Greater Green Triangle diabetes prevention project database

Data includes anthropometric and laboratory (lipid profile, glucose) measurements, and self-reported questionnaires including demographics, self-efficacy, social support, psychological well being (HADS, K10, SF-36 v2), diet (three-day food diaries, food frequency questionnaire), physical activity (seven-day diary, Active Australia Survey), smoking, and alcohol consumption. Most data is measured at baseline, 3 months, 12 months, and 30 months. Some blood samples are still stored at -80 degrees Celsius.

Closed vs open corporate social networking communities : a case study of the Victoria Police and Dairy Australia.

The availability of affordable, user-friendly audio-visual equipment, software and the Internet, allows anyone to become a content creator or media outlet. This exploratory case study examines the adoption of social networking by Victoria Police and Diary Australia, a non-media and non-profit organization respectively, in corporate communication, public infmmation and community relations. The paper initiates discussions on the implications for traditional media and audiences of this phenomenon. It content analyzed the two websites during a two-week period and conducted interviews with their moderators about the sites' content, functions and efficacy. The purpose, role and community acceptance of these sites are examined, along with organizational motivations for establishing these channels to reach audiences, bypassing traditional media's gatekeeping function. It highlights how these organizations may set both media and public agendas when traditional media use this web content in their news gathering and reporting, similar to using press releases in the past.

Development and validation of the Diet Quality Tool for use in cardiovascular disease prevention settings

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a dietary screening tool for use in a secondary cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention setting to identify an individual’s overall dietary quality. The Diet Quality Tool (DQT) was validated against a 4-day food diary for 37 individuals with established CVD attending cardiac rehabilitation. Construct validity was demonstrated for % energy from saturated fat (P = 0.002, r = –0.500), dietary fibre (P < 0.001, r = 0.559) and omega-3 fatty acids (P = 0.048, r = 0.327). Criterion validity was established with a significant difference found between mean (95% CI) dietary intakes of fibre (28.2 g, 4.4 to 17.3) and % total energy from saturated fat (10.6%, –4.8 to –0.8) for those with better DQT scores (>60%) versus those with poorer scores (≤60%) when compared with 4-day food diary nutrient values. The usefulness of the DQT was confirmed by both patients (n = 25) and cardiac rehabilitation health professionals (n = 8). The DQT was found to be a valid and useful dietary assessment tool with potential for use in a secondary CVD prevention setting. The tool has the capacity to be used in a wider variety of settings and further refinement of the tool would enable a greater amount of nutrients to be reliably screened.

On your bike! A cross-sectional study of the individual, social and environmental correlates of cycling to school

Background : Active school transport (AST) has declined rapidly in recent decades. While many studies have examined walking, cycling to school has received very little attention. Correlates of cycling are likely to differ to those from walking and cycling enables AST from further distances. This study examined individual, social and environmental factors associated with cycling to school among elementary school-aged children, stratified by gender.

Methods : Children (n = 1197) attending 25 Australian primary schools located in high or low walkable neighborhoods, completed a one-week travel diary and a parent/child questionnaire on travel habits and attitudes.

Results : Overall, 31.2% of boys and 14.6% of girls cycled ≥ 1 trip/week, however 59.4% of boys and 36.7% of girls reported cycling as their preferred school transport mode. In boys (but not girls), school neighborhood design was significantly associated with cycling: i.e., boys attending schools in neighborhoods with high connectivity and low traffic were 5.58 times more likely to cycle (95% CI 1.11-27.96) and for each kilometer boys lived from school the odds of cycling reduced by 0.70 (95% CI 0.63-0.99). Irrespective of gender, cycling to school was associated with parental confidence in their child's cycling ability (boys: OR 10.39; 95% CI 3.79-28.48; girls: OR 4.03; 95% CI 2.02-8.05), parental perceived convenience of driving (boys: OR 0.42; 95% CI 0.23-0.74; girls: OR 0.40; 95% CI 0.20-0.82); and child's preference to cycle (boys: OR 5.68; 95% CI 3.23-9.98; girls: OR 3.73; 95% CI 2.26-6.17).

Conclusion : School proximity, street network connectivity and traffic exposure in school neighborhoods was associated with boys (but not girls) cycling to school. Irrespective of gender, parents need to be confident in their child's cycling ability and must prioritize cycling over driving.

Visy interviews data

This data collection consists of:
• Raw interview data from semi-structured interviews
• Transcriptions of interviews
• Photographs
• Sound files
• Diary data from the learning object development process

Data is drawn from respondents in the Visy Industrial Packaging factory site. The data is themed according to the Deakin graduate attributes.

A cluster randomised controlled trial of a comprehensive accreditation intervention to reduce alcohol consumption at community sports clubs: study protocol

Introduction: Excessive alcohol consumption isresponsible for considerable harm from chronicdisease and injury. Within most developed countries,members of sporting clubs consume alcohol at levels above that of communities generally. Despite the potential benefits of interventions to address alcohol consumption in sporting clubs, there have been no randomised controlled trials to test the effectiveness of these interventions. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a comprehensive accreditation intervention with community football clubs (Rugby League, Rugby Union, soccer/association football and Australian Rules football) in reducing excessive alcohol consumption by club members.
Methods and analysis: The study will be conducted in New South Wales, Australia, and employ a cluster randomised controlled trial design. Half of the football clubs recruited to the trial will be randomised to receive an intervention implemented over two and a half winter sporting seasons. The intervention is based on social ecology theory and is comprehensive in nature, containing multiple elements designed to decrease the supply of alcohol to intoxicated members, cease the provision of cheap and free alcohol, increase the availability and costattractiveness of non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic beverages, remove high alcohol drinks and cease drinking games. The intervention utilises a three-tiered accreditation framework designed to motivate intervention implementation. Football clubs in the control group will receive printed materials on topics unrelated to alcohol. Outcome data will be collected pre- and postintervention through cross-sectional telephone surveys of club members. The primary outcome measure will be alcohol consumption by club members at the club, assessed using a graduated frequency index and a seven day diary.
Ethics and dissemination: The study was approved by The University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: H-2008-0432). Study findings will be disseminated widely through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.

“The hope – the one hope – is that your generation will prove wiser and more responsible than mine.” Constructions of guilt in a selection of disaster texts for young adults

This paper explores a range of definitions of guilt, and argues that fiction for young adults which is set after a major disaster that has been caused by humans has surprisingly little emphasis on guilt. Focusing on Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells, Nuclear War Diary by James E. Sanford (Jr), The Last Children by Gudrun Pausewang, The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd and its sequel, The Carbon Diaries 2017, and Days Like This by Alison Stewart, the paper argues that in post-nuclear texts for young adults the emphasis tends to be on the perceived responsibility of the young adult reader&apos;s generation to work towards preventing the disaster from becoming reality, rather than on the guilt of the adult generation that caused the disaster. However, in texts dealing with environmental disaster, the young adult reader&apos;s generation can be seen to have some measure of culpability, and so the issues of guilt and responsibility become more complex

Evoked emotions : textual analysis within the context of pilgrimage tourism to Gallipoli

This chapter focuses on tourism from Australia to Gallipoli to attend Anzac Day commemorations. The research examines diary excerpts of tourists to Gallipoli using theory on emotions to gain insights into the consumption experience. We describe this tourist experience as a pilgrimage, as it is purposeful and is aimed at reaching a specific destination that has spiritual meaning for the consumer. We found that this tourist experience elicits both positively and negatively valanced emotions. The findings highlight that not all tourism experiences elicit hedonically related emotions; however, the outcome of the experience can be positive. Further research on emotions that explores this paradox between emotions in consumption and emotions in post-consumption will assist to understand the ways in which consumers process their emotions within this context.

Increasing children’s physical activity : individual, social, and environmental factors associated with walking to and from school

Background. Efforts to increase the prevalence of children’s active school transport require evidence to inform the development of comprehensive interventions. This study used a multilevel ecological framework to investigate individual, social, and environmental factors associated with walking to and from school among elementary school-aged children, stratified by gender.
Method. Boys aged 10 to 13 years (n = 617) and girls aged 9 to 13 years (n = 681) attending 25 Australian primary schools located in high or low walkable neighborhoods completed a 1-week travel diary and a parent/child questionnaire on travel habits and attitudes.
Results. Boys were more likely (odds ratio [OR] = 3.37; p < .05) to walk if their school neighborhood had high connectivity and low traffic and less likely to walk if they had to cross a busy road (OR = 0.49; p < .05). For girls, confidence in their ability to walk to or from school without an adult (OR = 2.03), school encouragement (OR = 2.43), scheduling commitments (OR = 0.41), and parent-perceived convenience of driving (OR = 0.24) were significantly associated (p < .05) with walking. Irrespective of gender and proximity to school, child-perceived convenience of walking (boys OR = 2.17 and girls OR = 1.84) and preference to walk to school (child perceived, boys OR = 5.57, girls OR = 1.84 and parent perceived, boys OR = 2.82, girls OR = 1.90) were consistently associated (p < .05) with walking to and from school.
Conclusion. Although there are gender differences in factors influencing children walking to and from school, proximity to school, the safety of the route, and family time constraints are consistent correlates. These need to be addressed if more children are to be encouraged to walk to and from school.

Development of an online intervention for bipolar disorder. www.moodswings.net.au

We describe the development process and completed structure, of a self-help online intervention for bipolar disorder, known as MoodSwings (www.moodswings.net.au). The MoodSwings program was adapted as an Internet intervention from an efficacious and validated face-to-face, group-based psychosocial intervention. The adaptation was created by a psychologist, who had previously been involved with the validation of the face-to-face program, in collaboration with website designers. The project was conducted under the supervision of a team of clinician researchers. The website is available at no cost to registered participants. Self-help modules are accessed sequentially. Other features include a mood diary and a moderated discussion board. There has been an average of 1,475,135 hits on the site annually (2008 and 2009), with some 7400 unique visitors each year. A randomised controlled trial based on this program has been completed. Many people with bipolar disorder are accepting of the Internet as a source of treatment and, once engaged, show acceptable retention rates. The Internet appears to be a viable means of delivering psychosocial self-help strategies.

Overtraining or burnout : a training and psycho-behavioural case study

The aim of this article is to present case study data that challenges the popular conception that athlete burnout represents the ultimate outcome of overtraining. A young male triathlete (22 yrs) completed a comprehensive training diary, along with the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ) and the Multi-component Training Distress Scale (MTDS) weekly from the commencement of pre-season training, until the end of the competitive season 45 weeks later. Results were analysed retrospectively upon completion of the season and followed up with semi-structured interviews with the coach and athlete. These longitudinal observations are the first to document an athlete who appears to have simultaneously become overtrained and developed athlete burnout as measured by the ABQ. Thus we are advocating a need for future research to clarify differences between these two training-stress syndromes, specifically in relation to their aetiology, to avoid misdiagnosis and to ensure appropriate treatment for athletes experiencing these conditions is provided.

Racialized urban America and Holocaust film : negotiating the limits of representation

Sidney Lumet’s influential film The Pawnbroker (1964) is one of the earliest films to consider the encounter between Holocaust narratives and low-income, urban American racial minorities. As much concerned with contemporary ‘race relations’ in the United States as it is with the Nazis’ persecution of Europe’s Jews, the film intertwines the story of Holocaust survivor Sol Nazerman with the social tensions of 1960s America, represented in his relationship with the young Puerto Rican shop assistant Jesus Oritz. The film stylistically juxtaposes raw footage of concentration camp existence with dismal images of New York slum life. Against these backdrops, the protagonist’s climactic ‘silent scream’ emblematically merges the repressed trauma of the survivor with the filmmaker’s interest in race relations, a theme that has undergone various transformations in a number of films since. One film that contemporizes this encounter is Richard LaGravenese’s Freedom Writers (2007). As opposed to the tragic outcome of the pawnbroker’s induction into urban America, here the Holocaust is a redemptive tool that permits inner-city Black and Latino youth to contextualize their own suffering. After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, this group of ‘at-risk’ sophomores to inspired to collaborate on an ultimately successful effort to bring Miep Geis, the woman who sheltered Anne Frank, to speak at their high school. Foregrounded by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, gentiles teacher Erin Gruwell and savior Miep Geis transform the Holocaust from an amplified parallel of American slums into an event that permits the children of American postcoloniality to triumph in spite of their socio-economic circumstances. Underlining the tension between the Jewish specificity and unprecedented nature of the Holocaust, and the need to generate Holocaust narratives that intersect with intrinsically racialized American narratives, such films have significant implications for how collective memories of suffering are constructed and contested.

Conducting field research in a primary school setting : methodological considerations for maximizing response rates, data quality and quantity

Background: Schools are an ideal setting in which to involve children in research. Yet for investigators wishing to work in these settings, there are few method papers providing insights into working efficiently in this setting.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the five strategies used to increase response rates, data quality and quantity in the TRansport Environment and Kids (TREK) project.

Setting: The TREK project examined the association between neighbourhood urban design and active transport in Grade 5–7 school children (n = 1480) attending 25 primary schools in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia during 2007.

Method: Children completed several survey components during school time (i.e. questionnaire, mapping activity, travel diary and anthropometric measurements) and at home (i.e. pedometer study, parent questionnaire).

Results: Overall, 69.4% of schools and 56.6% of children agreed to participate in the study and, of these, 89.9% returned a completed travel diary, 97.8% returned their pedometer and 88.8% of parents returned their questionnaire. These return rates are superior to similar studies. Five strategies appeared important: (1) building positive relationships with key school personnel; (2) child-centred approaches to survey development; (3) comprehensive classroom management techniques to standardize and optimize group sessions; (4) extensive follow-up procedures for collecting survey items; and (5) a specially designed data management/monitoring system.

Conclusion: Sharing methodological approaches for obtaining high-quality data will ensure research opportunities within schools are maximized. These methodological issues have implications for planning, budgeting and implementing future research.

The quality of dietary intake methodology and reporting in child and adolescent obesity intervention trials : a systematic review

Assessing dietary intake is important in evaluating childhood obesity intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this review was to evaluate the dietary intake methods and reporting in intervention studies that included a dietary component to treat overweight or obese children. A systematic review of studies published in the English language, between 1985 and August 2010 in health databases. The search identified 2,295 papers, of which 335 were retrieved and 31 met the inclusion criteria. Twenty-three studies reported energy intake as an outcome measure, 20 reported macronutrient intakes and 10 studies reported food intake outcomes. The most common dietary method employed was the food diary (n = 13), followed by 24-h recall (n = 5), food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) (n = 4) and dietary questionnaire (n = 4). The quality of the dietary intake methods reporting was rated as ‘poor’ in 15 studies (52%) and only 3 were rated as ‘excellent’. The reporting quality of FFQs tended to be higher than food diaries/recalls. Deficiencies in the quality of dietary intake methods reporting in child obesity studies were identified. Use of a dietary intake methods reporting checklist is recommended. This will enable the quality of dietary intake results to be evaluated, and an increased ability to replicate study methodology by other researchers.

A girl like you

A Girl Like You (2012) is a response to a work I made in 2003 titled “Memory + Moments” reflecting on unexpected and unsolicited comments from friends and strangers during my early years… “can I touch your hair?” “you’re very well-spoken” “where do you get your colour?” “are you wearing a bustle?” In 2011 I re-discovered my teenage diaries from 1989-1995. The process of redaction is about coming to terms with my vulnerability through a process of revealing and exposing the internal monologue of a teenage girl, growing up in Hobart during the 80s.