A healthy future? Let’s put medical science under the microscope
The past is prologue, or so we should hope for biomedical research. Australia has a proud history with four Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine given for work done here
First Knowledges Health: Spirit, Country and Culture
Health explores concepts that are not tied to Western practices, as it delves into birthing, end-of-life care and other Indigenous cultural rituals. The authors highlight the role of Aboriginal leadership and Eldership in decision making about health care and explore the strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resistance and resilience
Escaping drugs and alcohol
Alcohol and drugs: Why do people take them, what do they hope to get out of taking them? Why do things go wrong sometimes? How do people get into trouble? The history of substance use in Australia is rich and colourful. White Australia was settled with our first soldiers, the Rum Corps, being paid in alcohol
What’s the use of worrying? Strategies for breaking the worry habit
Worry has been described as an attempt to engage in mental problem-solving on an issue whose outcome is uncertain. We think about bad things that could happen and how we might respond to them if they should occur. People worry about all sorts of things, including the possibility of physical harm, rejection or disapproval by others, failure, loss, harm to loved ones or simply not coping with future demands
Gene therapy – personalised medicine in action
We all begin life as a single cell that divides and develops until we are a fully grown human being. Inside this cell, our DNA carries the complete set of instructions for this to happen. However, if your DNA sequence harbours an alteration — even a small, seemingly insignificant single-base sequence change — it can have detrimental consequences: inherited genetic disease
Sustainability and health: Care of the self, care of the world
There are numerous examples in the climate change and sustainability literature of people not getting the message, not connecting emotionally with the evidence, and not modifying their behaviours in the face of overwhelming evidence that they need to care for their world, or face catastrophic health consequences
Using soft and smart power to create a healthy, liveable and sustainable city
In September 2011, a high-level UN meeting brought together leaders from across the globe to discuss the prevention and control of chronic diseases. This meeting acknowledged that the global burden of preventable health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes was so immense that if uncurbed, it will cripple global health systems and undermine social and economic development
Global health with justice: the United Nations’ sustainable development agenda on health
Recognising the failure to meet the needs of the world’s poor, the United Nations General Assembly, on 8 September 2000, unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which followed the Declaration, are the world’s most broadly supported and comprehensive development targets — creating numerical benchmarks for tackling poverty and hunger, ill health, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of access to clean water, and environmental degradation by 2015
Best of the old and the new: a way forward for the food security dilemma?
The challenge of assuring global food security for the world’s increasing population — estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050 — has been much discussed. Many solutions have been proffered, but most are from limited perspectives and often represent vested interests of some sort — economic, political, or academic
Surfing out of the depths
Depression has been judged by experts to be as debilitating to the individual as multiple sclerosis. It is responsible for more disability in Australia than any other medical condition and has been estimated to cost Australian workplaces over 6 billion dollars annually