Despite being home to one of the oldest cultures in the world, Australia likes to think of itself as being young. When Australians travel overseas they marvel at ‘the history’ of the places they visit: the architecture, the art, and the customs that were all there before Australia was colonised, before it became a nation
As part of every course we teach on leadership in public health, we aim to get our students to think about leadership of their own lives. We ask them to imagine the world in five or ten years and to think about what sort of person do they want to be? What sort of life do they want to be leading? And then what sort of leader would they like to be? And each time we ask (now over 30 times), I also do the exercise. And each time I come up with the desire to be a more generous, less egotistical person, and to lead a more balanced life
...NCDs are closely related to human behaviour. We are what we eat. We are also what we drink, smoke and exercise. And these behaviours are very much part of the prevailing culture of a nation, or a community or a family. They are also highly changeable, for better or worse
A few years ago, a survey asked several hundred Americans what they feared more: death, or running out of money during retirement. Three out of five respondents stated the latter. The proportion was particularly high for those aged between 44 and 49 years who had dependents: in this age group, four out of five respondents reported that the lack of retirement savings was a bigger fear for them than death
When I was a child, I was by no means alone in having Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) as one of my great heroes. Organist, philosopher, physician and humanitarian, he inspired the world as a medical missionary in Africa. Early in life, he determined to pursue his interests in music, theology and ethics up to the age of 30
The rhythms of life: conversation, the roll of the train, rain on the roof and the pulse of music. For most of us, these are taken for granted; sound is how we sense the world, how we interact with others. Sound adds colour to life, alerts us to opportunity or to threat, and evokes the romance or the danger in a motion picture
The medical profession is perhaps best known for its contribution to curative medicine. Each day we read about advances in medical science driven by groundbreaking research aimed at curing diseases. In the developing world infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis and the widespread prevalence of HIV and AIDS provide enormous challenges for medical researchers and clinicians
There is disagreement about whether obesity should be considered a disease. Obesity is inconsistently referred to as a ‘condition’, a ‘lifestyle disorder’, a ‘risk factor for disease’, and even a ‘disease’ itself. These descriptions appear in both the popular press and scholarly articles and likely reflect the diverse and often conflicting views about obesity
Jane is a 13-year-old girl whose father brought her along to a children’s clinic to see a psychologist for help with the many problems she was having. At home she was difficult to live with, with frequent outbursts of anger and misery, and refusal to cooperate with family routines
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs; e.g., cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease) represent a profound threat to the health of the world’s population, accounting for over two-thirds of deaths worldwide and more than half of the global disease burden. Globally, NCD rates continue to rise, with the prevalence of diabetes increasing by 45% between 1990 to 2013