Healthy nature healthy people: 'contact with nature' as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations

Whilst urban-dwelling individuals who seek out parks and gardens appear to intuitively understand the personal health and well-being benefits arising from `contact with nature', public health strategies are yet to maximize the untapped resource nature provides, including the benefits of nature contact as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations. This paper presents a summary of empirical, theoretical and anecdotal evidence drawn from a literature review of the human health benefits of contact with nature. Initial findings indicate that nature plays a vital role in human health and well-being, and that parks and nature reserves play a significant role by providing access to nature for individuals. Implications suggest contact with nature may provide an effective population-wide strategy in prevention of mental ill health, with potential application for sub-populations, communities and individuals at higher risk of ill health. Recommendations include further investigation of `contact with nature' in population health, and examination of the benefits of nature-based interventions. To maximize use of `contact with nature' in the health promotion of populations, collaborative strategies between researchers and primary health, social services, urban planning and environmental management sectors are required. This approach offers not only an augmentation of existing health promotion and prevention activities, but provides the basis for a socio-ecological approach to public health that incorporates environmental sustainability.

Adapting to rural communities by overseas-born health professionals

Introduction
As with other multicultural nations, cultural diversity is a prominent feature of Australian society that leads to intercultural awareness and respect through citizen interactions. While this enriching multicultural interaction is clearly seen in big cities like Sydney and Melbourne, it can be very different in the Australian rural context. Living in an isolated rural area is challenging for health professionals who were brought up in urban areas, particularly those born overseas as they experience two types of cultural and social adaptation: urban into rural and native culture into new culture.

As a result of workforce shortages, many overseas trained health professionals are recruited to work in Australia, particularly in rural areas. This has given rise to various initiatives and strategies developed to support and assist these health professionals in their dual cultural and social adaptation. These include University Departments of Rural Health and Rural Clinical Schools programs as well as the Rural Workforce Agencies. However, these programs do not extend to those health professionals who were born overseas and trained in Australia as they are ‘Australian graduates’. In this paper we argue that in ways similar to those born and trained overseas, overseas-born Australian-trained health professionals may require additional support during the acculturation process and making the transition to working in rural communities.

Aim
The aim of this study is to examine some aspects of the acculturation of overseas-born Australian trained health professionals working in rural areas. This study seeks to understand the particular issues that emerge as a result of cultural difference in order to propose strategies that may more adequately prepare these Australian graduates for their rural health experience.

Method
Six overseas-born Australian-trained health professionals were invited to participate in this qualitative study using snowball sampling. The interviews were recorded with the approval of the participants. The interview data were transcribed as raw data and later coded for thematic analysis, which includes topics and themes arising from the raw data as well as from the interview questions with a focus on issues and strategies of acculturation into a rural health context.

Results/conclusion
There were different factors which facilitated or hindered the acculturation of overseas-born health professionals into a rural workforce such as professional isolation, cultural shock, family pressure, and cultural identity. The acculturation process was also affected by the quality of their perceived ‘social and cultural capital’. Different coping strategies were employed to deal with the changes in a new rural environment. The paper discusses some implications of this study with focus on how to improve the living and working conditions of overseas-born Australian-trained health professionals in order to attract them to rural Australia.

Exploring the application of Health Impact Assessment in neighbourhood renewal

This thesis explores the role that Health Impact Assessment can play in social exclusion policy contexts focusing specifically on Victoria's Neighbourhood Renewal Scheme. The findings demonstrate that it can play an important role if due attention is given to contextual and procedural factors both within community settings and within government.

Does moral cleansing moderate the effect of evolutionary altruism on helping intention? An exploratory study

There is strong evidence for social evolutionary motivations for helping (e.g., reciprocal altruism) and also growing support for the influence of the social cognitive theory of moral cleansing on prosociality. Where the former motivation is interpersonal, the latter is intrapersonal. This experimental study hypothesized that, in addition to main effects of evolutionary altruism and moral cleansing on helping intention, an interaction would occur between these theoretical motivations. Using three situational helping scenarios as dependent measures, the effect of participants’ morally-valenced recalled behavior (moral/immoral/achievement/failure) and the effect of their social proximity to a helping target (cousin/colleague/stranger) on helping intention was determined. Overall, 616 Australian participants (90.1% female) completed the online experiment. Two-way ANOVA demonstrated a consistent main effect of social proximity on helping intention across all three helping scenarios, supporting evolutionary social psychological explanations for helping. However, instead of moral self-regulation effects, moral identity consistency effects were induced by the moral behavior recall manipulation. A main effect of behaviour recall on helping intention occurred, with moral recall increasing helping intention. The problem of theoretical ambiguity regarding moral identity consistency and moral self-regulation is discussed, as is the useful role of null result publications in informing effective experimental design.

Hiding in plain sight: street artists online

Identity and privacy concerns related to social media are the subject of widespread academic enquiry and mass media reporting. Although in most circumstances academic research tends to present identity play and online self-presentation as positive, media reporting in Australia makes much of the risks of identity theft, privacy breaches and online predators. This research explores the phenomenological experience of creating an online persona, focusing particularly on street artists. For street artists, the threat of unwanted exposure has to be balanced with the positive implications of sharing their creative work outside its geographical and temporal constraints. I argue that street artists use complex persona-creation strategies in order to both protect and promote themselves. The two street artists discussed in this article experience their engagement with social media and digital networks in ways that offer new insight into the opportunities and problems associated with the presentation of a persona online.

Mapping Co2 emission from commuting in regional Australia : greater Geelong case study

Commuting to work is one of the most important and regular routines of urban transportation. From a geographic perspective, the length of people's commute is influenced, to some degree, by the spatial separation of their home and workplace and the transport infrastructure. The rise of car ownership in Australia has been accompanied by a considerable decrease of public transport use. Increased personal mobility has fuelled the trend of decentralised housing development, mostly without a clear planning for local employment, or alternative means of transportation. As a result, the urban patterns of regional Australia is formed by a complex network of a multitude of small towns, scattered in relatively large areas, which are totally dependent and polarized by few medium and large cities. Such hierarchical and dispersed geographical structure implies significant carbon dioxide emissions from transportation. Transport sector accounts for 14% of Australia's net greenhouse gas emissions, and without further policy action, they are projected to continue to increase. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of incorporating urban climate understanding and knowledge into urban planning processes in order to develop cities that are more sustainable. A GIS-based gravity model is employed to examine the travel patterns related to hierarchical and geographical urban region networks, and the derived total carbon emissions, using the Greater Geelong region as a case study. The new challenges presented by climate change bring with them opportunities. In order to fully reach the very challenging targets of carbon reduction in Australia an integrated and strategic vision for urban and regional planning is necessary.

Qualidade de vida e transporte público urbano: estratégias para melhorar a qualidade do serviço de transporte público urbano por ônibus

If urban planning is to support the equitable distribution of public goods and services, it must recognize and address the dismal condition of millions of poor people who are living in a city. The primary focus of contemporary planners and planning students should be on finding and advocating solutions that help eliminate the problems of today¿s cities. Any meaningful solution will need to be grounded in a thorough understanding of the social class inequities of citizens. With the rapid development of national economy and urbanization process in Brazil over the last two decades, the number of vehicles and their travels are dramatically increased. This is particularly evident in all large cities. Traffic congestion becomes more and more severe. Inadequate parking facilities often result in difficulty to find a parking space in large cities and many illegally parked vehicles can be seen on the crowed streets. These illegally parked vehicles further intensify traffic congestion and also pose a traffic safety hazard. The process of urbanization and motorization in Brazil is likely to continue in a rapid pace. The urban public passengers transport modes problems in large cities are likely to get even worse. There is an urgent need for the development of policy and criteria for public service of urban public passenger transport by bus in large cities. The purpose of survey is to develop policy guidelines for public transport services planning, design, construction and mobility management, that meet community needs for accessibility in large cities. So this thesis will present major comparative characteristics of urban mobility management, urban public passengers transport by bus services planning and the quality of social life in two towns of Brazil: Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba. The study case has been focused on Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba because of the major different results of the survey presented by the two cities. The objectives of this thesis are: a) to analyze and discus existing urban mobility related accessibility and economic development problems in large cities; b) to provide an overview of the relationship within city ¿ quality of social life ¿ urban mobility in Rio and Curitiba; c) to analyze and discuss existing urban mobility management related public transport services in Rio and Curitiba; d) to analyze and discuss existing quality of bus public transport services problems in Rio. Some preliminary recommendations for mobility management policies will also be presented.

Espaços de pobreza e mobilidade urbana: os deslocamentos da população de baixa renda em Natal/RN

This dissertation is an attempt to understand how families with an income of up to three minimum wages and living in different Areas of Demographic Expansion (AEDs) of Natal municipality specifically in the districts of Igapó and Salinas (North Administrative Zone of the city), Ponta Negra (South Administrative Zone), Santos Reis, Praia do Meio, Areia Preta and Mãe Luíza (East Administrative Zone) and Felipe Camarão (West Administrative Zone) solve their problems of urban mobility. It is, therefore, a reflection upon the mobility needs of poor urban households as expressed in terms of origin-destiny displacements for specific movements (house-work, house-school, house-shopping, house-healthcare and house-leisure), all of which being analyzed within the relationship between public transportation and poverty spaces of the city. In order to develop the study, theoretical aspects and themes related to the production of the urban space, to social and spatial segregation, to urban mobility and to transportation were confronted with the collected data referring to the urban population previously selected. One of the research main findings is the crucial role mobility plays in the social differentiation of such people living in Natal and that any policy for the improvement of their living conditions must take mobility issues into account

Geografia da dominação: um estudo sobre a organização espacial da terra do sal (Macau-RN)

This work aims to understand the spatial organization in the Town of Macau, State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This approach focus on bringing back the history of the town, the main personages responsible for the construction of this place, denominated "social agents", as well as its social processes and the spatial forms derived from them. As the personages and their practices were identified, it was found out the existence of a driving force for structuring, interlocking, and maintaining the actions carried out by the social agents during the time. Such actions were materialized in the urban space: "the social segregation". The social segregation takes place as a specific geography of domination. The outcome of those owning the best areas" and ways of accessibility in the urban space, varies from the enrichment by property valorization, because of the concentration of public investments of infrastructure, to the comfort of easily reaching all the daily needs related to the displacements in the urban space. In the latter case, such facility has contributed to improve life quality. While one takes advantage of the location in the urban space, others are negatively affected by the same process. This research identified the salina worker as the weakest element of this social structure, occupying the urban periphery of the town of Macau. Such area is characterized by the lack of services and urban equipment in opposition to the center of the town, the locus of elite. This way, it is established the most known segregation pattern: center x periphery, in which the space acts as a mechanism of segregation

Visões da cidade : da cidade histórica aos bairros da Cidade Alta e Ribeira em Natal-RN

The present work is an initiative of undertaking a perspective that values the aspects of the city in its diversity. The one that t intends is to discuss the urbanity starting from the aspect of the image, of the history, and about main point, to value the point of the individual's view that lives the urban space in its more several configurations: the house, the street, the neighborhood, and the city in wider scale. The described historical research defines the city as space of the human accomplishments. When analyzing the moments of the most recent history of the urban life the modernity/post-modernity notions they are explored in the sense of illuminating the wealth, continuity and it breaks of patterns of behavior, and on the other hand, to describe a I overfly in the several times of the city. The prominences of aspects of the archaeology and of the descriptive resource they are related, for its time, the most punctual perspective of the practical research, the instance of the neighborhood, specifically High City and Riverside, configuring an immersion in the daily more punctual of the city, valuing forms of being, aiming the perspective of the personal computer as point-of-view. The images of the city assume the paper of representing the documental about the current features of the urbanity. It is without a doubt that at the present time the photographic image already possesses a paper of prominence it is as research instrument, be as main source for a work on files of photos. The photographic images in the present work possess a prominence place, focusing specific places of the city in the time. Finally, the individual's voice valued under the perspective on as the person's knowledge that inhabits and live the urbanity he/she understands the knowledge of the life in the city and, more than in any other place, a middle where the loss of action models is pointed very easily tends in view the dynamic movement of the practices and renewal of new indications; in the same space in that becomes urgent to build marks starting from which the individual can shimmer the future. And in that space the individual's voice is valued as rich source of information on living the scenery of conflicts of the present time

Movimentos sociais e organização popular em Natal-RN: enquanto morar for privilégio...

To the extent that the expansion of cities is increasingly pushing and segregating the working class to outlying areas, devoid of services and infrastructure, the urban space is also important as a space in the class struggle, and in this direction, the this study aims to analyze the political organization of urban social movements and popular organizations existing in Natal-RN, nowadays, in their process of struggle for social rights, with emphasis on the right to the city. With this dimension, we appropriate the contributions of historical and dialectical materialism because we believe that this benchmark enables the understanding of the processes of collective organization and a critical perspective of totality, going beyond its immediate appearance. For production data conducted literature, documentary and field, through semi-structured interviews recorded with (the) mapped leaders of organizations in our survey, as well as advisory bodies to the movements studied. The results of the study allowed us to characterize the action of the political movements in urban Christmas struggle for recognition and guarantee of the right to the city and seize the advances and obstacles in the process of intervention of social movements and popular organizations existing in Natal, highlighting dilemmas and contradictions underlie the processes of organization and mobilization in the contemporary period. Thus, we conclude that the Natal territory, as in contemporary Brazil, the urban and political action movements that show the public scene and intertwine necessarily relate to historical trend that has been performing since the 1990s, when the country entered a period marked by a new bourgeois offensive

Física estatística aplicada a sistemas sociais através do estudo de redes complexas

In this work a study of social networks based on analysis of family names is presented. A basic approach to the mathematical formalism of graphs is developed and then main theoretical models for complex networks are presented aiming to support the analysis of surnames networks models. These, in turn, are worked so as to be drawn leading quantities, such as aggregation coefficient, minimum average path length and connectivity distribution. Based on these quantities, it can be stated that surnames networks are an example of complex network, showing important features such as preferential attachment and small-world character

El falso espejo de la ciudad latinoamericana

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