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The article presents the reflections on coordinating a multi-country paper which emphasizes a means to an end. It offers information about a research to inform policy making in multi-country comparative health systems. The research involves the International Medical Workforce Collaborative (IMWC) member countries including Australia, U.S., and Great Britain.

Recent changes to clinical psychology training and supervision in Australia have been driven by a deliberate endeavour by regulatory authorities and professional bodies to align education and training with competency-based models of training, a development that is apparent internationally across health disciplines. A critical question is: how do reforms in Clinical Psychology training standards match international benchmarks for competency-based pedagogies? Objective: To outline key principles of competency-based pedagogies and to critically examine whether Australia's new standards and guidelines for accreditation of coursework, practicum requirements, and supervision are consistent with competency principles, and match similar guidelines proposed in the U.K. and the U.S.A. Method: Following a critical analysis of the extant literature, the authors highlight progress achieved, discuss major gaps and challenges, and examine the extent to which current accreditation changes constitute a reliable blueprint for the development of a competent psychology workforce for the country. Results and Conclusions: The current review indicates that in an overall sense, practitioner training in Australia is tracking well in comparison to international developments. Specifically, the decreased emphasis on the regulation of inputs (e.g., nature and type of coursework and practicum) is pedagogically sound and has the potential to promote training innovation and efficiencies. However, a revision of the current competency framework is required to underpin future progress. Also, the lack of reliable and valid competence instruments in combination with less than rigorous adherence to systematic, timely, and ecologically valid assessments constitute a major challenge and a serious threat to ensuring safe and competent psychology practice. What is already known about this topic: (1) Competency-based education and clinical training play important coordinated roles in ensuring the competence of clinical psychologists, consistent with the accreditation standards and registration requirements of the Psychology Board of Australia. (2) The Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC, 2019) have recently published new accreditation standards for psychology programs that are based on competency principles. (3) The shift to the new paradigm is both exciting and challenging. It is exciting because it provides opportunities for innovation; it is challenging because it demands systemic change. What this topic adds: (1) The current paper compares and contrasts current standards and guidelines for accreditation in Australia with their counterparts in the U.K. and the U.S.A. (2) Although significant progress has been made in Australia, additional implementation efforts should be taken to establish a comprehensive and authoritative competency framework, incorporating empirically-supported means of assessment. Such a framework should be fit-for-purpose providing a grid that maps shared and unique aspects of competencies across registration levels and specialised endorsements. (3) The progressive relaxing of input criteria has the potential to seriously compromise the commitment to safe and competent psychological practice if training institutions do not adopt a re-designed system of ecologically valid assessments both during training and at the point of entry to the profession. (4) The need to ensure competence is maintained throughout a psychologist's career will remain a major challenge, given the ongoing and rapid advance of science. A commitment to the competency-based approach provides the necessary scaffolding for ongoing professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer trust in the modern food system is essential given its complexity. Contexts vary across countries with regard to food incidents, regulation and systems. It is therefore of interest to compare how key actors in different countries might approach (re)building consumer trust in the food system; and particularly relevant to understanding how food systems in different regions might learn from one another. The purpose of this paper is to explore differences between strategies for (re)building trust in food systems, as identified in two separate empirical studies, one conducted in Australia, New Zealand and the UK (Study 1) and another on the Island of Ireland (Study 2). Interviews were conducted with media, food industry and food regulatory actors across the two studies (n  = 105 Study 1; n  = 50 Study 2). Data were coded into strategy statements, strategies describing actions to (re)build consumer trust. Strategy statements were compared between Studies 1 and 2 and similarities and differences were noted. The strategy statements identified in Study 1 to (re)build consumer trust in the food system were shown to be applicable in Study 2, however, there were notable differences in the contextual factors that shaped the means by which strategies were implemented. As such, the transfer of such approaches across regions is not an appropriate means to addressing breaches in consumer trust. Notwithstanding, our data suggest that there is still capacity to learn between countries when considering strategies for (re)building trust in the food system but caution must be exercised in the transfer of approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many developed countries lone parent families face high rates of child poverty. Among those lone parents who do get child maintenance there is a hidden problem. States may retain all, or a proportion, of the maintenance that is paid in order to offset other fiscal costs. Thus, the potential of child maintenance to alleviate poverty among lone parent families may not be fully realized, especially if the families are also in receipt of social assistance benefits. This paper provides an original comparative analysis exploring the effectiveness of child maintenance to reduce child poverty among lone parent families in receipt of social assistance. It addresses the question of whether effectiveness is compromised once interaction effects (such as the operation of a child maintenance disregard) are taken into account in four countries Australia, Finland, Germany and the UK using the LIS dataset (2013). It raises important policy considerations and provides evidence to show that if policy makers are serious about reducing child poverty, they must understand how hidden mechanisms within interactions between child maintenance and social security systems can work as effective cost recovery tools for the state, but have no poverty reduction impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role and function of supervision, a neglected topic in research on social work with refugees and asylum seekers. Using semi-structured interviews with health and social workers, supervision arrangements in non-government organisations (NGOs) in Australia and the UK are examined in the context of entitlement reductions and restricted access to services and support for service users. The comparative research highlights the demanding and ethically challenging nature of the work, and the impact on health and social workers of exposure to the narratives of refugees and asylum seekers subject to human rights abuses. Overall, there was found to be an inconsistent approach to supervision across the NGOs in the study, which failed to adequately address the demanding nature of the work. Where supervision was not provided, it placed the well-being of health and social workers at risk and reduced the effectiveness of their interventions. In conclusion, the paper develops an agenda for improving the support of health and social workers working with refugees and asylum seekers in NGOs in Australia and the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lone parents and their children experience higher than average levels of adverse health and social outcomes, much of which are explained by high rates of poverty. Many high income countries have attempted to address high poverty rates by introducing employment requirements for lone parents in receipt of welfare benefits. However, there is evidence that employment may not reduce poverty or improve the health of lone parents and their children.Methods: We conducted a systematic review of qualitative studies reporting lone parents' accounts of participation in welfare to work (WtW), to identify explanations and possible mechanisms for the impacts of WtW on health and wellbeing. Twenty one bibliographic databases were searched. Two reviewers independently screened references and assessed study quality. Studies from any high income country that met the criteria of focussing on lone parents, mandatory WtW interventions, and health or wellbeing were included. Thematic synthesis was used to investigate analytic themes between studies.Results: Screening of the 4703 identified papers and quality assessment resulted in the inclusion of 16 qualitative studies of WtW in five high income countries, USA, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, covering a variety of welfare regimes. Our synthesis found that WtW requirements often conflicted with child care responsibilities. Available employment was often poorly paid and precarious. Adverse health impacts, such as increased stress, fatigue, and depression were commonly reported, though employment and appropriate training was linked to increased self-worth for some. WtW appeared to influence health through the pathways of conflict and control, analytical themes which emerged during synthesis. WtW reduced control over the nature of employment and care of children. Access to social support allowed some lone parents to manage the conflict associated with employment, and to increase control over their circumstances, with potentially beneficial health impacts.Conclusion: WtW can result in increased conflict and reduced control, which may lead to negative impacts on mental health. Availability of social support may mediate the negative health impacts of WtW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent discussions on state rescaling have pointed towards the need for a greater focus on how and why state activity may change over time in order to generate insights into the provenance, trajectories and outcomes of rescaling in different global regions and national state spaces. Consequently, this paper explores the dialectical and recursive relationship between the concepts of “statecraft” and “scalecraft” to explore the evolving sites, objects and mechanisms for urban planning within two key urban centres in different parts of the world—Birmingham, UK, and Brisbane, Australia. It is illustrated how a range of actors—from the national to the local level—have sought to craft and reshape the strategies and structures for urban planning according to different imperatives. In turn, the implications for a tighter specifying of the process of state rescaling are considered, as well as the subsequent nature of urban planning arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aims This study aimed to compare the findings of the quality of nursing doctoral education survey across seven countries and discuss the strategic directions for improving quality. Background No comparative evaluation of global quality of nursing doctoral education has been reported to date despite the rapid increase in the number of nursing doctoral programmes. Design A descriptive, cross-country, comparative design was employed. Methods Data were collected from 2007-2010 from nursing schools in seven countries: Australia, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Thailand, UK and USA. An online questionnaire was used to evaluate quality of nursing doctoral education except for Japan, where a paper version was used. Korea and South Africa used e-mails quality of nursing doctoral education was evaluated using four domains: Programme, Faculty (referring to academic staff), Resource and Evaluation. Descriptive statistics, correlational and ordinal logistic regression were employed. Results A total of 105 deans/schools, 414 faculty and 1149 students/graduates participated. The perceptions of faculty and students/graduates about the quality of nursing doctoral education across the seven countries were mostly favourable on all four domains. The faculty domain score had the largest estimated coefficient for relative importance. As the overall quality level of doctoral education rose from fair to good, the resource domain showed an increased effect. Conclusions Both faculty and students/graduates groups rated the overall quality of nursing doctoral education favourably. The faculty domain had the greatest importance for quality, followed by the programme domain. However, the importance of the resource domain gained significance as the overall quality of nursing doctoral education increased, indicating the needs for more attention to resources if the quality of nursing doctoral education is to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restorative home-care services, or re-ablement home-care services as they are now known in the UK, aim to assist older individuals who are experiencing difficulties in everyday living to optimise their functioning and reduce their need for ongoing home care. Until recently, the effectiveness of restorative home-care services had only been investigated in terms of singular outcomes such as length of home-care episode, admission to hospital and quality of life. This paper reports on a more complex and perhaps more significant measure - the use and cost of the home-care and healthcare services received over the 2-year period following service commencement. Seven hundred and fifty older individuals referred for government-funded home care were randomly assigned to a restorative or standard service between June 2005 and August 2007. Health and aged care service data were sourced and linked via the Western Australian Data Linkage System. Restorative clients used fewer home-care hours (mean [ SD], 117.3 [129.4] vs. 191.2 [230.4]), had lower total home-care costs ( AU$5570 vs. AU$8541) and were less likely to be approved for a higher level of aged care ( N [%], 171 [55.2] vs. 249 [63.0]) during follow-up. They were also less likely to have presented at an emergency department ( OR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.50-0.94) or have had an unplanned hospital admission [ OR (95% CI), 0.69 (0.50-0.95)]. Additionally, the aggregated health and home-care costs of the restorative clients were lower by a factor of 0.83 (95% CI 0.72-0.96) over the 2-year follow-up ( AU$19,090 vs. AU$23,428). These results indicate that at a time when Australia is facing the challenges of population ageing and an expected increase in demand for health and aged care services, the provision of a restorative service when an older person is referred for home care is potentially a more cost-effective option than providing conventional home care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The impact of widowhood on well-being has been well-documented, but to date has not focused extensively on the experience of older migrants who have aged in a foreign land. This study aimed to examine the well-being of older migrant widows from two groups in South Australia: British-born (n=61) and Greek-born (n=60) Australian migrants, who had been widowed, on average, 13years. All participants completed a self-report questionnaire in their preferred language. Three indicators of current well-being (self-rated health, depression and loneliness) as well as variables expected to differ cross-culturally, and potentially influence well-being (mourning rituals; continuing bonds to one's spouse; religiosity; social support) were measured. Greek-born widows displayed higher levels of mourning rituals, continuing bonds and religiosity than the British. Both groups perceived similarly high levels of familial social support. Greek widows also reported worse self-rated health, and increased symptoms of depression and loneliness compared to the British. This paper suggests that the detrimental impact of widowhood on well-being may be greater for non-English speaking migrants who are ageing outside of their country of origin, and who, despite residing in an English-speaking host country for several decades, have retained the linguistic, cultural and religious practices and traditions of their home country. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A small corpus of student e-mail requests to academic staff in a British and an Australian university was collected in order to investigate the cross-cultural nature of Englishes in these requesting events. The notions of account and but-justification, together with the concepts of equity and equilibrium are used to explicate the distribution of various features associated with these requests. Results indicate that the British data orient to deferential dependence whereas the Australian data exhibit interdependent egalitarianism. Finally, the process of our analysis brings to light the fact that we ought to refine theory of obligation and this, we do. The overall claims of this paper are that the situated nature of student e-mail requests can have a great bearing on the discursive construction of student identities, that this has a bearing on how things get done, and that how things get done in different varieties of English merits further investigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

International trade poses a serious and growing threat to biosecurity through the introduction of invasive pests and disease: these have adverse impacts on plant and animal health and public goods such as biodiversity, as well as food production capacity. While international governmental bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognise such threats, and permit governments to protect human, animal, and plant life or health, such measures must not be applied in a way that is restrictive to trade. This raises a fundamental (but little-examined) tension between effective biosecurity governance and the neoliberal priorities of international trade. In this paper we examine how such tensions play out in the different political and geographical contexts of Australia and the United Kingdom. A comparative approach enables close scrutiny of how trade liberalisation and biosecurity are coconstituted as compat-ible objectives as well as the tensions and contradictions involved in making these domains a single governable problem. The comparative analysis draws attention to the policy challenges facing Australia and the UK in governing national biosecurity in a neoliberal world. These challenges reveal a complex geopolitics in the ways in which biosecurity is practised, institutionalised, and debated in each country, with implications for which pests and diseases are defined as threats and, therefore, which commodities arc permitted to move across national borders. Despite efforts by the WTO to govern biosecurity as a technical matter of risk assessment and management, and to harmonise national practices, we contend that actual biosecurity practices continue to diverge between states depending on perceptions of risk and hazard, both to agricultural production and to rural environments as a whole, as well as unresolved tensions between internationalised neoliberalism and domestic concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the results of the world's largest ever survey of international relations (IR) scholars with an eye to establishing the particularities of the discipline in Australia and New Zealand. The survey covered the areas of teaching, research, the structure of the profession and scholars' views on foreign policy. From these results, this paper compares IR in New Zealand and Australia, and discusses the extent to which the discipline in these two countries is distinctive from its overseas counterparts, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. The particular areas of focus include the degree to which the field in Australasia conforms to or differs from US or Commonwealth identities; epistemological and gender divides; the distinctive foci of what IR scholars in both countries teach and research; which publications are favoured and disfavoured; and the contrasting linkages between academia and the world of government and policy. We conclude with some suggestions about how the field in both countries might be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the law of forum non conveniens, in particular the use of the ‘clearly inappropriate forum’ test in Australia, compared with the ‘more appropriate forum’ test applied in jurisdictions such as the UK and the US. It traces the development of the law in the UK in relation to forum non conveniens, including the English acceptance of the doctrine, and how it has been applied in various cases. Some criticism of the ‘more appropriate forum’ test is noted, and it is not recommended that the courts adopt the ‘laundry list’ approach evident in some US decisions, where up to 25 different factors are considered in assessing a forum non conveniens application. It considers the Australian ‘clearly inappropriate forum’ test, and concludes that the ‘clearly inappropriate forum’ test should no longer be followed in that it is unnecessarily parochial and is not consistent with other goals of the rules of private international law including comity. Links between Australia and the subject matter may well be tenuous. Confusion attends the application of the test in Australia at present, the court has rejected the English approach but claims to apply some of the factors mentioned in the English approach in the Australian test, and there is an undesirable schism between statutory rules applicable in domestic cases and the approach when the common law doctrine of forum non conveniens is used. The law regarding forum non conveniens should be harmonious with choice of law rules, and interest analysis can assist in formulating the desired approach to forum non conveniens applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the extent to which party law influences the internal organisation of parties in four Commonwealth common law states: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The research engages with recent comparative party literature that emphasises the increasingly close relationship between political parties and the state, in particular the cartel party thesis. My findings indicate that over the last few decades parties have become subject to greater legal regulation, which supports the claim that parties are now managed more closely by the state. However, it is important to distinguish between legislative and common law (judicial) regulation, as each has a different impact on the organisational autonomy of the cartel party. I argue that parties (as autonomous actors and the authors of parliamentary decrees) have been able to shape legislative regulation to their advantage by eliciting significant financial support from the state, yet minimising the corresponding degree of legislative intrusion into their internal activities. However, cartel parties have not been able to prevent judicial scrutiny of their internal workings, and have lost a significant degree of organisational independence as principles of administrative law (usually reserved for state bodies) are being increasingly applied to their structure and behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical trials for the treatment of schizophrenia now often include cognitive assessments in addition to clinical ratings of symptoms. Recently, these trials have included cross-national assessments. It is not clear if translated psychological tests produce consistent results across different languages. This paper presents the results of a study of the comparability of the results of cognitive assessments in different English-speaking countries and a number of countries where tests were translated into other languages. Performance on tests of executive functioning, verbal and visuo-spatial learning and memory, language skills, psychomotor speed, and vigilance was compared across the first episode patients with schizophrenia (n=301) assessed in six different languages (English, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, and Afrikaans), including two different countries where patients were assessed in English and other languages: Canada (French) and South Africa (Afrikaans). The variance in performance across the sites tested in English was as large as the variance between English and non-English speakers when all tests were considered. Performance differences across English and other languages were found only for executive functions, vigilance, and psychomotor speed, with executive functioning differences nonsignificant when education was considered. No differences were found between English and non-English speakers in Canada. These results suggest that the translation of tests of memory and verbal skills can lead to consistent results across translated versions of the tests. Differences between countries were greater than differences between languages, suggesting the need to consider representativeness of patient samples in terms of local educational attainment. In general, these data support the validity of cross-national neuropsychological assessments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The differences in internal mobility between national populations are large and complex in origin. In studying them we must use comparable indicators. This paper discusses how measures of migration intensity at the national level should be constructed, drawing on analyses of residential mobility in Australia and Britain. We argue for the tailoring of intensity measures to observation plan and to age-time plan, and for removing the effects of mortality and external migration on census-based measures. We propose simple estimation of infant migrants, a standard stopping-age in calculating gross measures of migration, and argue for the use of a common population for computing age-standardized measures of migration and a common mortality schedule for computing migration expectancies. We conclude with recommendations for developing comparable cross-national measures of migration intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To compare the policy positions of health and medical organisations across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK as they relate to sale and supply of nicotine vaping products (NVPs) and evaluate factors that have informed the differences in policy recommendations among these countries.Methods: We used mixed methods to analyse data from position or policy statements published by health and medical organisations regarding NVPs (n = 30) and consultation documents submitted to government committees regarding policy options for the regulation of NVPs (n = 26). Quality assessment of included documents was conducted using the six-item Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist for Text and Opinion Papers, and findings were presented narratively. Qualitative data were coded using NVivo 12 software and analysed using thematic analysis.Results: An overwhelming majority of health bodies, charities and government agencies in the UK and New Zealand portrayed NVPs as a life-saving harm reduction tool. In contrast, concerns about addicting non-smoking youth to nicotine, a perceived lack of clear and convincing evidence of safety and efficacy and the potential to undermine tobacco control progress continues to define attitudes and recommendations towards NVPs among Australian health and medical organisations. Although the profoundly divided views among stakeholders seem to arise from empirical uncertainties and disagreements over the level and credibility of evidence, the source of most of these disagreements can be traced back to the fundamental and irreconcilable differences in the framing of the NVP debate, and varied tolerability of risk trade-offs associated with NVPs.Conclusion: Progress in resolving the controversy surrounding NVP policy requires stakeholders to be frame-reflective and engage in a meaningful dialogue of risk trade-offs, as well as both intended and unintended consequences of proposed policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Orthopaedic surgeons performing total hip replacements (THR) today are faced with a vast array of options. Inspired by a recent UK study, we wanted to determine the current trend in prosthesis choice, fixation and bearing surfaces used in ‘young’ Australian patients, and to compare this trend to the UK. Methods: A questionnaire identical to that used in the UK study was posted to all current members of the Australian Orthopaedic Association and returned questionnaires were directly compared to the UK results on a percentage-of-responses basis. Results: Two hundred and forty-six valid responses were received. The number of THR reported to be performed by these respondents (15 789) was equivalent to the estimated number of prostheses sold here during the same period (15 624). The UK results showed a predominant use of Charnley and Exeter femoral prostheses, an all-polyethylene acetabular component, and cement fixation of both the acetabular and femoral components for both their older and younger patients. In younger patients, Australian surgeons favoured uncemented fixation techniques for the femur (57%vs 23%), and especially the acetabulum (85%vs 32%). There was a higher percentage use of modular design (95%vs 67%) and a very high use of ceramic as a bearing surface, 49% (vs 25%) using it for the femoral head, and 21% (vs 2%) employing a ceramic-on-ceramic bearing combination. Discussion: Despite being privy to the same published papers, the THR prosthesis and fixation preferences of UK and Australian orthopaedic surgeons are markedly different. This may be because of interpretation of papers, peers, personal experience, patient assessment, budgets, institutions, theories, fashions, differences in autonomy and advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]