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Background: A number of ways to conduct research are designed to maximise the likelihood that evidence from research is quickly transferred into practice. This includes action research and partnership research between researchers and policy makers. Such approaches focus research effort on questions of highest relevance to practice and policy so as to create ownership of the results. However, such approaches on their own do not necessarily visualise or illuminate possible pathways of action or create a sense of personal connection to these possible actions. Aims and objectives: Our intent is to foster high-level engagement with possible project findings by policymakers and researchers involved in partnership research. We describe a simple, creative, innovative device: production of co-authored mock (i.e., fake) in-house abstracts of peer reviewed papers as an aid in this process This occurs in advance of knowing real results of the study. The fake abstracts process described here occurs within a research-policy maker-practitioner partnership studying the scaling-up of childhood statewide obesity prevention programs and the electronic monitoring system being used to track progress. Key conclusions: The fake abstracts are a tool for identifying priority interests among a large data set. They act as a trigger to uncovering different interpretations of findings among the team. They foster discussion and mental rehearsal of actions based on different scenarios. And they help the team coordinate participation in the analysis and writing-up of the real findings. They also represent a hypothetical variety of research endpoints which also assist with maintaining project momentum during long phases of analysis.

Kinship care and child fostering are a common practice in certain parts of Africa. This narrative review seeks to explore and thematically code the contextual circumstances in which children leave their natal homes and are fostered across Africa and the corresponding outcomes for these children. It draws on case studies from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Namibia and other countries across the region to illustrate the diversity and cultural importance of kinship care and child fostering. These countries were selected based on their inclusion in the Thrive by Five International Program, a child rearing program promoting social, emotional, and cognitive development of children from birth to age five. The importance of kinship care and child fostering is also reinforced by outcomes from codesign workshops conducted for the Thrive by Five International Program in which parents, caregivers, and subject matter experts discussed their perspectives on child rearing practices and the challenges faced by caregivers in their home countries. The paper highlights the need to support kinship and foster caregivers in Africa with culturally adapted and place‐based child rearing programs to help ensure fostered children reach their full developmental potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic and current cost of living crisis have highlighted socioeconomically patterned health disparities, bringing renewed focus on equity in public health. Despite political rhetoric invoking cultural narratives of egalitarianism and opportunities for class mobility, social class remains a significant factor in health outcomes in the Australian context. For social scientists, class (despite robust critiques) is a key analytical concept that has been theoretically broadened to encompass social and cultural practices (habitus). In public health, however, concepts of social disadvantage have expanded toward frames such as health equity and socioeconomic status in ways that can obscure 'class' and habitus. Understandings and operationalization of concepts of class and equity not only impact collaborative and interdisciplinary relationships, but also the framing of public health problems and health promotion interventions and policies. In this article, we draw on our experiences as anthropologists conducting ethnography in and of Australian health promotion programs to map and re-evaluate the intersection of concepts of social class and equity. We trace how representations of class emerged in these programs, and the versions of class and equity that materialized across different public health contexts. We argue for a conceptual repositioning of class that recognizes its shape-shifting qualities and of its materializations in different politics, disciplines and everyday contexts. In doing so, we highlight 'class' as a salient dimension of the design, implementation and evaluation of health promotion programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile health (mHealth) interventions in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) have considerable potential to advance social and human development through the equitable delivery of health information and enabling self-care for disadvantaged populations. Involving stakeholders through co-design positively impacts the development of mHealth solutions and, in turn, their social, economic, and human development outcomes. The complex systems and multifaceted contexts confronted in co-design present barriers. This work focuses on barriers encountered in mHealth co-design in LMICs, related principally to culture, language, and technology. It presents a toolkit highlighting methods to best overcome such barriers, aiming to strengthen 'mobile phones for development' research and practice. Additionally, it provides an illustrative example of applying the toolkit. By presenting this toolkit to overcome barriers and create opportunities for realising health outcomes from information and communications technology (ICT) implementation, this article contributes to the fields of ICT for development, participatory design, and population and digital health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's mental health system is failing young people. Calls for accountability, strategic long-term policy planning, and regional leadership have been identified as solutions to guide mental health reform. Developing system dynamics models using a participatory approach (participatory systems modelling (PSM)) is recognized as a useful method that can support decision-making for strategic reform. This paper reports evaluation findings of a youth mental health PSM process conducted in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Baseline and follow-up mixed-methods evaluation data were collected in 2022 across diverse stakeholder groups to investigate the feasibility, value, impact, and sustainability of PSM. Although youth mental health system reform was viewed as desirable and a necessity across all stakeholder groups, shared perceptions of disabling powerless was observed regarding their ability to influence current decision-making processes to improve the youth mental health system. This suggests greater accountability is required to support systemic reform in youth mental health. PSM offers promise in improving transparency and accountability of decision-making for youth mental health, as exemplified in the ACT. However, more support and time are required to facilitate transformational change. Future research should investigate empowerment strategies to complement the implementation of findings from dynamic models developed through PSM, as well as the effectiveness of regional youth mental health policy decision-making supported by systems modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen remarkable progress in our scientific understanding of early childhood social, emotional, and cognitive development, as well as our capacity to widely disseminate health information by using digital technologies. Together, these scientific and technological advances offer exciting opportunities to deliver high-quality information about early childhood development (ECD) to parents and families globally, which may ultimately lead to greater knowledge and confidence among parents and better outcomes among children (particularly in lower- and middle-income countries). With these potential benefits in mind, we set out to design, develop, implement, and evaluate a new parenting app--Thrive by Five--that will be available in 30 countries. The app will provide caregivers and families with evidence-based and culturally appropriate information about ECD, accompanied by sets of collective actions that go beyond mere tips for parenting practices. Herein, we describe this ongoing global project and discuss the components of our scientific framework for developing and prototyping the app's content. Specifically, we describe (1) 5 domains that are used to organize the content and goals of the app's information and associated practices; (2) 5 neurobiological systems that are relevant to ECD and can be behaviorally targeted to potentially influence social, emotional, and cognitive development; (3) our anthropological and cultural framework for learning about local contexts and appreciating decolonization perspectives; and (4) our approach to tailoring the app's content to local contexts, which involves collaboration with in-country partner organizations and local and international subject matter experts in ECD, education, medicine, psychology, and anthropology, among others. Finally, we provide examples of the content that was incorporated in Thrive by Five when it launched globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As health promotion as a field progresses further into the 21st century, it may seem backward-looking to devote research energy to the study of health information leaflets and program resources. However, the longevity of these tools in health promotion invites more critical understanding of their roles and meanings, particularly now in the era of scaled-up evidence-based programs. As program implementation becomes more complex, it is vital that we understand the roles these tools play, as 'what' it is about them that needs to be scaled-up might be misconstrued or contestable. We undertook a multi-sited ethnography of the electronic information management system used to assist the scale-up of a $45 m population wide childhood obesity prevention program in New South Wales, Australia. This provided a window to observe the roles of informational materials and program resources in program implementation in schools and early-childhood services. We found that resources acted both as a form of standardisation (controlling the form of the program across the state) and as a means by which practitioners developed flexibility in local-level adaptation. We found practitioners strategically harnessed program resources as tools to assist in relationship building, and to achieve key performance targets. Resources also played a crucial role in developing collaborative engagements between practitioners working in a range of local contexts across the state. We conclude that during program scale-up, there is a set of actions and interactions around program resources that illustrate and mirror wider implementation tensions and dynamics, revealing important small moments of practitioner agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-I9 pandemic represents a massive challenge to the ordinary work of community-based organisations. We present results from a study of the actions and experiences of community-based organisations and funding agencies in the context of a grants program for chronic disease prevention in Tasmania, Australia during 2020. Community-based organisations had just received funding to implement programs targeting smoking, obesity, nutrition and physical activity when the first lockdowns were put in place. Though the rapid changes triggered by the pandemic placed strain on organisations in certain ways, we record the adaptive practices that took place as the pandemic unfolded. We observed two levels of adaptation: 1) program-level adaptation, as new ways of reaching people and delivering planned services were devised; and 2) system-level adaptation, as funding agreements were revised and the range of organisational procedures were altered, new partnerships were formed and the span of operations were rewritten. The suspension of usual rules and activities gave permission to experiment with new roles and 'blue sky' ideas. Organisations who provided compelling accounts of adaptation had leaders and past history that enabled them to tap into wide networks to access resources and coordinate action. We suggest that these insights from 'extraordinary' times are helpful for priming or building greater adaptability and transformability in community-based prevention programs, their host organisations and their funders in 'ordinary' times. Drawing on the theoretical foundations of liminality theory, complexity, and viable systems theory, we consider how (better) system-level capability for chronic disease prevention is built. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the concept of internationalism in the campaign against the Anti-Fertility Vaccine. It examines the various internationalisms that operate in the narratives of the campaign from different standpoints, comparing international commentary to the perspectives elicited by Indian activists. By viewing the campaign in the context of the Indian women's health, it demonstrates how dominant versions of internationalism serve to marginalise other more inclusive feminist internationalisms.

Background: Emerging evidence suggests that positive impacts can be generated when digital health interventions are designed to be responsive to the cultural and socioeconomic context of their intended audiences., Objective: This narrative review aims to synthesize the literature about the cultural adaptation of digital health interventions. It examines how concepts of culture and context feature in design and development processes, including the methods, models, and content of these interventions, with the aim of helping researchers to make informed decisions about how to approach cultural adaptation in digital health., Methods: Literature searches for this narrative review were conducted across 4 databases. Following full-text article screening by 2 authors, 16 studies of interventions predominantly focused on the self-management of health were selected based on their detailed focus on the process of cultural adaptation. Key considerations for cultural adaptation were identified and synthesized through a qualitative narrative approach, enabling an integrative and in-depth understanding of cultural adaptation., Results: The literature demonstrates varying approaches and levels of cultural adaptation across stages of intervention development, involving considerations such as the research ethos orienting researchers, the methodologies and models used, and the resultant content adaptations. In relation to the latter, culturally appropriate and accessible user interface design and translation can be seen as particularly important in shaping the level of adaptation., Conclusions: Optimizing cultural adaptation involves linking culture with other contextual factors such as economic conditions and social systems to ensure accessibility and the sustained use of digital health interventions. Culturally humble approaches that use the involvement of a broad range of participants, experts, and other stakeholders are demonstrated to spark vital insights for content development, implementation, and evaluation., (©Aila Naderbagi, Victoria Loblay, Iqthyer Uddin Md Zahed, Mahalakshmi Ekambareshwar, Adam Poulsen, Yun J C Song, Laura Ospina-Pinillos, Michael Krausz, Mostafa Mamdouh Kamel, Ian B Hickie, Haley M LaMonica. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 09.07.2024.)

Explorations of barriers and enablers (or barriers and facilitators) to a desired health practice, implementation process, or intervention outcome have become so prevalent that they seem to be a default in much health services and public health research. In this article, we argue that decisions to frame research questions or analyses using barriers and enablers (B&Es) should not be default. Contrary to the strengths of qualitative research, the B&Es approach often bypasses critical reflexivity and can lead to shallow research findings with poor understanding of the phenomena of interest. The B&Es approach is untheorised, relying on assumptions of linear, unidirectional processes, universally desirable outcomes, and binary thinking which are at odds with the rich understanding of context and complexity needed to respond to the challenges faced by health services and public health. We encourage researchers to develop research questions using informed deliberation that considers a range of approaches and their implications for producing meaningful knowledge. Alternatives and enhancements to the B&Es approach are explored, including using 'whole package' methodologies; theories, conceptual frameworks, and sensitising ideas; and participatory methods. We also consider ways of advancing existing research on B&Es rather than doing 'more of the same': researchers can usefully investigate how a barrier or enabler works in depth; develop and test implementation strategies for addressing B&Es; or synthesise the B&Es literature to develop a new model or theory. Illustrative examples from the literature are provided. We invite further discussion on this topic., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: Optimal child-rearing practices can help mitigate the consequences of detrimental social determinants of health in early childhood. Given the ubiquity of personal digital technologies worldwide, the direct delivery of evidence-based information about early childhood development holds great promise. However, to make the content of these novel systems effective, it is crucial to incorporate place-based cultural beliefs, traditions, circumstances, and value systems of end users., Objective: This paper describes the iterative approach used to develop the Thrive by Five child-rearing app in collaboration with Afghan parents, caregivers (eg, grandparents, aunts, and nannies), and subject matter experts (SMEs). We outline how co-design methodologies informed the development and cultural contextualization of content to meet the specific needs of Afghan parents and the content was tested and refined in collaboration with key Afghan stakeholders., Methods: The preliminary content was developed based on a comprehensive literature review of the historical and sociocultural contexts in Afghanistan, including factors that influence child-rearing practices and early childhood development. After an initial review and refinement based on feedback from SMEs, this content was populated into a beta app for testing. Overall, 8 co-design workshops were conducted in July and August 2021 and February 2022 with 39 Afghan parents and caregivers and 6 SMEs to collect their feedback on the app and its content. The workshops were audio recorded and transcribed; detailed field notes were taken by 2 scribes. A theoretical thematic analysis using semantic codes was conducted to inform the refinement of existing content and development of new content to fulfill the needs identified by participants., Results: The following 4 primary themes were identified: child-rearing in the Afghan sociocultural context, safety concerns, emotion and behavior management, and physical health and nutrition. Overall, participants agreed that the app had the potential to deliver valuable information to Afghan parents; however, owing to the volatility in the country, participants recommended including more activities that could be safely done indoors, as mothers and children are required to spend most of their time at home. Additionally, restrictions on public engagement in music required the removal of activities referencing singing that might be performed outside the home. Further, activities to help parents reduce their children's screen time, promote empathy, manage emotions, regulate behavior, and improve physical health and nutrition were requested., Conclusions: Direct engagement with Afghan parents, caregivers, and SMEs through co-design workshops enabled the development and refinement of evidence-based, localized, and contextually relevant child-rearing activities promoting healthy social, emotional, and cognitive development during the first 5 years of children's lives. Importantly, the content was adapted for the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan with the aim of empowering Afghan parents and caregivers to support their children's developmental potential despite the security concerns and situational stressors., (©Haley M LaMonica, Jacob J Crouse, Yun J C Song, Mafruha Alam, Chloe E Wilson, Gabrielle Hindmarsh, Adam Yoon, Kelsie A Boulton, Mahalakshmi Ekambareshwar, Victoria Loblay, Jakelin Troy, Mujahid Torwali, Adam J Guastella, Richard B Banati, Ian B Hickie. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 23.08.2023.)

Co-production partnerships between policymakers, practitioners, and researchers are designed to facilitate production of relevant and readily usable research in health policy and practice contexts. We describe methodological strategies for in-depth collaborative analysis based on a co-produced ethnography of health promotion practice, involving ethnographic researchers and government-based research partners. We draw on a co-production dialogue to reflect critically on the role and value of co-analyzing research findings using thick ethnographic descriptions. The ambiguity of ethnographic imagery allowed flexibility in interpretation of findings and also generated friction. Specific ethnographic images became focal points for productive friction that crystallized ethical and analytical imperatives underpinning the diverse expertise in the team. To make the most of co-analysis of thick ethnographic descriptions, we assert that friction points must be reflexively considered as key learning opportunities for (a) higher order analysis informed by diverse analytical perspectives and (b) more cohesive and useful interpretations of research findings.