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In their 2010 book, Lorna Weir and Eric Mykhalovskiy conceptualised the role of vigilance in unknown and emerging infectious disease threats. Theirs is a macro-level account which draws on empirical data to describe vigilance as a set of technical and political arrangements that govern collection, analysis, interpretation and communication of data as it pertains to unknown threats. In this paper we expand their work to detail a conceptual analysis of the role of vigilance at the micro-level during periods of high infectious disease threat. Our data are daily press conferences and associated non-discursive tools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia during times of heightened COVID-19 risk. This paper is a conceptual analysis that draws on theories of vigilance and related concepts to show how a key aspect of vigilance is making previously unseen threats visible or present. Communications formulated and encouraged three types of vigilance as a set of governing relations: institutional or authority-based; individual outward-facing; and individual inward-facing. We also describe the relationship between vigilance and related concepts that are used in response to anticipated public threats. Authority based vigilance involved contact tracing and policing of movement and behaviours. In individual outward facing vigilance people were asked to be alert to, analyse, and react to risk in their immediate environment. Inward facing vigilance required people to gather and react to information about their own behaviours and within their own bodies. There was a relationship between different types of vigilance; as risk increased and authority-based vigilance was less successful in containing the spread of infection, individual vigilance had a stronger role to play. This extension of vigilance at the micro-level sees some of the same unintended consequences as Weir and Mykhalovskiy describe at the global level, particularly in how burdens are inequitably distributed and experienced. • Citizens became an arm of vigilance apparatus during COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. • Vigilance was authority-based; individual outward facing; individual inward facing. • Disadvantaged populations carried higher vigilance burden. • Earlier conceptions of vigilance in infectious disease emergencies are extended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advance care planning is premised on concepts of individual autonomy and self-determination. The standardisation of this individualist approach to decision-making erases the diverse cultural sensibilities and vocabularies that shape trajectories of care. In attempting to redress this exclusion, this paper foregrounds previously overlooked vernaculars and practices for understanding how care for the aged and those approaching the end of life is understood and enacted in Australia's culturally diverse society. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and participant-observation with ageing Chinese migrants and their families in Adelaide, South Australia, it examines the multiple enactments of 'face' in end-of-life care. In so doing, the paper extends Goffman's theorisation of 'face', opening up the 'front' of the bounded individual to reveal how persons are mutually implicated in relational contexts. Attending to cultural contours of face and their intersections with filial piety, this paper unsettles the imperative of self-determination in advance care planning and reveals how intergenerational shifts from older to younger generations can reorient care at the end of life. • Face provides a critical context for understanding aged and end-of-life care in Chinese families. • Face and filial piety are enacted differently in different contexts. • Diverse cultural vocabularies and practices are needed in care settings. • Care at the end-of-life is always relational and nuanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines key processes from the social identity model of traumatic identity change in the context of the aftermath of a natural disaster. It focuses on the roles of (i) group membership gain, (ii) group membership continuity, (iii) social identity revitalisation, and (iv) the severity of natural disaster exposure on post-traumatic growth (PTG) and post-traumatic stress (PTS). (N = 410, M age = 53.24 years) comprised adult survivors of the Australian 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, recruited to complete an online survey via geo-targeted Facebook advertisements. showed that group membership gain was positively correlated with PTG, whilst group membership continuity negatively correlated with PTS, highlighting the different roles played by group gain and continuity in post-trauma recovery. Preliminary evidence for the validity of a new author-developed social identity revitalisation measure was found, which mediated some relationships between group gain and continuity and PTG and PTS. Lastly, the extent that participants were affected by the fires moderated the relationship between group gain and PTS. Specifically, for those most affected, group gain was correlated with lower reported PTS, whilst for those less affected, group gain was correlated with higher reported PTS. We discuss implications for theory and draw attention to the concept of revitalisation, which shows promise as a potentially critical contributor to post-trauma recovery. • Group membership gain and continuity play different roles in post-trauma recovery. • Social identity revitalisation is a critical ingredient that promotes growth. • Disaster damage moderates the relationship between group gain and PTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the Australian government's Coronavirus Supplement, a temporary income support payment for unemployed jobseekers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, protected mental health (frequency of feeling anxious or depressed during the past week) by lowering financial stress (how comfortable people are in paying for essential services). We use unique nationally representative repeated cross-sectional data on 3843 unemployed Australian adults over the period April 6, 2020 to May 10, 2021. We find that the Coronavirus Supplement payment significantly reduced reported financial stress, and lower financial stress was associated with lower mental distress. Though the Coronavirus Supplement was designed to reduce financial stress, we find the Supplement was also successful in protecting community mental health indirectly via its ability to reduce financial stress. The findings provide support for income support packages to protect mental health during economic shocks. However, transitory support measures also tend have short-lived positive effects on mental health, suggesting that more permanent income support reform may have longer-term mental health benefits. • Did the Australian Coronavirus Supplement (CVS) protect mental health? • The CVS directly lowered financial stress. • The CVS indirectly reduced mental distress via lower financial stress. • Permanent support measures may be more beneficial than transitory ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent social science scholarship has sought to understand the visible and invisible impacts of how antibiotics are entrenched as infrastructures and put to work as a proxy for higher levels of care (clinical or otherwise) within modern healthcare. Using a qualitative research design, in this paper our aim is to draw attention to less visible aspects of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in residential aged care and their implications for nurse-led optimization of antibiotic use in these settings. By developing an account of the perceptions, experiences and practices of staff regarding the 'on the ground' work associated with implementing and upholding AMS objectives our study extends research on attempts to dismantle antibiotic infrastructures in Australian residential aged care facilities (RACF). Drawing on a review of relevant policies, empirical data is presented from fifty-six in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 with staff at 8 different RACFs. Interview participants included managers, nurses, and senior and junior personal care assistants. Our results suggest that registered nurses in residential aged care have been tasked with promoting antibiotic optimization and assigned with AMS responsibilities without sufficient authority and resourcing. A host of hidden care work associated with AMS strategies was evident, reinforcing some staff support for empirical antibiotic prescribing as a 'safety net' in uncertain clinical cases. We argue that this hidden work occurs where AMS strategies displace the infrastructural role previously performed by antibiotics, exposing structural gaps and pressures. The inability of organisational accounting systems and the broader AMS policy agenda to capture hidden AMS workflows in RACFs has consequences for future resourcing and organisational learning in ways that mean AMS gaps may remain unaddressed. These results support findings that AMS interventions might not be easily accepted by aged care staff in view of associated burdens which are under recognised and under supported in this domain. • AMS accreditation is a requirement for Australian aged care facilities (RACFs). • RACFs are unique care contexts with resource constraints and high clinical uncertainty. • Interviews with RACF staff highlight how AMS tensions are managed though hidden work. • Further reform requires understanding how AMS in RACF can be made feasible. • Tailored resourcing to replace antibiotic infrastructures will be critical for AMS effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce the idea of the bio-socio-material body to think through the body politics that emerge within the nexus of health, well-being and domestic energy consumption as people age. Our work draws upon an ethnographic study with older Australians in regional New South Wales, Australia. We enrich social practice theory conceptualisations by foregrounding the body as a dynamic bio-socio-material entity that shapes and is shaped by practices. In doing so, we draw attention to the body politics of managing health, well-being and energy consumption while trying to age successfully. We identify that the bio-socio-material dimensions of the body play an important role in how health, well-being and energy practices are performed. Energy practices are bound up in understandings of health and well-being as an ongoing and contingent process. Here, the use of energy and appliances becomes integral to how people negotiate and work towards successful ageing. We found that embodied practices of health, well-being and energy consumption are linked to biological, emotional, affective, social and material concerns that create body politics. These include tensions and challenges relating to health and vitality, caring for the sick and the dying, maintaining good mental health, the affordances of buildings and appliances, energy affordability and billing anxiety, social connectedness, and pleasures and pains. We raise questions emerging from our research on the implications for successful ageing. We call for attention to how health, well-being and energy are imbricated and for policy and programmes that better support older people to navigate the nexus of health, well-being and energy consumption as they age. • Energy consumption helps support health and well-being as people age. • Bodily capacities mediate older people's energy, health and well-being practices. • Participants navigate challenges managing health, well-being and energy consumption. • Biological, emotional, affective, social and material concerns create a body politics. • Policy should support health, well-being and energy practices for successful ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the globe, people are not equitably included or respected by health services. This results in some people being 'hardly reached' and having less access to safe and appropriate care. While some health services have adopted specific agendas to increase inclusion, these services can struggle to implement such strategies because the underlying reasons for exclusion have not been addressed. This calls for preparation prior to implementation of inclusion approaches that deconstructs discourses and practices of exclusion. This paper presents a pre-inclusion framework that seeks to deconstruct exclusion in health services. Authors developed this framework from action research in four 'mainstream' regional health services in southeast Australia over five years. Research identified dominant discourses of exclusion among staff in these services. The study also identified common experiences of residents hardly reached by these services. Following, a range of change activities were undertaken within these services to deconstruct exclusion. Researchers also kept journals, reflected on their impact, and identified lessons learned from trying to deconstruct exclusion. Triangulating these analyses, researchers developed an interdisciplinary framework that weaves together Foucauldian theory on power/discourse with continuous quality improvement processes to embed cultural humility and voices of the hardly reached in health care. The framework outlines five foundational concepts (power as productive, deconstruction, use of continuous quality improvement processes, cultural humility and voices of service users), followed by six principles (a journey, expect resistance, whole of service approach, make visible the reasons for change, we are all cultural beings and people centred care) and six actions undertaken within health services (commitment, assessment of exclusion, action plans, structural change, reflective discussions and engagement). Until such approaches to deconstruct exclusion are implemented, inclusive agendas are likely to be ineffective. • Before inclusion can be achieved, reasons for exclusion must be challenged. • Pre-inclusion readies a health service for engagement with those hardly reached. • This framework weaves Foucault, cultural humility, those hardly reached and CQI. • The framework aims to rupture power relations to privilege discourses of service users. • Health practitioners learn about their privilege and actions of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interrelationship between suicide, health, socioeconomic, and psychosocial factors in contributing to suicide in older adults in rural Australia. Drawing on a coronial dataset of suicide cases and a mixed methods sociological autopsy approach, our study integrated a quantitative analysis of 792 suicide cases with a qualitative analysis of medico-legal reports from 30 cases. The sociological autopsy provided novel insights into the entanglement of policy and service provision at the state-level with individual end-of-life decisions. Particular attention is drawn to age and gendered dimensions of suicide, especially in relation to health and social issues. The study showed a continuity between suicide and the patterning of an individual's life course, including experiences and consequences of inequality and marginality; a desire to meet culturally–normative ideals of autonomy; and a fragmented, under-funded, and intimidating social care system that offered limited options. • Sociological autopsy applied to unique coronial dataset of older adult suicide. • Combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of data from medico-legal reports. • Age and gendered differences in health and social issues related to suicide. • State-level policies and practices intersect with individual end-of-life decisions. • Imperative of prevention creates harmful environments and consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]