Barriers to blood donation in African communities in Australia: the role of home and host country culture and experience

BACKGROUND: An influx of African migrants and refugees can strain a host country's blood services, because often migrants have unique blood needs that cannot be sourced from local donors. To increase blood donation by the new migrants, host country blood services need to understand how blood and blood donations are viewed by immigrant communities, because recruitment models that are not culturally adapted may have limited success.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Nine focus groups representing a cross-section of Australian-based African communities were conducted in multiple languages, facilitated by bilingual workers. The qualitative protocol was guided by the literature on blood donation by African migrants and communities in Africa. Thematic analysis identified the relevance of issues previously included in the literature and whether other issues facilitated or prohibited blood donation.

RESULTS: Home country cultural issues were not generally raised as barriers to donation, and respondents were positively disposed toward donation. Home country experiences shaped respondents' views in Australia. Participants focused on assisting “individuals in need,” rather than giving to a blood service that many viewed with suspicion because of issues in their home country. There was a lack of knowledge about the donation process in Australia. More importantly, respondents perceived that their blood would not be wanted, based on a perception of host country mistrust and discrimination.

CONCLUSION: Developing an intervention that encourages migrants to donate blood needs to be culturally focused. It appears that addressing perceptions based on home country experiences is essential. Overcoming a general perception of discrimination is beyond any blood service, but there can be an attempt to ensure that blood donation is seen as an inclusive process—blood from everyone, for everyone.

Eritrean refugees experience in Melbourne

This dataset provides information concerning the patterns of labour market access and the employment outcomes of African refugees in Australia. It focuses on recently-arrived migrants and refugees from Eritrea who came to Australia predominantly on humanitarian grounds. It explores the correlation between academic qualifications and previous employment experiences on the one hand and employment outcomes in Australia on the other. In doing so, a number of related factors including language skills, links to community organisations and level and nature of job assistance services are analysed as variables that potentially impact upon access to and ultimately integration into the labour market.

Seeking romance and a once in a life-time experience : considering attributes that attract honeymooners to destinations

Couples on their honeymoon represent a vital part of the tourism market. Since the destination decision for honeymooners is a joint decision, paired in-depth interviews were conducted with ten British couples to explore their honeymoon destination decision making. The themes that arose from this qualitative study were consistent with more general studies on destination choice, including: culture, natural environment, and accommodation. New themes developed from the research included familiarity, romance, and budget. The results indicate that couples were more likely to stretch their budget for a honeymoon, or appear to be less concerned about the cost of their trip, as many see it as a once in a lifetime experience. This indicates that this valuable segment ofthe market should be further explored.

The role of personal values in enhancing student experience and satisfaction among international postgraduate students : an exploratory study

Problem Statement: Universities are faced with the challenging task of educating an increasingly diverse and mobile student community. An understanding of the backgrounds of students and their expectations is central to ensure effective delivery of educational and support services to enhance student experience and satisfaction. The study of student personal values is able to provide better understanding of student demands and aspirations and to assist universities to target educational and support services to meet the differential needs of students.

Purpose of Study: To examine the differences in personal values among Asian international postgraduate students studying in Australian universities and to discuss the strategic implications of these differences in relation to enhancing student experience and satisfaction.

Research Methods: Data collected from a sample of 371 postgraduate students from China, India, Indonesia and Thailand studying in five universities in Victoria, Australia. Personal values were measured using Kahle’s (1983) List Of Values (LOV). Factor analysis was undertaken to determine the underlying personal value domains and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to analyse the relationship of the value constructs to student satisfaction. ANOVA and MANOVA tests employed to examine the differences of personal values between the nationalities, gender and age.

Findings: Factor Analysis resulted in a two factor solution and labelled as Self-efficacy and Hedonism which explained 73.5 percent of the variance. MANOVA and ANOVA results indicated significant differences (.001) across the values constructs of Self-efficacy and Hedonism and the individual variables between nationalities, gender and age.

SEM results indicated a link between student satisfaction and the value domains of Self-efficacy and Hedonism.

Conclusions: The study highlighed the opportunities for universities to recognise that Asia is a differentiated market place and the development of segmented approach in designing educational programs as part of the strategy to enhance student experience and satisfaction. The inclusion of cultural aspects in educational programs, promotional material that fits in with different cultural backgrounds of students, self-paced learning approaches, promotion of cross cultural understanding among university staff are among the recommended strategies.

Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) in cancer patients treated with bevacizumab : the Memorial Sloan-Kettering experience

Background: Bevacizumab is a monoclonal antibody targeting vascular endothelial growth factor approved for recurrent glioblastoma (GBM), metastatic breast, colorectal and non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLC). There has been a potentially increased risk of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) in patients receiving bevacizumab.

Methods: We retrospectively identified patients with ICH who received bevacizumab between 1 January 2001 and 10 January 2009.

Results: We identified 1024 patients with ICH, 4191 patients who received bevacizumab and 12 (0.3%) who met both our criteria. There were eight women and four men with a median age of 66 years. Primary cancers were ovarian (n = 3), NSCLC (n = 3), colon (n = 1), angiosarcoma (n = 1) and GBM (n = 4). Intracranial tumors were present in 9 of the 12 patients; the remaining three (25%) had no evidence of intracranial pathology. Two hundred and fifty-seven patients with these same primary pathologies and brain tumors were treated with bevacizumab; ICH was seen in nine (3.7%), which was comparable to the 3.6% frequency seen in comparable patients not receiving bevacizumab.

Conclusions: ICH with bevacizumab treatment in this population is rare and does not appear to increase its frequency over the baseline rate of ICH in a comparable population. Most bevacizumab-related ICH occurs into central nervous system tumors but spontaneous hemorrhages were seen.

Building capacity in sexuality education : The Northern Bay College experience : Report of the first phase of the sexuality education and community support (SECS) project

The Sexuality Education and Community Support (SECS) project aims to introduce a P-12 approach to sexuality education at Northern Bay P-12 College (NBC) through a collaborative partnership process between the schools within the College and local, regional, and state health and education agencies and has set out to change current sexual health education practice in the College and assist other schools in the region to do the same. The Project’s goal is a ‘sustainable, responsive, whole school, regionally consistent, best practice sexuality education’. During this first or establishment phase of the SECS project strategies have been implemented to begin the process of building capacity in sexuality education at NBC. These strategies are aimed at developing a sustainable approach during the next three and a half years.