australia. Schools were approached to advertise the project and invite parents to participate. Snowball sampling was used to enhance recruitment.

RESULTS: Parents described patterns of alcohol use such as 'drinking to get drunk' and the influence of both parents and peers on the consumption of alcohol by adolescents. Few parents were concerned about the long-term risks of alcohol use by teenagers; rather they were more concerned about the short-term harms, for example, road trauma and other accidents and risky behaviours such as binge drinking. Parents indicated that they perceived alcohol to be less harmful than other drugs and many indicated that alcohol was often not perceived to be a drug. A number of strategies were adopted by parents to negotiate teenagers' drinking and to minimise the risks associated with alcohol use. These included transporting teenagers to parties, providing teenagers with a mobile phone, setting clear guidelines about alcohol use and/or providing teenagers with a small amount of alcohol. These were seen by parents as strategies for reducing the risks associated with alcohol consumption. Many parents reported that they do not feel well informed about alcohol use and how and when to use harm reduction strategies.

CONCLUSIONS: Rural parents are unsure how to respond to teenagers' alcohol use and drunkenness. While some parental strategies for harm reduction (such as supplying adolescents with a small amount of alcohol) may have good face validity in reducing alcohol consumption among adolescents, these strategies are not supported by previous research findings.

Traffic safety education and health promoting school : a metropolitan and rural pilot study

Traffic Safety Education (TSE) is an important part of a school's program; however, it competes with many other components of schooling such as literacy, numeracy and a number of health areas. Hence TSE provision in Victorian schools has been somewhat fragmented and haphazard in its delivery. This small pilot study involved two metropolitan and two rural schools which attempted to link TSE into mainstream school activities through the new Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) utilising the internationally accepted Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework.
The findings of the pilot study showed that though schools face many demands, understanding and ownership of TSE is possible when administrative support, professional development and adequate planning time are made available. The report outlines several key recommendations to improve the delivery of Traffic Safety Education in Victorian schools.

Review of rural and regional alcohol research in Australia

INTRODUCTION: Alcohol is the most commonly used drug within Australia. Recently, there have been indications that there is a greater incidence of high-risk drinking within rural populations as compared with their urban counterparts. High-risk drinking is associated with numerous conditions, such as diabetes, heart attack and cancer, as well as acute harms such as assault, suicide and road accidents. The objective of this article is to review the current research and relevant data pertaining to alcohol use and alcohol-related harms within rural Australia. METHODS: This paper is a systematic review of 16 databases, including PubMed, PsycINFO and Google Scholar. RESULTS: Overall, 18 studies describing alcohol consumption or alcohol-related harms were found. Approximately half of these studies were large-scale national population surveys, which were therefore limited in their representativeness of specific regional and rural towns. Most studies examining alcohol consumption used self-report data collection, meaning that interpretation of results needs to be tentative. There is a consistent pattern of higher rates of alcohol consumption and consequent harm within regional and rural Australia than in urban areas. CONCLUSIONS: There is emerging research examining alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms within regional and rural Australia. All studies show that these populations experience disproportionate harm because of alcohol consumption. The causes and mechanism for this have not been investigated, and a program of research is required to understand how and why rural populations experience disproportionate levels of alcohol-related harm and ultimately, what interventions will be most effective in reducing alcohol-related harms.

The theoretical underpinnings of rural injury and its impact on prevention programs

Many observations support the concept of an entity that could be described as ‘rural injury,’ yet the nature and limits of this concept are little explored. We demonstrate the complexity through descriptions along a single dimension: place.

Rural injury may be considered as consisting of both ‘Rural specific injury’ (Farm/agricultural, Forestry and Mining related injuries and Injuries in state/national parks) and also rural instances of ‘Injury which is not location specific’. Examples of the latter category include water related (especially boating & fishing), other industrial, Road Trauma, Sporting and Domestic injuries.

A qualitative study of environmental factors important for physical activity in rural adults

PURPOSE: Despite increasing evidence that the physical environment impacts on physical activity among urban-dwellers, little attention has been devoted to understanding this relationship in rural populations. Work in this area is further hindered by a lack of environmental measures specifically designed for rural settings. This qualitative study aimed to explore the salience of urban physical activity environment constructs among rural adults. METHODS: In 2011, 49 rural men and women from three distinct areas (coastal, animal-based farming, forestry/plant-based farming) of rural Tasmania, Australia, were purposively recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interviews explored features of the built and social environment commonly examined in studies of urban adults, including functional characteristics (eg, lighting, footpaths, roads/verges), road and personal safety, availability and accessibility of places to be active, destinations, and aesthetics. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a content-thematic approach using QSR NVivo software. FINDINGS: While some urban environmental constructs were salient to these rural adults, such as availability of and accessibility to places to be active, some constructs were operationalised differently, such as road safety (where large trucks and winding roads rather than traffic density was of concern), or were not considered relevant (eg, personal safety related to crime, availability of walkable destinations, aesthetics). CONCLUSIONS: The measurement of the physical environment in rural populations may require reconsideration and/or modification to ensure salience and appropriate quantification of associations with physical activity in future studies.