If the Federal Government wanted to use the forthcoming Budget to boost population health, what would it do? Raise taxation generally (plus specific hikes for tobacco, alcohol, and unhealthy foods), and remove subsidies on the use of fossil fuels. These are among the suggestions from Croakey contributors outlined in the post below. Contributors also said [...]
READ MOREWork in the Media? 5 Tests you must take now!
Dr Tim Senior, a GP working in Aboriginal health, provides the following advice for anyone reporting on medical tests (or indeed anyone wanting to understand the media’s reporting of screening and test issues)… “I need a prostate check and a colonoscopy” “Oh. What makes you say that?” “Well, I was listening in 2GB the other [...]
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Did Tony Jones and the Q and A team really mean to send this message about Indigenous health?
As Q and A wrapped up on Monday night, one particularly poignant tweet caught my eye. “Just tells you how much we don’t matter.” It was one of a series of tweets from a Wiradjuri woman, Kath Grant, who lives in Sydney (you can see them at the bottom of this post). She was disappointed [...]
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Some important questions about health policy and the federal election (aka your #qanda cheat sheet)
Health policy is up for debate this week thanks to ABC TV’s Q and A program, featuring Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek and the Opposition’s health spokesman Peter Dutton. You can pose a question online and see some of the other questions that have already been lodged, including: Large corporate organisations have become major players in [...]
READ MOREWhy journalists don’t always reveal their sources’ conflicts of interests: findings from the swine flu pandemic
With concerns about avian influenza in China hitting the international headlines, there are some timely findings from a study investigating the experiences of 24 Australian journalists in covering the 2009 swine flu pandemic. An initial analysis from this study, published late last year in the Medical Journal of Australia (abstract free, pay for full article), gave some [...]
READ MORENo simple answers for parental alcohol and drug use
Donna Ribton-Turner, Director of Clinical Services at UnitingCare ReGen argues that we need a more complex approach to supporting families dealing with alcohol and drug problems. Alcohol and other drug (AOD) use is a topic that tends to generate passionate public debate. Problematic AOD use by parents (particularly of illicit drugs) is one issue that [...]
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From the perfect job to an endangered species: the demise of science journalism and why it matters
Last year, I lamented the departure from the Australian media industry of many journalists with a wealth of experience in reporting on health, medicine and science. One of the journalists then mentioned, science writer and broadcaster Leigh Dayton, writes below that science journalism is in decline globally. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we [...]
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An offer for health journalists (might even be a “miracle cure”)
Evidence-based workshop for journalists – May 2 – Gold Coast Ray Moynihan, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice at Bond University, writes: A more effective headline for this little post about a forthcoming one-day workshop on the Gold Coast would probably have been “miracle cure for health journalists”, but I’m not sure [...]
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High Sobriety: a new book sharing one journalist’s experiences with (and without) alcohol
High Sobriety, a new book from Jill Stark, a senior writer at The Age, is likely to be of interest to many Croakey readers, particularly those with an interest in addressing alcohol-related harm and Australia’s drinking culture. In the Q and A below, Jill reveals why giving up alcohol for a year turned out to be [...]
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Some thoughts on how the public health sector can learn from @IndigenousX and its pitch to the #ShortyAwards
The IndigenousX Twitter account, as profiled at Croakey last year, has a different Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person tweeting each week. The number of people following @IndigenousX has been increasing quickly (almost 10,000 at present), thanks to the efforts of the account’s indefatigable founder, Luke Pearson (in his other life an education consultant with [...]
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