Challenges for rural and remote road safety

The growing national and international awareness of the increased representation of serious injuries and fatalities in rural and remote areas is the focus of this paper. Australia was one of the earliest countries to try to address this issue with a targeted national action plan in 1996. This was an important document but the most recent national plan fails to dedicate attention to developing countermeasures for the particular problems of improving road safety in these regions. The findings of a major program of research in Northern Queensland are discussed to stimulate interest and research into potential countermeasures. Specifically, the need to monitor clusters of crashes as a focus for intervention and local ownership is advocated. Taking action towards a national reduction of speed limits on rural roads and investment in proactive research based trials of drink driving countermeasures such as courtesy buses is strongly advocated.

Sociocultural animation

The emergence of global computer networks and the ubiquitous availability of advanced information and communication technology (ICT) since the mid Nineties has given rise to the hope that the traditional disadvantages faced by regional economies and regional communities could be elevated easily and swiftly. Yet, the experience of both community informatics and community development researchers and practitioners tells a different tale. Although the potential of ICT is in fact realised in some situations and locations and does provide means to ensure sustainability in some regional communities, elsewhere it has not been taken up or has not been able to elicit change for the promised better. Too many communities are still faced by a centralised structure in the context of commerce, service provision or governance and by various degrees of digital divides between connected and disconnected, between media literate and illiterate, between young and old, and between urban and rural. Many attempts to close or bridge the digital divide have been reported with various degrees of success (cf. Menou, 2001; Servon, 2002). Most of these accounts echo a common voice in that they report similar principles of action, and they reflect – in most cases unconsciously – practices of sociocultural animation. This article seeks to shed light onto the concept of sociocultural animation which is already commonplace in various forms in the arts, in education and professional development, youth work, sports, town planning, careers services, entrepreneurship and tourism. It starts by exploring the origins of sociocultural animation and draws parallels to the current state of research and practice. It unpacks the foundation of sociocultural animation and briefly describes underlying principles and how they can be applied in the context of community informatics and developing regional communities with ICT. Finally, further areas of investigation are being proposed.

High-stakes literacy tests and local effects in a rural school

High-stakes literacy testing is now a ubiquitous educational phenomenon. However, it remains a relatively recent phenomenon in Australia. Hence it is possible to study the ways in which such tests are reorganising educators’ work during this period of change. This paper draws upon Dorothy Smith’s Institutional Ethnography and critical policy analysis to consider this problem and reports on interview data from teachers and the principal in small rural school in a poor area of South Australia. In this context high-stakes testing and the associated diagnostic school review unleashes a chain of actions within the school which ultimately results in educators doubting their professional judgments, increasing the investment in testing, narrowing their teaching of literacy and purchasing levelled reading schemes. The effects of high-stakes testing in disadvantaged schools are identified and discussed.

A Summative Evaluation of the Stronger Smarter Learning Communities Project : Vol 1 and Vol 2

This is a summative evaluation of the Stronger Smarter Learning Communities (SSLC) project that examines whether and how the SSLC project had an impact on Australian state schools which adopted its models and approaches. Drawing from qualitative and quantitative data sets, it also presents the largest scale and most comprehensive analysis of Indigenous education practices and outcomes to date. It includes empirical findings on: success in changing school ethos and community engagement; challenges in progress at closure of the 'gap' in conventionally measured achievement and performance; schools' and principals' choices in curriculum and instruction; profiles of teachers' and principals' training and views on teacher education; and a strong emphasis on community and school Indigenoous voices and views on Indigenous education.

Male reproductive health disorders among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men : a hidden problem?

OBJECTIVE: To better understand help-seeking behaviours and reproductive health disorders among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A cross-sectional mixed-methods study conducted from 1 May 2004 to 30 April 2005 of 293 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men aged 18 years and over from urban, rural and remote communities in the Northern Territory and Queensland. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Subscale of the International Index of Erectile Function, self-reported help-seeking behaviours for erectile dysfunction (ED) and prostate disease, thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews and focus groups. RESULTS: The prevalence of moderate-to-severe ED increased across age groups, from about 10% in younger men (under 35 years) to 28% in men aged 55-74 years. Moderate-to-severe ED was strongly associated with reporting a chronic condition (odds ratio [OR], 3.67) and residing in a remote area (OR, 2.94). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men aged 40-59 years showed similar low levels of help-seeking behaviours compared with non-Indigenous men from a comparable population-based study. About half of the men with ED saw a doctor or received treatment for ED in each population. While prostate cancer rates were low in both studies, testing for prostate problems was less frequent in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men (11.4%) than in non-Indigenous men (34.1%, P < 0.001), despite similar levels of concern about prostate cancer. Barriers to help-seeking included shame, culturally inappropriate services and lack of awareness. CONCLUSION: This study, the first to investigate reproductive health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men, found low levels of help-seeking behaviours for reproductive health disorders, with implications for missing a predictor of chronic disease and late diagnosis of prostate disease.

Prescribing practices of Australian dispensing doctors

Background: In response to health workforce shortages policymakers have considered expanding the roles that a health professional may perform. A more traditional combination of health professional roles is that of a dispensing doctor (DD) who routinely prescribes and dispenses pharmaceuticals. A systematic review conducted on mainly overseas DDs’ practices found that DDs tended to prescribe more items per patients, less often generically, and showed poorer adherence to best practice. Convenience for patients was cited by both patients and DDs as the main reason for dispensing. In Australia, rural doctors are allowed to dispense Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) subsidised pharmaceutical benefits if there is no reasonable pharmacy coverage. Little was known about the practices of these Australian DDs. Objectives: To examine the PBS prescribing patterns of dispensing with matched non-dispensing doctors and identify factors that influence prescribing behaviour. Method: A sequential explanatory (QUAN-->qual) mixed methodology was utilised. Firstly, rurality-matched DDs’ and non-DDs’ PBS data for fiscal years 2005-7 were analysed against criteria distilled from a systematic review and stakeholder consultations. Secondly, structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of DDs to examine the quantitative findings. Key findings: DDs prescribed significantly fewer PBS prescriptions per patients but used Regulation 24 significantly more than non-DDs. Regulation 24 biased the prescribing data. DDs prescribed proportionally more penicillin type antibiotics, adrenergic inhalants and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories as compared to non-DDs. Reasons offered by DD-respondents highlighted that prescribing was influenced by an awareness of cost to the patients, peer pressure and confidential prescriber feedback provided on a regular basis. Implications: This innovative census study does not support international data that DDs are less judicious in their prescribing. There is some evidence that DDs might reduce health inequity between rural and urban Australian, and that the DD health model is valuable to patients in isolated communities.

Assessing the long term viability of leasehold rural land in Queensland

Rural land holdings in a number of states in Australia can be freehold or leasehold. The actual type and tenure of the leasehold varies according to each state, but the underlying principles of ownership, transferability and farming and grazing rights are reasonably similar. There are rural areas that are all leasehold title such as the western lands in NSW, while rural land in some states and areas can be a mix of both freehold and lease hold rural property. Over the years many rural farming areas that were originally developed or granted as leasehold land have been converted to freehold title. In many instances the cost of purchasing perpetual leasehold property is similar to the equivalent freehold property despite the fact that an additional rental charge is applied to this form of ownership. Many of the current leasehold rural holdings are located in the more arid regions of the state and the prevailing agricultural farming system is either cattle or sheep grazing.

Mailed versus frozen transport of nasal swabs for surveillance of respiratory bacteria in remote Indigenous communities in Australia

Background Surveillance programs and research for acute respiratory infections in remote Australian communities are complicated by difficulties in the storage and transport of frozen samples to urban laboratories for testing. This study assessed the sensitivity of a simple method for transporting nasal swabs from a remote setting for bacterial polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. Methods We sampled every individual who presented to a remote community clinic over a three week period in August at a time of low influenza and no respiratory syncytial virus activity. Two anterior nasal swabs were collected from each participant. The left nare specimen was mailed to the laboratory via routine postal services. The right nare specimen was transported frozen. Testing for six bacterial species was undertaken using real-time PCR. Results One hundred and forty participants were enrolled who contributed 150 study visits and paired specimens for testing. Respiratory illnesses accounted for 10% of the reasons for presentation. Bacteria were identified in 117 (78%) presentations for 110 (79.4%) individuals; Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae were the most common (each identified in 58% of episodes). The overall sensitivity for any bacterium detected in mailed specimens was 82.2% (95% CI 73.6, 88.1) compared to 94.8% (95% CI 89.4, 98.1) for frozen specimens. The sensitivity of the two methods varied by species identified. Conclusion The mailing of unfrozen nasal specimens from remote communities appears to influence the utility of the specimen for bacterial studies, with a loss in sensitivity for the detection of any species overall. Further studies are needed to confirm our finding and to investigate the possible mechanisms of effect. Clinical trial registration Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry Number: ACTRN12609001006235. Keywords: Respiratory bacteria; RT-PCR; Specimen transport; Laboratory methods

The rural school experiment : creating a Queensland yeoman

Using historical narrative and extensive archival research, this thesis portrays the story of the twentieth century Queensland Rural Schools. The initiative started at Nambour Primary School in 1917, and extended over the next four decades to encompass thirty primary schools that functioned as centralized institutions training children in agricultural science, domestic science, and manual trade training. The Rural Schools formed the foundation of a systemised approach to agricultural education intended to facilitate the State’s closer settlement ideology. The purpose of the Rural Schools was to mitigate urbanisation, circumvent foreign incursion and increase Queensland’s productivity by turning boys into farmers, or the tradesmen required to support them, and girls into the homemakers that these farmers needed as wives and mothers for the next generation. Effectively Queensland took rural boys and girls and created a new yeomanry to aid the State’s development.

The changing role of actors in the participatory project for rural craftspeople

This paper examines the role of actors in a participatory project, a case study of the glass-bead traditional craft industry in rural Indonesia. The project aimed to unite and empower rural craftspeople with regard to their unique potential. The problems of empowering rural craftspeople were complicated, due to the interrelated aspect of rural community life, cultural and educational backgrounds, as well as the local political situation. However, through a comprehensive understanding of the community prior to the project and by maintaining the communication, craftspeople were engaged actively in the project by promoting the craft industry to local buyers. The researcher, other facilitators and the community leader gave supportive roles at the middle and the end stage of the project.

Participatory approach to support community development of rural craftspeople

This paper presents a case study of the participatory project in the Jombang glass bead craft industry. Economic instability has brought significant business challenges in the community. The involvement of outsiders to collaborate with craftspeople in order to support business innovation as well as strengthen the social capital in the community is essential. However, facilitating a rural community to formulate and implement bottom-up planning needs an integrated approach. In this paper, we explain a participatory project in the rural craftspeople community that resulted in a collective action. The project aimed at uniting and empowering rural craftspeople focusing on the unique skills and knowledge of participants. There are some aspects influencing the success of collective action: the ability to understand the local political situation; the role of facilitators to respect and support the unique potential of craftspeople; and the economic benefit of the program.

‘Connect and create’ : young people, YouTube and graffiti communities

Dominant discourses around young people and social networking in the mass media are littered with negative connotations and moral panics. While some scholars challenge this negativity, their focus has predominantly been upon the formation of friendships, the construction of identity and the presentation of the self online. We argue that as well as engaging in such areas, young people are also appropriating social networking sites, such as YouTube, as spaces in which they can engage in what Jean Burgess terms, ‘Vernacular Creativity’ – a way of describing and surfacing creative practices that emerge from non-elite, specific everyday contexts. Using case study material we consider the processes of Vernacular Creativity as engaged with by young people in relation to doing graffiti with YouTube. Through this, and given that graffiti is a cultural practise traditionally associated with physical space, we also consider points of continuity and discontinuity in relation to Vernacular Creativity mediated with YouTube and the significance of such things in enabling young people to connect and create with like-minded others.

Making space and place for knowledge communities : lessons for Australian practice

This paper aims to shed light on the planning and development processes of the knowledge-based urban development phenomenon, with respect to the construction of knowledge community precincts. We undertake policy and best practice analyses to learn from the planning and development processes of internationally renowned knowledge community precincts—from Copenhagen, Eindhoven and Singapore. In the light of this, we scrutinise major Australian knowledge community precinct initiatives—from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane—to better understand the dynamics of national practices, and benchmark them against the international best practice cases. The paper concludes with a discussion on the study findings and successfully establishing space and place for both knowledge economy and society in Australian cities.