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: Objective: To examine stakeholder perspectives on the factors of an effective approach to reduce Q fever risk including disease prevention, and the perceived potential benefits of a One Health framework. Methods: Semi?structured interviews were conducted with general practitioners (GPs), veterinarians, government authorities, researchers, and representatives from the farming industry. Transcripts were thematically analysed. Results: Six major themes were identified as key factors underpinning an effective approach to Q fever: understanding Q fever burden; effective surveillance; the role of general practitioners and other stakeholders; barriers and enablers of vaccination; an integrated approach; and increased Q fever awareness. Most participants perceived GPs to play a central role in disease detection, notification, treatment and prevention through health promotion and vaccination, despite GPs acknowledging limited awareness of Q fever. Participants suggested leadership is required from the Department of Health (DoH) to foster inter?sectoral communication and collaboration. Conclusions: A One Health approach holds opportunities for zoonosis prevention. We recommend that medical curricula and professional development be enhanced, zoonosis working group networks strengthened, government?industry partnerships established, and relevant stakeholders included within an integrated program. Implications for public health: Updating medical curricula, GP professional development programs and inter?sectoral collaboration led by health departments may reduce Q fever burden., Q fever caused by Coxiella burnetii is present in Australian livestock, wildlife and ticks,[sup.1,2] and is a persistent problem for high?risk occupations in Australia.[sup.3] Clinical presentation of Q fever includes [...]

While the attention of researchers has focused on video games, texting and, more recently, the growth of social networking sites such as "Bebo.com" and "Facebook", virtual worlds have emerged as a site of significant cultural and textual relevance for young people. A total of 6.2 million children aged between six and 12 years of age ventured into a virtual world in the 12 months between April 2007 and April 2008. Media and gaming industry analysts predict that by 2011 more than one-half of all children in that age group will be visiting virtual worlds regularly, going more often and staying longer. Paying attention to the kinds of online and offline practices these worlds promote in relation to identity and text is, for educators, both interesting and important. This article examines one of the most popular current sites for young girls, Mattel's "BarbieGirls"[TM]. In particular, the paper will pick up on issues of consumption and gender as a background context to a consideration of the textual practices modeled and made available in this particular virtual world.

This paper investigates the ways in which discourses of teacher accountability were negotiated by teachers within hearings held for the Australian Inquiry into Boys' Education. In the Inquiry context, dominant interpretative repertoires positioned teachers as obliged to "acknowledge', "address" and "actively respond" to an essentialised version of male students' "learning needs". These repertoires functioned to equate the provision of "boy-friendly" interventions with "professional" classroom practice--suggesting significant discursive constraints on teachers' capacity to make sense of boys' underperformance outside of this dominant framework. Attention is paid to the ways in which these repertoires supported teachers to manage a positive identity in a context where they were positioned as largely responsible for male students' underperformance. At the same time, such constructions are interrogated with regard to their broader function in naturalising the surveillance of teachers, and reproducing boys' underachievement as something for which (particularly female) teachers "have to" account.

The underachievement of boys has been a focus of intense concern in Australia for over 15 years. Historical analyses suggest that male students' poor performance has traditionally been attributed to factors external to boys themselves (methods, teachers, texts), deflecting attention from the relationship between masculinity construction and successful engagement with school. This paper turns the focus back, addressing the ways in which gender itself was constructed within hearings held for the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys' Education. Discursive analysis demonstrates that witnesses to the Inquiry drew upon a series of gender binaries in representing male and female students, and accounting for their relative attainment. These binaries worked to associate masculinity with "authentic" learning, such that the success of male students was naturalised even in the absence of achievement. Conversely, the association of femininity and "inauthentic learning" worked to undermine female students' demonstrated success. The role of these binaries in the reproduction of a paradoxical relationship between gender and achievement is discussed.

Abstract Background Governments and other payers are yet to determine optimal processes by which to review the safety, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of technologies and procedures that are in active use within health systems, and rescind funding (partially or fully) from those that display poor profiles against these parameters. To further progress a disinvestment agenda, a model is required to support payers in implementing disinvestment in a transparent manner that may withstand challenge from vested interests and concerned citizens. Combining approaches from health technology assessment and deliberative democratic theory, this project seeks to determine if and how wide stakeholder engagement can contribute to improved decision-making processes, wherein the views of both vested and non-vested stakeholders are seen to contribute to informing policy implementation within a disinvestment context. Methods/design Systematic reviews pertaining to illustrative case studies were developed and formed the evidence base for discussion. Review findings were presented at a series of deliberative, evidence-informed stakeholder engagements, including partisan (clinicians and consumers) and non-partisan (representative community members) stakeholders. Participants were actively facilitated towards identifying shared and dissenting perspectives regarding public funding policy for each of the case studies and developing their own funding models in response to the evidence presented. Policy advisors will subsequently be invited to evaluate disinvestment options based on the scientific and colloquial evidence presented to them, and to explore the value of this information to their decision-making processes with reference to disinvestment. Discussion Analysis of the varied outputs of the deliberative engagements will contribute to the methodological development around how to best integrate scientific and colloquial evidence for consideration by policy advisors. It may contribute to the legitimization of broad and transparent stakeholder engagement in this context. It is anticipated that decision making will benefit from the knowledge delivered through informed deliberation with engaged stakeholders, and this will be explored through interviews with key decision makers.

In this paper, we examine a situated example of the media’s (re)production of shared understandings around smoking, pregnancy and health. Through a discursive lens, we address the way in which Australian media personality Chrissie Swan accounted, on radio, for her continued smoking while pregnant after photographic evidence of her tobacco use entered the public domain. We argue that Swan’s account of her smoking privileges a version of ‘the good mother’ as solely responsible for the health of her foetus, and right to feel ashamed when putting this at risk. A construction of smoking as a (medicalised, irrational) addiction enables her to manage a positive identity in the face of this construction: she presents as being ‘thwarted’ in her quitting efforts by a force beyond her control. Ultimately, we argue that the version of ‘good motherhood’ constructed in Swan’s account is paradoxical, and may serve both to support, and constrain, pregnant smokers’ capacity to sustain quitting behaviours over the long term. In turn, we argue that ‘moralising’ anti-smoking interventions aimed at pregnant women may be less useful than an approach that interrogates the range of socio-cultural expectations of ‘good motherhood’ by which pregnant women are simultaneously positioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Measures to improve the quality and sustainability of healthcare practice and provision have become a policy concern. In addition, the involvement of stakeholders in health policy decision-making has been advocated, as complex questions arise around the structure of funding arrangements in a context of limited resources. Using a case study of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), deliberative engagements with a range of stakeholder groups were held on the topic of how best to structure the distribution of Australian public funding in this domain., Methods: Deliberative engagements were carried out with groups of ART consumers, clinicians and community members. The forums were informed by a systematic review of ART treatment safety and effectiveness (focusing, in particular, on maternal age and number of treatment cycles), as well as by international policy comparisons, and ethical and cost analyses. Forum discussions were transcribed and subject to thematic analysis., Results: Each forum demonstrated stakeholders' capacity to understand concepts of choice under resource scarcity and disinvestment, and to countenance options for ART funding not always aligned with their interests. Deliberations in each engagement identified concerns around 'equity' and 'patient responsibility', culminating in a broad preference for (potential) ART subsidy restrictions to be based upon individual factors rather than maternal age or number of treatment cycles. Community participants were open to restrictions based upon measures of body mass index (BMI) and smoking status, while consumers and clinicians saw support to improve these factors as part of an ART treatment program, as distinct from a funding criterion. All groups advocated continued patient co-payments, with measures in place to provide treatment access to those unable to pay (namely, equity of access)., Conclusions: Deliberations yielded qualitative, socially-negotiated evidence required to inform ethical, accountable policy decisions in the specific area of ART and health care more broadly. Notably, reductionist, deterministic characterizations of stakeholder 'self-interest' proved unfounded as each group sought to prioritise universal values (in particular, 'equity' and 'responsibility') over specific, within-group concerns. Our results--from an emotive case study in ART--highlight that evidence-informed disinvestment decision-making is feasible, and potentially less controversial than often presumed.