Contemporary public health policy

- identify the terms policy, public policy and health policy, the stages of policy development and the role that values and politics play in policymaking - recognise contemporary international developments in public health and their impact on national policymaking and the health of Australians - describe the basic structure and financing of Australia’s health system and the role of public health within it - identify Australia’s national public health priorities, and be able to critique the development of the National Chronic Disease Strategy, as an example.

Ethics and public health

• recognise that “ethics” is often defined and approached in different ways • describe the foundations and development of public health ethics • summarise some key ethical systems and their relevance to public health practice • outline and critique some codes of ethics, and discuss their application to public health practice • recognise, evaluate and communicate ethical concerns regarding public health, and apply ethical principles in your practice.

Defining health and public health

- define health and public health - discuss how the concept of ‘health’ means different things to different individuals and be able to consider the range of factors that influence these definitions - identify and describe the principles of public health - recognise and describe how public health is defined and how each definition has shaped the development and implementation of public health approaches - describe the relationship between public health and other disciplines - discuss the nature and scope of public health - describe the varying roles of the public health workforce

History and development of public health

- briefly describe the importance of public health history to contemporary public health - briefly describe the ancient history of public health - outline the key periods and activities in the modern history of Western public health - describe and understand the important roles of political, social, environmental and economic factors as they impact on health - consider the major factors that have influenced an understanding of contemporary public health in the past 40 years.

The future for public health

What is the future for public health in the twenty first century? Can we glean an idea about the future of public health from its past? As Winston Churchill once said ‘the further backward you look, the further forward you can see’. What then can we see in the history of public health that gives us an idea of where public health might be headed in the future? In the twentieth century there was substantial progress in public health in Australia. These improvements were brought about through a number of factors. In part, improvements were due to improved knowledge about the natural history of disease and its treatment. Added to this knowledge was a shifting focus from legislative measures to protect health, to the emergence of improved promotion and prevention strategies and a general improvement in social and economic conditions for people living in countries like Australia. The same could not, however, be said for poorer countries, many of whom have the most fundamental of sanitary and health protection issues still to deal with. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa and Russia, the decline in life expectancy may be an aberration or it may be related to a range of interconnected factors. In Russia, factors such as alcoholism, violence, suicide, accidents and cardiovascular disease could be contributing to the falling life expectancy (McMichael & Butler 2007). In sub-Saharan Africa, a range of issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty, malaria, tuberculosis, undernutrition, totally inadequate infrastructure, gender inequality, conflict and violence, political taboos and a complete lack of political will, have all contributed to a dramatic drop in life expectancy (McMichael & Butler 2007).

Digital economy future directions

Advances in information and communication technologies have brought about an information revolution, leading to fundamental changes in the way information is collected or generated, shared and distributed. The internet and digital technologies are re-shaping research, innovation and creativity. Economic research has highlighted the importance of information flows and the availability of information for access and re-use. Information is crucial to the efficiency of markets and enhanced information flows promote creativity, innovation and productivity. There is a rapidly expanding body of literature which supports the economic and social benefits of enabling access to and re-use of public sector information.1 (Note that a substantial research project associated with QUT’s Intellectual Property: Knowledge, Culture and Economy (IPKCE) Research Program is engaged in a comprehensive study and analysis of the literature on the economics of access to public sector information.)

A Research Framework for Investigating Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in Hong Kong

PPP is a general term covering all contracted relationships between the public and private sectors to produce a public asset or to deliver a public service. Its major advantage lies in utilising resources from the private sector to alleviate some of the financial burdens of the government. The Asian financial turmoil in the late 1990s has imposed enormous pressure on the budget of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government. With a continuous outcry for better public services due to the rapid development of Hong Kong, alternative financing models need to be sought to ensure sustainability. Hong Kong has the advantage of being the international gateway to Mainland China, and with this benefit has attracted overseas enterprises to base their offices in Hong Kong for the Asian market. Obviously the private sector has much to contribute. The HKSAR Government has realised the benefits of using PPP in Hong Kong as well as the success achieved overseas. But a more thorough research is needed to develop the most suitable practice of PPP in terms of project nature, project complexity, project type and project scale under which PPP is most appropriate for Hong Kong. This paper provides an initial report of a research project being funded by the Research Grants Council (RGC) of the HKSAR. The project aims to evaluate the benefits and risks of PPP adopted in Australia and the United Kingdom, and from these previous experiences to develop a best practice framework for implementing PPP in Hong Kong. It firstly reports on the status of PPP development trend and the hands-on experiences which have been drawn in these countries. Qualitative and quantitative research methods applied in conducting the research are discussed. The likely impacts of the study are highlighted. It is believed that the construction industry and the government would benefit a lot as a result of this study, and further procurement and project financing options would be opened up for delivering better future public service.

Modern construction economics [Book Review]

The editor, Gerard de Valence, points out in the preface, this book is neither a textbook nor a guide to what is done by construction managers and construction economists – read quantity surveyors and the like. Rather, de Valence notes it comprises a collection of chapters each of which focus on matters at the industry level and, in doing so, illustrates that a substantially improved understanding of the building and construction industry can be gained beyond the economics of delivering projects. Before giving some thought to how far each of the chapters achieve this, it’s worth reflecting on the virtues of developing construction economics as its own discipline or sub-discipline in general economics and the bold manner by which de Valence is proposing we do this. That is, de Valence proposes partitioning industry and project economics - as explained in the preface and in Chapter 1. de Valence’s view that “the time seems right” for these developments is also worthy of some consideration.

Influencing the experience of people in urban public places through mobile mediated interactions

This paper introduces our research on influencing the experience of people in urban public places through mobile mediated interactions. Information and communication technology (ICT) devices are sometimes used to create personal space while in public. ICT devices could also be utilised to digitally augment the urban space with non-privacy sensitive data enabling mobile mediated interactions in an anonymous way between collocated strangers. We present what motivates the research on digital augmentations and mobile mediated interactions between unknown urban dwellers, define the research problem that drives this study and why it is significant research in the field of pervasive social networking. The paper illustrates three design interventions enabling social pervasive content sharing and employing pervasive presence, awareness and anonymous social user interaction in urban public places. The paper concludes with an outlook and summarises the research effort.

Convenience, loyal, and customising users : a survey of the behaviours and intentions of young online news users in Australia

The implications of the shift to online news consumption for journalism cultures and practices have attracted considerable scholarly attention and public debate. Less well considered are the implications of online news consumption for and by young people. This paper reports on research into the behaviours and intentions of online news consumers, 18-30 years of age, to propose three distinctive types of user (convenience, loyal and customising). Also opened up for discussion are questions about the strategic value to commercial news organisations of audience-centred empirical research that seeks to respond the crisis of professional journalism.

Demand for public hospital emergency department services in Australia : 2000–2001 to 2009–2010

Objective: Hospital EDs are a significant and high-profile component of Australia’s health-care system, which in recent years have experienced considerable crowding. This crowding is caused by the combination of increasing demand, throughput and output factors. The aim of the present article is to clarify trends in the use of public ED services across Australia with a view to providing an evidence basis for future policy analysis and discussion. Methods: The data for the present article have been extracted, compiled and analysed from publicly available sources for a 10 year period between 2000–2001 and 2009–2010. Results: Demand for public ED care increased by 37% over the decade, an average annual increase of 1.8% in the utilization rate per 1000 persons. There were significant differences in utilization rates and in trends in growth among states and territories that do not easily relate to general population trends alone. Conclusions: This growth in demand exceeds general population growth, and the variability between states both in utilization rates and overall trends defies immediate explanation. The growth in demand for ED services is a partial contributor to the crowding being experienced in EDs across Australia. There is a need for more detailed study, including qualitative analysis of patient motivations in order to identify the factors driving this growth in demand.

Validating the is-impact model in the Malaysian public sector

This research is one of several ongoing studies conducted within the IT Professional Services (ITPS) research programme at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). In 2003, ITPS introduced the IS-Impact model, a measurement model for measuring information systems success from the viewpoint of multiple stakeholders. The model, along with its instrument, is robust, simple, yet generalisable, and yields results that are comparable across time, stakeholders, different systems and system contexts. The IS-Impact model is defined as “a measure at a point in time, of the stream of net benefits from the Information System (IS), to date and anticipated, as perceived by all key-user-groups”. The model represents four dimensions, which are ‘Individual Impact’, ‘Organizational Impact’, ‘Information Quality’ and ‘System Quality’. The two Impact dimensions measure the up-to-date impact of the evaluated system, while the remaining two Quality dimensions act as proxies for probable future impacts (Gable, Sedera & Chan, 2008). To fulfil the goal of ITPS, “to develop the most widely employed model” this research re-validates and extends the IS-Impact model in a new context. This method/context-extension research aims to test the generalisability of the model by addressing known limitations of the model. One of the limitations of the model relates to the extent of external validity of the model. In order to gain wide acceptance, a model should be consistent and work well in different contexts. The IS-Impact model, however, was only validated in the Australian context, and packaged software was chosen as the IS understudy. Thus, this study is concerned with whether the model can be applied in another different context. Aiming for a robust and standardised measurement model that can be used across different contexts, this research re-validates and extends the IS-Impact model and its instrument to public sector organisations in Malaysia. The overarching research question (managerial question) of this research is “How can public sector organisations in Malaysia measure the impact of information systems systematically and effectively?” With two main objectives, the managerial question is broken down into two specific research questions. The first research question addresses the applicability (relevance) of the dimensions and measures of the IS-Impact model in the Malaysian context. Moreover, this research question addresses the completeness of the model in the new context. Initially, this research assumes that the dimensions and measures of the IS-Impact model are sufficient for the new context. However, some IS researchers suggest that the selection of measures needs to be done purposely for different contextual settings (DeLone & McLean, 1992, Rai, Lang & Welker, 2002). Thus, the first research question is as follows, “Is the IS-Impact model complete for measuring the impact of IS in Malaysian public sector organisations?” [RQ1]. The IS-Impact model is a multidimensional model that consists of four dimensions or constructs. Each dimension is represented by formative measures or indicators. Formative measures are known as composite variables because these measures make up or form the construct, or, in this case, the dimension in the IS-Impact model. These formative measures define different aspects of the dimension, thus, a measurement model of this kind needs to be tested not just on the structural relationship between the constructs but also the validity of each measure. In a previous study, the IS-Impact model was validated using formative validation techniques, as proposed in the literature (i.e., Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001, Diamantopoulos and Siguaw, 2006, Petter, Straub and Rai, 2007). However, there is potential for improving the validation testing of the model by adding more criterion or dependent variables. This includes identifying a consequence of the IS-Impact construct for the purpose of validation. Moreover, a different approach is employed in this research, whereby the validity of the model is tested using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method, a component-based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. Thus, the second research question addresses the construct validation of the IS-Impact model; “Is the IS-Impact model valid as a multidimensional formative construct?” [RQ2]. This study employs two rounds of surveys, each having a different and specific aim. The first is qualitative and exploratory, aiming to investigate the applicability and sufficiency of the IS-Impact dimensions and measures in the new context. This survey was conducted in a state government in Malaysia. A total of 77 valid responses were received, yielding 278 impact statements. The results from the qualitative analysis demonstrate the applicability of most of the IS-Impact measures. The analysis also shows a significant new measure having emerged from the context. This new measure was added as one of the System Quality measures. The second survey is a quantitative survey that aims to operationalise the measures identified from the qualitative analysis and rigorously validate the model. This survey was conducted in four state governments (including the state government that was involved in the first survey). A total of 254 valid responses were used in the data analysis. Data was analysed using structural equation modelling techniques, following the guidelines for formative construct validation, to test the validity and reliability of the constructs in the model. This study is the first research that extends the complete IS-Impact model in a new context that is different in terms of nationality, language and the type of information system (IS). The main contribution of this research is to present a comprehensive, up-to-date IS-Impact model, which has been validated in the new context. The study has accomplished its purpose of testing the generalisability of the IS-Impact model and continuing the IS evaluation research by extending it in the Malaysian context. A further contribution is a validated Malaysian language IS-Impact measurement instrument. It is hoped that the validated Malaysian IS-Impact instrument will encourage related IS research in Malaysia, and that the demonstrated model validity and generalisability will encourage a cumulative tradition of research previously not possible. The study entailed several methodological improvements on prior work, including: (1) new criterion measures for the overall IS-Impact construct employed in ‘identification through measurement relations’; (2) a stronger, multi-item ‘Satisfaction’ construct, employed in ‘identification through structural relations’; (3) an alternative version of the main survey instrument in which items are randomized (rather than blocked) for comparison with the main survey data, in attention to possible common method variance (no significant differences between these two survey instruments were observed); (4) demonstrates a validation process of formative indexes of a multidimensional, second-order construct (existing examples mostly involved unidimensional constructs); (5) testing the presence of suppressor effects that influence the significance of some measures and dimensions in the model; and (6) demonstrates the effect of an imbalanced number of measures within a construct to the contribution power of each dimension in a multidimensional model.