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An editorial is presented on how the politics of colonization continues to shape academic knowledge production, as a productive problem for health sociology. Topics include range of posthuman dilemmas across diverse health issues as they grapple with the ethical, ontological and epistemological relations of knowing and doing health; and posthuman perspectives enables the authors to generate health sociology knowledge beyond humanist assumptions, ideals and logics and rethink health care.

In this article we make the case that 'unlearning' is an important dimension of professional reflective practice that can offer new insights when done collaboratively. We do so as an interdisciplinary group of academics interested in 'undoing' the conventional and individualising norms of reflective practice in academic settings, particularly when it comes to planning and reflecting on group processes for research. In the process of planning a project to investigate mentoring in the professions of social work and teaching, we reflected on our own collaborative academic practices through co-facilitated discussion, the creation of visual 'd/artaphacts', written reflections on our perceptions of 'unlearning' and academic collaboration, and reviewing how our diverse disciplines have engaged with unlearning in research literature and practice. These responses generated insights into the intricacies of the collaborative practice of unlearning in a professional research environment. We draw on these conversations, d/artaphacts, and reflections to compose five principles for a pedagogy of unlearning that can be applied in mentoring and professional practice settings. The principles highlight the importance of approaching unlearning as a collaborative activity for sustainable professional practice and for supporting the development of professional identities in fluid and complex relational work environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Visual technologies are central to youth culture and are often the preferred communication means of adolescents. Although these tools can be beneficial in fostering relations, adolescents' use of visual technologies and social media also raises ethical concerns. Aims: We explored how school public health nurses identify and resolve the ethical challenges involved in the use of visual technologies in health dialogues with adolescents. Research design: This is a qualitative study utilizing data from focus group discussions. Participants and research context: We conducted focus group discussions using two semi-structured discussion guides with seven groups of public health nurses (n = 40) working in Norwegian school health services. The data were collected during January and October 2016. Discussions were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded into themes and subthemes using systematic text condensation. Ethical considerations: The leader of the public health nursing service who agreed to provide access for the study and the Norwegian Center for Research Data that reviewed and approved the study. All participants gave informed consent. Findings: In adolescents' use of visual materials with public health nurses, ethical concerns were raised regarding suicide ideations, socially unacceptable content, violation of privacy, and presentations of possible child neglect. The nurses utilized their professional knowledge and experience when identifying and navigating these ethical dilemmas; they resolved ethical uncertainties through peer discussion and collaboration with fellow nurses and other professionals. Discussion: We discussed the findings in light of Annemarie Mol's interpretation of the ethics of care. Mol expands the notion of ethical care to include the action of technologies. Conclusion: Although the increasing use of visual technologies offered benefits, school nurses faced ethical challenges in health dialogues with adolescents. To address and navigate these ethical issues, they relied on their experience and caring practices based on their professional ethics. Uncertainties were resolved through peer dialogue and guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine pregnant women's experiences with routinised obstetric ultrasound as entailed in their antenatal care during planned pregnancies. This paper highlights the ambiguity of ultrasound technology in the constitution of maternal-foetal connections. Our analysis focusses on Australian women's experiences of the ontological, aesthetic and epistemological ambiguities afforded by ultrasound. We argue that these ambiguities offer possibilities for connecting to the foetus in ways that maintain a kind of unknowability; they afford an openness and ethical responsiveness irrespective of the future of the foetus. This suggests that elucidating women's experience has implications for theorising ethics across maternal-foetal relations and, more specifically, for the 'moral pioneering' (Rapp, 2000) that reproductive technologies can demand of women. Moral pioneering cannot be reduced to moments or processes of decision-making; it must allow for greater recognition of the affective commitments entailed in and incited by ultrasound. Furthermore, focussing on experiences of the ambiguity of ultrasound allows for understanding the ways in which affectivity circulates across domains commonly understood as medical or social, public or private. In doing so, it contributes to undermining a series of tensions that currently shape feminist analysis of obstetric ultrasound, often at the expense of the experience of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do antidepressants work? This often-asked question continues to attract debate. The depressed individual features in many debates about antidepressants' action. With this focus, discussion oscillates over whether antidepressants work to remedy chemical imbalances in the brains of depressed people, or produce inauthentic states of being. This article argues shifting the analytic focus away from the depressed individual and onto the collective body, or assemblage, moves debates about how antidepressants work into more productive terrain. This provides a new way of looking at how antidepressants work to facilitate recovery from depression through a series of collaborative connections or relationships. Drawing on the charts, photos, and narratives from research encounters with people who take antidepressants, the article illustrates how medication facilitates the creation of active associations in an assemblage of forces. The article concludes by discussing the new ways of thinking about depression, medication and recovery suggested by this understanding of antidepressant action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key concern for qualitative inquiry is finding ways to account for nonhuman and emergent forms of life. Toward this, researchers are experimenting with research practices that decenter the human subject. Deleuze's (1977) assemblage concept has proved a useful resource for these methodological experiments. Most often, the assemblage concept has informed analysis and writing processes. This article puts the assemblage concept to work during each stage of an empirical research project exploring how people experience antidepressant use. It details seven ways that assemblages are used during concrete research processes across the span of the project. This strategy generates a sensibility toward qualitative inquiry described as orientating to assembling. The sensibility decenters the human as the focus of qualitative research. It enables the presence of nonhuman objects, not as acted-upon, but agents in the research processes. The article contributes to the challenges posed to human-centered qualitative research by reframing the focus entirely. It shows how using a sensibility that consistently decenters the human across all stages of empirical research projects, is a way that qualitative inquiry can account for more-than-human worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smoking behavior of friends is a major risk factor for adolescent smoking uptake. To explore the social context of smoking experimentation and consolidation with a particular focus on friends, the authors interviewed both members of 14 young adult identical twin pairs who were discordant for smoking. The different smoking status of twins was connected to their different friendship groups and development of different identities. Smoking respondents gravitated to the behaviors and images of the peer group who smoked. Many nonsmokers felt strong pressure from their peers not to smoke and spoke about how the images conveyed by smoking were inconsistent with their peer group's image. Adolescents and young adults are aware of the messages that smoking can convey to others and exploit these images to construct a social identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine common themes used by US tobacco industry witnesses pertaining to youth smoking initiation during litigation in the United States. Methods: Qualitative thematic analysis of transcripts from 29 tobacco litigation cases dating from 1992 to 2002. Results: Youth smoking is portrayed by the tobacco industry as a source of great concern to them. Youth smoking prevention programmes developed by US tobacco companies are supposedly intended to delay decision-making about smoking until age 18, when individuals are then seen to be of an age where they are able to "choose to smoke". Tobacco industry media campaigns, youth access, community and school-based programmes are predicated on peer influence, parental factors, and commercial access being the primary influences on youth smoking uptake, rather than tobacco marketing, inaccurate risk appraisal, price and other factors known to influence youth smoking. Despite substantial financial investment in tobacco industry programmes, their witnesses were able to describe only weak evaluation methods, being preoccupied with measures of message comprehension, programme reach and uptake, and the associated costs of their efforts, rather than any evaluation designed to assess effects on youth smoking behaviour. Conclusion: Stated concerns about youth smoking and youth smoking prevention programmes are put forward in litigation as evidence that the tobacco industry is "serious" about tackling youth smoking, and serve as a primary strategy to improve the tobacco industry's public image. The tobacco industry's evaluation of the effectiveness of their youth smoking prevention programmes is demonstrably insufficient under current public health evaluation standards. Public health and welfare agencies should avoid engagement with tobacco industry-sponsored programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News coverage of tobacco issues influences both individual behavior change and policy progression. Thus, media advocacy is increasingly recognized as important for promoting public health. Letters to the editor (LTE) are a basic form of media advocacy, serving to demonstrate community sentiment on a given issue. Such letters are yet to receive systematic analytic consideration. The authors conducted an ethnographic content analysis of LTE on tobacco issues from a sample of 11 Australian daily newspapers over a 3-year period (2001 to 2003, N = 361). They argue that letters are artifacts of active engagement in a public debate and note that various stakeholders adopt similar strategies to pursue their objectives. They illustrate how identifying personal and collective identities is crucial in the assertion of legitimacy of voice in LTEs. Better understanding is needed of both the particular issues that spark public engagement, and the salient rhetoric employed by advocates of disparate positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a thematic frame analysis of Australian newspaper reporting of the outcome and implications of the trial of Rolah McCabe versus British American Tobacco Australasia (BATA). In this trial, a Melbourne woman was awarded A$700 000 damages for smoking-attributable lung cancer when the defendant, BATA, had its case dismissed due to document destruction. In 60 commentaries from Australian national or capital city newspapers between 12 April and 9 May 2002, a total of 79 instances of eight tobacco-related frames were identified. Overall, 43% of the 79 instances were positive for tobacco control, 46% were negative for tobacco control and 11% were neutral. The most common frame that was negative for tobacco control (in 35% of articles) was the conception that smokers exert 'free will' in deciding to smoke and should therefore be personally responsible for their smoking and any disease that arises as a result of it. A related, but less commonly employed frame (in 18% of articles) was the expressed fear of a 'slippery slope' of litigation, which portrayed smoking as similar to eating fast food or other 'vices'. The most common frame that was positive for tobacco control (in 35% of articles) was the notion that the tobacco industry was 'evil' and, to a lesser extent, that the government should 'do more' to control smoking (15% of articles). These findings provide a sobering public health challenge to improve public communication efforts about the powerful forces that conspire to induce people to start smoking and keep them smoking for decades, despite a strong desire to quit. There is a need to fund public education programs and quit smoking services more adequately to address the complex education task of understanding the nature of addiction to tobacco and the enormity of the health risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transit timing variations (TTVs) can be induced by a range of physical phenomena, including planet–planet interactions, planet–moon interactions, and stellar activity. Recent work has shown that roughly half of moons would induce fast TTVs with a short period in the range of 2–4 orbits of its host planet around the star. An investigation of the Kepler TTV data in this period range identified one primary target of interest, Kepler-1513 b. Kepler-1513 b is a |$8.05^{+0.58}_{-0.40}$| R⊕ planet orbiting a late G-type dwarf at |$0.53^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$| au. Using Kepler photometry, this initial analysis showed that Kepler-1513 b's TTVs were consistent with a moon. Here, we report photometric observations of two additional transits nearly a decade after the last Kepler transit using both ground-based observations and space-based photometry with TESS. These new transit observations introduce a previously undetected long period TTV, in addition to the original short period TTV signal. Using the complete transit data set, we investigate whether a non-transiting planet, a moon, or stellar activity could induce the observed TTVs. We find that only a non-transiting perturbing planet can reproduce the observed TTVs. We additionally perform transit origami on the Kepler photometry, which independently applies pressure against a moon hypothesis. Specifically, we find that Kepler-1513 b's TTVs are consistent with an exterior non-transiting ∼Saturn mass planet, Kepler-1513 c, on a wide orbit, |$\sim 5~{{\ \rm per \, cent}}$| outside a 5:1 period ratio with Kepler-1513 b. This example introduces a previously unidentified cause for planetary interlopers in the exomoon corridor, namely an insufficient baseline of observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims We aimed to explore how using visual methods might improve or complicate the dynamics of the health dialogue between public health nurses ( PHNs) and school pupils. This was done from the perspective of PHNs, specifically examining how they understood their role and practice as a PHN and the application of visual methods in this practice. Background The health dialogue is a method used by PHNs in school nursing in Norway. In this practice, there can be communicative barriers between pupils and PHNs. Investigating how PHNs understand their professional practice can lead to ways of addressing these communicative barriers, which can affect pupil satisfaction and achievement of health-related behaviours in the school context. Specifically, the use of visual methods by PHNs may address these communicative barriers. Design The research design was qualitative, using focus groups combined with visual methods. Methods We conducted focus group interviews using a semi-structured discussion guide and visual methods with five groups of PHNs ( n = 31) working in northern Norwegian school health services. The data were collected during January and February 2016. Discussions were audio recorded, transcribed and coded into themes and sub-themes using systematic text condensation and drawings were analysed using interpretive engagement, a method of visual analysis. Findings Drawings and focus group discussions showed that PHNs perceived their professional practice as primarily a relational praxis. The PHNs used a variety of visual methods as part of the health dialogue with school pupils. This active use of visualization worked to build and strengthen relations when words were inadequate and served to enhance the flexible and relational practice employed by the PHNs. Conclusions PHNs used different kinds of visualization methods to establish relations with school pupils, especially when verbalization by the pupils was difficult. PHNs were aware of both the benefits and challenges of using visualization with school pupils in health education. We recommend the use of visual methods in schools because they are useful for PHNs, other health professionals and teachers working with children and young people in developing relations, particularly where verbal communication may be a challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obstetric ultrasound is key to opposing ways of valuing foetuses, that is, both to the ascription of foetal personhood and to foetal selection and termination of pregnancy. Whilst ultrasound images are increasingly common within the public sphere there has been relatively little public discussion of its role in identifying actual or potential foetal anomaly and the consequences of this. This paper examines how professionals working with obstetric ultrasound encounter, navigate and make sense of the different uses of this technology. Professionals commonly delineate their work (as providing information) from women’s autonomous choices. Emphasising “women’s choice” can obscure consideration of different collective ways of valuing foetuses with anomalies. It can also deflect consideration of the fundamentally ambiguous information that ultrasound can produce. Distinguishing information from choice is underpinned by a questionable fact–value distinction. We describe alternate professional practices which involve questioning these binaries and foregrounding clinicians’ responsibilities for women’s current and future experience. Public discussion of ultrasound’s different roles in valuing foetuses would be enriched if the discourses and practices shaping professionals’ attempts to facilitate ethical decision-making were included for collective consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: It is important to achieve good persistence and adherence to disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) to achieve the best outcomes in chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). The BETACONNECT device is an electronic auto-injector for the DMT interferon beta-1b (Betaseron), designed to improve patients' injection experience and to monitor adherence. This observational study aimed to assess patient adherence to and persistence with interferon beta-1b therapy as well as patient-reported satisfaction in a US population. Methods: A prospective, observational, multicenter study was conducted in 146 adult patients with relapsing–remitting MS or clinically isolated syndrome, newly prescribed or currently established on interferon beta-1b therapy and naïve to the BETACONNECT device, and followed up during a 6-month observation period. Results: Among the 91 patients who completed the study, the overall mean adherence rate was 82.5%, with 65.9% of patients adherent for at least 80% for the duration of the 6-month period. At 6 months, 98.9% of patients had less than a 60-day gap in therapy. Of the 115 patients who provided satisfaction data, 90.5% of patients were either very satisfied or satisfied with the BETACONNECT device. Conclusion: This study shows that the BETACONNECT device was associated with high adherence to interferon beta-1b therapy in patients with MS. Patients also reported high degrees of satisfaction with the device. Therefore, this may be a viable delivery option to help with adherence and persistence, potentially leading to improved clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A trial installing shade sails at secondary schools found increased students' use of newly shaded areas, but relatively low use overall. We examined site features and weather related to use of these shaded areas. Tables with seats and temperatures ≥27°C increased student use of shaded areas, presence of grass decreased use. Focus groups at eight schools suggest students were unaware of changes to their habitual use of favoured locations. Results infer careful selection of locations for built-shade and provision of tables with seats will assist in maximising student use and investments in shade sails. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A retrospective analysis of data collected prospectively was performed to determine the long-term outcome of lumbosacral selective posterior rhizotomy (SPR) in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP). The study population comprised children with spastic CP, who had SPR more than 4 years prior to the time of the study and had quantitative standardized assessments of lower limb spasticity (Ashworth scale), range of motion measured goniometrically, muscle strength (MRC scale) and ambulatory function, both preoperatively and at 1 year after SPR. Children meeting these criteria were reassessed at 5 years after SPR using the same measures. Hip adductor spasticity, hip abduction range of motion and quadriceps strength were chosen as the primary outcome measures for statistical analysis. Of 80 patients who met the entry criteria for the study, 33 completed the 5-year assessments. Significant improvements in spasticity, range of motion and muscle strength were noted both at 1 year and at 5 years after SPR. The preoperative, 1-year and 5-year values were as follows: hip adductor spasticity (Ashworth scale) = 4.1, 2.1, 2.2; hip abduction range of motion (degrees) = 20.4, 39.9, 31.7, and quadriceps strength (MRC scale) = 3.6, 4.0, 4.1. Ambulatory function seemed to be better at 1 and 5 years compared to baseline, but no statistical analysis was done for this secondary outcome measure. It was concluded that improvements in lower limb motor outcome are present at 1 year after SPR, and that these improvements are generally maintained at 5 years.Copyright © 1999 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the resettlement experiences of former refugees living in regional Australia, focusing on mental health and mental health and support services, including barriers to access. Design: A phenomenological approach utilising a combination of six qualitative, semi‐structured, face‐to‐face focus groups (n = 24) and seven individual interviews. Data were analysed thematically using NVivo 10 software. Setting: Launceston, Tasmania. Participants: Adult and youth former refugees from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Iran, and essential service providers, residing in Launceston. Main outcome measures: Participants were asked about experiences of resettlement and mental health. Results: Participants reported that their mental health had improved since resettlement; however, major stressors impacted mental health and resettlement included employment and housing access and mastering the English language. Past experiences continued to impact current functioning, with trauma commonly experienced intergenerationally through parenting and attachment and ongoing trauma and feelings of guilt and responsibility experienced with families left behind. Participants noted barriers to accessing services: (a) Language difficulties including lack of interpreters; and (b) lack of culturally sensitive and trauma‐informed practices. Discrimination was experienced through the inconsistent provision of interpreters and lack of due consideration of cultural and religious differences. The use of children as interpreters enhanced a number of risk including miscommunication of medical information, exposure to age‐inappropriate information and the resulting increased risk of trauma for the child. Conclusion: Culturally sensitive, trauma‐informed and discrimination‐free practices should be employed across services, where Western‐views surrounding this medical model are not imposed, cultural differences are respected, and timely access to interpreters was provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: Public health nurses attended a 3‐day course to learn the use of visual methods in health dialogue with adolescents. The aim of this study was to explore how to use visual methods to promote health among adolescents in a school nursing context. Background: Photovoice is a visualising technique that enables adolescents to participate in health promotion projects in a school setting. Photovoice also enhances work of public health nurses and other health professionals. Design: This was a qualitative action research study. We developed and conducted a course in visual methods and used data from focus group discussions in combination with participant observations involving public health nurses working in school health services. Methods: We conducted focus group interviews (n = 40) using separate semi‐structured discussion guides before and after a course in visual methods. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim, and we documented the workshops (n = 8) through field notes. We collected the data from January–October 2016. Data were analysed and coded into themes and subthemes using systematic text condensation. We reported the study in accordance with the COREQ checklist. Findings: Public health nurses found photovoice useful in school nursing. The use of images offered pupils an active role in dialogues and more control in defining the topics and presenting their stories. When nurses allowed adolescents to bring images into conversations, they discovered new insights into public health promotion. The public health nurses pointed out the benefits and challenges of using new methods in practice. Conclusion: Public health nurses considered photovoice to be useful in health promotion and other public health issues. Involving pupils in bringing images to conversations offered them an active role and voice in health promotion. Relevance to clinical practice: We recommend the use of photovoice and visual technologies (e.g., smartphones) in health promotion activities for adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Droxidopa is approved for adult patients with symptomatic neurogenic orthostatic hypotension (nOH); there is limited information regarding effects on symptoms, outcomes, and quality of life (QOL) beyond two weeks of treatment. Objective: Examine the real‐world experience of patients taking droxidopa after six months of treatment. Methods: This non‐interventional, US‐based, prospective cohort study utilized a pharmacy hub, identifying patients who recently started droxidopa for nOH treatment. Questionnaires for fall frequency and other patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) were completed at baseline and one, three, and six months following droxidopa initiation. Results: 179 enrolled patients completed baseline surveys. Droxidopa continuation rates were high at months one, three, and six (87%, 79%, and 75%, respectively). From baseline to month one, there was significant reduction in the proportion of patients reporting falling at least once (54.1% vs. 43.0%; P = 0.0039), with similar observations at month three (52.9% vs. 44.5%; P = 0.0588) and month six (51.4% vs. 40.0%; P = 0.0339). Significant improvements from baseline to month one were observed and maintained at months three and six for most PROs, including the Orthostatic Hypotension Symptom Assessment Item 1, Short Falls Efficacy Scale‐International, Sheehan Disability Scale, Physical Component of the 8‐item Short‐Form Health Survey, and Patient Health Questionnaire‐9. Conclusions: In this non‐interventional prospective study, fewer nOH patients reported falling after one, three, and six months of droxidopa treatment. Further, improvements reported in nOH symptoms, physical function, and QOL measures were maintained for six months following treatment initiation. Results from randomized clinical trials are required to validate the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:For chronic kidney disease patients who progress to end-stage renal disease, survival is dependent on renal replacement therapy in the form of kidney transplantation or chronic dialysis. Peritoneal dialysis (PD), which can be performed at home, is both more convenient and less costly than hemodialysis that requires three 4-h visits per week to the dialysis facility and complicated equipment. Remote therapy management (RTM), technologies that collect medical information and transmit it to healthcare providers for patient management, has the potential to improve the outcomes of patients receiving automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) at home.Objective:Estimate through a simulation study the potential impact of RTM on APD patients use of healthcare resources and costs in the United States, Germany, and Italy.Methods:Twelve APD patient profiles were developed to reflect potential clinical scenarios of APD therapy. Two versions of each profile were created to simulate healthcare resource use, one assuming use of RTM and one with no RTM. Eleven APD teams (one nephrologist, one nurse) estimated resources that would be used.Results:Results from U.S., German, and Italian clinicians found that RTM could avoid use of 59, 49, and 16 resources over the 12 profiles, respectively. Estimated reduced utilization across the three countries ranged from one to two hospitalizations, one to four home visits, two to five emergency room visits, and four to eight unplanned clinic visits. Total savings across all scenarios were $23,364 in the United States, $11,477 in Germany, and $7,088 in Italy.Conclusion:In a simulated environment, early intervention enabled by RTM reduced healthcare resource utilization and associated costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this explanatory, sequential mixed methods study was to examine pretest - posttest changes in high school teachers' knowledge of self-regulated learning (SRL) and their self-efficacy and skills in applying SRL following a professional development (PD) workshop. Teacher interviews and qualitative analyses were used to assess differences in teachers' attitudes, perceptions, and experiences when implementing SRL. In general, the 19 teachers showed large gains across all measures at posttest. Teachers who displayed advanced SRL skills following the PD exhibited more flexible, responsive, and positive perspectives on implementing SRL in the classroom than teachers with emerging SRL skills. • Professional development (PD) workshop enhanced self-regulated learning (SRL) outcomes in teachers. • Not all teachers exhibit the same level of growth following the PD workshop. • Level of teacher SRL skill following PD relates to attitudes and approaches to SRL implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To characterize the presence of advocacy groups in media coverage about tobacco issues. Design. A content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles. Setting. Australia. Sample. All 12 national and state capital daily newspapers published in Australia between 2004 and 2007. Measures. We coded each article for explicit mentions of any of 16 major national or state tobacco control advocacy groups; for the article type, prominence, and topic; for the tone of the event; and for the author's opinion. Analysis. A series of 2 × 2 x² analyses assessed the extent to which advocacy groups were more or less likely to be mentioned in articles of each type, prominence, topic, event impact, and opinion orientation. Results. Of the 4387 tobacco-related articles published over this period, 22% mentioned an advocacy group. There was a greater-than-expected proportion of advocacy groups mentioned in news articles with very high prominence (44%; x² [1, N = 3118] = 27.4, p < .001), high prominence (34%; x² [1, N = 3118J = 10.9, p < .001), and medium prominence (30%; x² [1, N= 3118] = 7.3, p = .007), and in articles covering events with mixed (30%; x² [1, N = 4387] = 10.0, p = .002) or positive (24%; x² [1, N = 43871 = 26.1, p <.001)implications for tobacco control. Conclusions. Australian tobacco control advocacy groups have a reasonable presence within the news discourse on tobacco control issues and so are likely to contribute to generating and shaping this discourse, particularly in relation to evolving and controversial issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco control advocates expend considerable effort in generating news stories on tobacco issues to assist progress in tobacco control, and the news coverage itself may have important policy and behavioral influences. Yet, studies of trends in such news coverage are uncommon. Between 2001 and 2006, we conducted a content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles in the 12 major daily Australian newspapers and coded them for type of article, topic, and tone. Overall, 6483 tobacco-focused articles were published, representing an average of one article every 4 days for each newspaper. There was variability in volume between years but no decline over time. Overall, 67% of articles reported on events that represented progress for tobacco control, 21% on setbacks, and 7% on events that were of mixed impact. Newspaper coverage of tobacco issues was dominated by articles on smoke-free issues (32% of articles), health effects of smoking (12%), education, prevention and cessation programs and services (12%), and the tobacco industry (9%). During the 6-year period, on average, Australian adults were potentially exposed to around one article on tobacco issues every week, or using a more stringent prominence-adjusted measure, one article every 2 to 3 weeks, a level comparable to paid media campaigns in some jurisdictions. Temporal variation in population exposure to news coverage about tobacco issues may reflect variability in newsworthiness of tobacco control issues, media advocacy resources and success, and/or preparedness of editors and journalists to entertain news stories on tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]