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Background: Increasingly, strength-based approaches to health and wellbeing interventions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are being explored. This is a welcome counter to deficit-based initiatives which can represent a non-Indigenous view of outcomes of interest. However, the evidence base is not well developed. This paper presents the protocol for evaluating a strengths-based initiative which provides life coaching services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community housing tenants. The study aims to evaluate the effect of life coaching on social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) of tenants in three Victorian regions.Methods: The More Than a Landlord (MTAL) study is a prospective cohort study of Aboriginal Housing Victoria tenants aged 16 years and over that embeds the evaluation of a life coaching program. All tenant holders in one metropolitan and two regional areas of Victoria are invited to participate in a survey of SEWB, containing items consistent with key categories of SEWB as understood and defined by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and key demographics, administered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peer researchers at baseline, 6 and 18 months. Survey participants are then invited to participate in strengths based life coaching, using the GROW model, for a duration of up to 18 months. Indigenous life coaches provide tenants with structured support in identifying and making progress towards their goals and aspirations, rather than needs. The study aims to recruit a minimum of 200 survey participants of which it is anticipated that approximately 73% will agree to life coaching.Discussion: The MTAL study is a response to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and organisational requests to build the evidence base for an initiative originally developed and piloted within an Aboriginal controlled organisation. The study design aligns with key principles for research in Indigenous communities in promoting control, decision making and capacity building. The MTAL study will provide essential evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of strengths-based initiatives in promoting SEWB in these communities and provide new evidence about the relationship between strengths, resilience, self-determination and wellbeing outcomes.Trial Registration: This trial was retrospectively registered with the ISRCTN Register on the 12/7/21 with the study ID: ISRCTN33665735 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Return to work (RTW) is important for recovery post-injury. Fear of (re)injury is a strong predictor of delayed RTW, and therefore much attention has been given to addressing injured workers' fear beliefs. However, RTW is a socially-negotiated process and it may be important to consider the wider social context of the injured worker, including the beliefs of the key people involved in their RTW journey.Methods: This paper involves data collected as part of a wider study in which semi-structured interviews explored RTW from the perspectives of 93 key stakeholders: injured workers, GPs, employers and insurance case managers in Victoria, Australia. Inductive analysis of interview transcripts identified fear of (re)injury as a salient theme across all stakeholder groups. This presented an opportunity to analyse how the wider social context of the injured worker may influence fear and avoidance behaviour. Two co-authors performed inductive analysis of the theme 'fear of (re)injury'. Codes identified in the data were grouped into five categories. Between and within category analysis revealed three themes describing the contextual factors that may influence fear avoidance and RTW behaviour.Results: Theme one described how injured workers engaged in a process of weighing up the risk of (re)injury in the workplace against the perceived benefits of RTW. Theme two described how workplace factors could influence an injured workers' perception of the risk of (re)injury in the workplace, including confidence that the source of the injury had been addressed, the availability and suitability of alternative duties. Theme three described other stakeholders' reluctance to accept injured workers back at work because of the fear that they might reinjure themselves.Conclusions: Our findings illustrate the need for a contextualised perspective of fear avoidance and RTW behaviour that includes the beliefs of other important people surrounding the injured worker (e.g. employers, family members, GPs). Existing models of health behaviour such as The Health Beliefs Model may provide useful frameworks for interventions targeting the affective, cognitive, social, organisational and policy factors that can influence fear avoidance or facilitate RTW following injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Insufficient sleep is potentially an important modifiable risk factor for obesity and poor physical activity and sedentary behaviours among children. However, inconsistencies across studies highlight the need for more objective measures. This paper examines the relationship between sleep duration and objectively measured physical activity, sedentary time and weight status, among a sample of Victorian Primary School children.Methods: A sub-sample of 298 grades four (n = 157) and six (n = 132) Victorian primary school children (aged 9.2-13.2 years) with complete accelerometry and anthropometry data, from 39 schools, were taken from a pilot study of a larger state based cluster randomized control trial in 2013. Data comprised: researcher measured height and weight; accelerometry derived physical activity and sedentary time; and self-reported sleep duration and hypothesised confounding factors (e.g. age, gender and environmental factors).Results: Compared with sufficient sleepers (67 %), those with insufficient sleep (<10 hrs/day) were significantly more likely to be overweight (OR 1.97, 95 % CI:1.11-3.48) or obese (OR 2.43, 95 % CI:1.26-4.71). No association between sleep and objectively measured physical activity levels or sedentary time was found.Conclusion: The strong positive relationship between weight status and sleep deprivation merits further research though PA and sedentary time do not seem to be involved in the relationship. Strategies to improve sleep duration may help obesity prevention initiatives in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Asthma remains a leading cause of illness, where primary care can assist to reduce hospitalisations through prevention, controlling acute episodes, and overall management of asthma. In Victoria, Asthma hospitalisations were as high as 3.1 hospitalisations per 1000 population in 1993-94. The primary aims of this study are to: determine if changes in asthma hospitalisations have occurred between 2010 and 2015; determine the key factors that impact asthma hospitalisation over time; and verify whether rural and urban asthma hospitalisations are disparate. A secondary aim of the study is to compare 2010-2015 results with asthma data prior to 2010.Methods: Hospital separation data from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2015 were obtained through the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset and other agencies. Data included sex, age, Local Government Area, private or public patient, length of stay, and type of discharge. Asthma and predictor variables were analysed according to hospital separation rates after adjusting for smoking and sex. Hierarchical multiple regression examined the association between asthma and predictor variables.Results: During the study period, 49,529 asthma hospital separations occurred, of which 77.5% were in metropolitan hospitals, 55.4% hospital separations were aged 0-14 years, and 21.7% were privately funded. State-wide hospital separations were 1.85 per 1000 population and were consistently higher in metropolitan compared to rural areas (1.93 vs 1.64 per 1000 population). When data among metropolitan adults aged 15 and over were analysed, an increase in the proportion of smokers in the population was reflected by an increase in the number of hospital separations (Adj OR 1.035). Further, among rural and metropolitan children aged 0-14 the only predictor of asthma hospital separations was sex, where metropolitan male children had higher odds of separation than metropolitan females of the same age (Adj OR 4.297). There was no statistically meaningful difference for separation rates between males and females in rural areas.Conclusions: We demonstrated a higher overall hospital separation rate in metropolitan Victoria. For children in metropolitan areas, males were hospitalised at higher rates than females, while the inverse was demonstrated for children residing in rural areas. Therefore, optimising asthma management requires consideration of the patient's age, gender and residential context. Primary health care may play a leading role in increasing health literacy for patients in order to improve self-management and health-seeking behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Harmful gambling is a significant public health issue. Alongside the rapid diversification of gambling products, are rapid increases in the marketing for specific types of gambling products, such as online wagering. While concern has been raised about the impact of gambling promotions during sporting matches on the gambling beliefs and behaviours of adolescents, very little research has explored adolescents' and parents' attitudes towards the marketing of gambling products within sport.Methods: A qualitative study was conducted with 59 family groups comprising of at least one parent and one adolescent (14-18 years old) in Victoria, Australia. Parents and adolescents were interviewed separately and asked questions relating to their gambling attitudes and behaviours. They were then brought together, and advertising reception techniques were utilised to prompt discussions about the marketing of gambling during sport. A thematic approach to analysis was used, constantly comparing similarities and differences between and across groups.Results: Three main themes emerged. First, was initiation of sport as a platform for the promotion of gambling. Adolescents perceived that the use of embedded promotions (for example during the match) and the use of athletes in gambling promotions were significant mechanisms for creating an alignment between gambling companies and sporting teams and codes. Second, was the influence of marketing messages in creating a perception that gambling was always accessible, and was an integral part of the sporting experience. Third was the impact of marketing messages on adolescent's discourses about sport. Parents described that they had noticed that wagering, and 'odds' discussions, had become embedded in adolescents narratives about sporting matches.Discussion and Conclusions: Gambling marketing during sport has significantly increased. While the gambling industry states that it does not aim to intentionally target young people, adolescents are increasingly aware of the relationship between gambling and sport. Future research should explore the impacts and influence of gambling promotions during sport on the gambling attitudes and consumption intentions of adolescents. Effective public health policy is needed to develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks to protect young people from unnecessary exposure to the marketing for this potentially harmful adult product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Annual trivalent influenza vaccines (TIV) containing three influenza strains (A/H1N1, A/H3N2, and one B) have been recommended for the prevention of influenza. However, worldwide co-circulation of two distinct B lineages (Victoria and Yamagata) and difficulties in predicting which lineage will predominate each season have led to the development of quadrivalent influenza vaccines (QIV), which include both B lineages. Our analysis evaluates the public health benefit and associated influenza-related costs avoided which would have been obtained by using QIV rather than TIV in Australia over the period 2002-2012.Methods: A static model stratified by age group was used, focusing on people at increased risk of influenza as defined by the Australian vaccination recommendations. B-lineage cross-protection was accounted for. We calculated the potential impact of QIV compared with TIV over the seasons 2002-2012 (2009 pandemic year excluded) using Australian data on influenza circulation, vaccine coverage, hospitalisation and mortality rates as well as unit costs, and international data on vaccine effectiveness, influenza attack rate, GP consultation rate and working days lost. Third-party payer and societal influenza-related costs were estimated in 2014 Australian dollars. Sensitivity analyses were conducted.Results: Using QIV instead of TIV over the period 2002-2012 would have prevented an estimated 68,271 additional influenza cases, 47,537 GP consultations, 3,522 hospitalisations and 683 deaths in the population at risk of influenza. These results translate into influenza-related societal costs avoided of $46.5 million. The estimated impact of QIV was higher for young children and the elderly. The overall impact of QIV depended mainly on vaccine effectiveness and the influenza attack rate attributable to the mismatched B lineage.Conclusion: The broader protection offered by QIV would have reduced the number of influenza infections and its related complications, leading to substantial influenza-related costs avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One in three women around the world are or have been subjected to violence. This includes in Australia, where violence against women is an urgent public health and human rights issue. Immigrant and refugee women who have resettled in Australia are known to face barriers accessing services aimed at preventing and responding to family violence. However there is little evidence about the contexts, nature and dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women to inform appropriate responses to enhance their safety and well-being. The ASPIRE project will address this gap by identifying opportunities for the development of responsive local and community-based interventions for family violence against immigrant and refugee women, contributing to the currently limited Australian research in this area.Methods/design: This participatory research project will work with communities in eight geographic locations (two inner-city, three outer-suburban, and three regional) across two states (Victoria and Tasmania), to generate evidence about immigrant and refugee women's experiences in a range of settings. The project will engage stakeholders and communities through extensive consultation prior to data collection and by facilitating community members' participation in generating and analysing data. A mix of qualitative methods will be used to generate rich data about the family, cultural and place-based contexts that shape the prevalence and dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women; women's prevention and help-seeking efforts; and community attitudes about and responses to violence across a range of cultural groups. Methods include in-depth interviews with women who have experienced family violence, key informant interviews with local community service providers, focus group discussions with men and women from predominant cultural groups that have migrated to areas covered by the research sites, and Photovoice with community leaders. Bilingual health educators will contribute to development of the research approach, the collection and analysis of data, and the dissemination of findings.Discussion: Findings from this two-year study will be disseminated to communities, service providers and policy-makers, providing evidence to inform culturally-appropriate prevention and support interventions, and building local communities' awareness and capacity to respond to violence against immigrant and refugee women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a pilot study conducted on examining Aboriginal health promotion from an ecological perspective. The study used two non-invasive methods to evaluate a community-directed health promotion program, which aimed to improve nutrition and physical activity for members of the Aboriginal community of the Goulburn-Murray region of northern Victoria, Australia. It concludes that the implementation of the program was consistent with an ecological model of health promotion.

Background: Past measles immunisation policies in Australia have resulted in a cohort of young adults who have been inadequately vaccinated, but who also have low levels of naturally acquired immunity because immunisation programs have decreased the circulation of wild virus. A measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) immunisation campaign aimed at addressing this susceptibility to measles among young adults was conducted in Australia in 2001-2. By estimating age-specific immunity, we aimed to evaluate the success of this campaign in the state of Victoria. Methods: We conducted serosurveys after the young adult MMR program at state and national levels to estimate immunity among young adults born between 1968-82. We compared results of the Victorian (state) surveys with the Victorian component of the national surveys and compared both surveys with surveys conducted before the campaign. We also reviewed all laboratory confirmed measles cases in Victoria between 2000-4. Results: The Victorian state serosurveys indicated no significant change in immunity of the cohort following the young adult MMR campaign (83.9% immune pre and 85.5% immune post campaign) while the Victorian component of the national serosurvey indicated a significant decline in immunity (91.0% to 84.2%; p = 0.006). Both surveys indicated about 15% susceptibility to measles among young Victorian adults after the campaign. Measles outbreaks in Victoria between 2000-4 confirmed the susceptibility of young adults. Outbreaks involved a median of 2.5 cases with a median age of 24.5 years. Conclusion: In Victoria, the young adult MMR program appears to have had no effect on residual susceptibility to measles among the 1968-82 birth cohort. Young adults in Victoria, as in other countries where past immunisation policies have left a residual susceptible cohort, represent a potential problem for the maintenance of measles elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]