Sending a message: How significant events have influenced the warnings landscape in Australia

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The Bureau of Meteorology has a mandate to issue warnings for weather and climate events that are likely to result in harm and loss. This service has been delivered in an end-to-end (science to service) context and warnings messages have typically been crafted to describe the current and predicted future state of the environment and recommended protective actions. However, the warnings landscape is evolving and Australian governments and emergency management agencies are adopting rapidly diversifying roles in a range of warnings processes. This evolution coincides with the shift in international strategies: from the mitigation and crisis management approach to the emphasis on building community resilience. Following a number of severe weather-related events that resulted in serious losses a series of Australian inquiries, reviews and social research investigated warnings efficacy. This included the National Review of Warnings and Information for Australia, with a recommendation suggesting that a Total Warning System concept be more formally considered across multiple hazards, rather than just flood, as it currently stands. Consequently, Australian warnings agencies are embracing a more people-centred approach recognising the need for messages to include detail of likely impact alongside an implied level of risk. Thus, developing capability to deliver impact forecasting and risk-based warnings services in a multi (natural) hazard context. With a key focus on flood, fire and tropical cyclone, this paper reviews international and national warnings policy documents and social research and explores the evidence-based evolution of warning services with respect to the Total Warning System concept.Deanne Bird has been supported by the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Resilience and Societal Security – NORDRESS, which is funded by the Nordic Societal Security Programme.Peer Reviewe

Whole-genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis capture the emergence of a multi-drug resistant Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis clone from diagnostic animal samples in the United States

IntroductionSalmonella enterica is a major cause of foodborne illness in the United States. A multi-drug resistant (MDR) emergent Salmonella Infantis (ESI) with a megaplasmid (pESI) was first identified in Israel and Italy and subsequently reported worldwide. The ESI clone carrying an extended spectrum β-lactamase blaCTX-M-65 on a pESI-like plasmid and a mutation in the gyrA gene has recently been found in the United States in poultry meat.MethodsWe analyzed the phenotypic and genotypic antimicrobial resistance, genomics and phylogeny of 200 S. infantis isolates from animal diagnostic samples.ResultsOf these, 33.5% were resistant to at least one antimicrobial and 19.5% were multi-drug resistant (MDR). Eleven isolates from different animal sources were phenotypically and genetically similar to the ESI clone. These isolates had a D87Y mutation in the gyrA gene conferring reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin and harbored a combination of 6–10 resistance genes: blaCTX-M-65, aac(3)-IVa, aadA1, aph(4)-Ia, aph(3′)-Ia, floR, sul1, dfrA14, tetA, and fosA. These 11 isolates carried class I and class II integrons and three virulence genes: sinH, involved in adhesion and invasion, ybtQ and ybtP, associated with iron transport. These isolates were also closely related to each other (separated by 7 to 27 SNPs) and phylogenetically related to the ESI clone recently found in the U.S.DiscussionThis dataset captured the emergence of the MDR ESI clone in multiple animal species and the first report of a pESI-like plasmid in isolates from horses in the U.S

The Continuing Use of Problematic Sexual Stereotypes in Judicial Decision-Making

This article examines the continuing use of problematic sexual stereotypes at appellate level in the English and Welsh legal system. Using five cases as illustrations, it argues that, notwithstanding professional training and guidance on sexual equality matters, certain senior judges in this jurisdiction still at least sometimes openly employ crude and problematic sexual stereotypes in their judgments or fail to deal appropriately with the use of these stereotypes by trial judges. The central point is that there is still a significant problem with the open use of crude sexual stereotypes in legal reasoning at a senior level in this jurisdiction, despite the pressure on all members of the legal system to appear to be ‘politically correct’

Community responses to communication campaigns for influenza A (H1N1): a focus group study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This research was a part of a contestable rapid response initiative launched by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Ministry of Health in response to the 2009 influenza A pandemic. The aim was to provide health authorities in New Zealand with evidence-based practical information to guide the development and delivery of effective health messages for H1N1 and other health campaigns. This study contributed to the initiative by providing qualitative data about community responses to key health messages in the 2009 and 2010 H1N1 campaigns, the impact of messages on behavioural change and the differential impact on vulnerable groups in New Zealand.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Qualitative data were collected on community responses to key health messages in the 2009 and 2010 Ministry of Health H1N1 campaigns, the impact of messages on behaviour and the differential impact on vulnerable groups. Eight focus groups were held in the winter of 2010 with 80 participants from groups identified by the Ministry of Health as vulnerable to the H1N1 virus, such as people with chronic health conditions, pregnant women, children, Pacific Peoples and Māori. Because this study was part of a rapid response initiative, focus groups were selected as the most efficient means of data collection in the time available. For Māori, focus group discussion (hui) is a culturally appropriate methodology.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Thematic analysis of data identified four major themes: personal and community risk, building community strategies, responsibility and information sources. People wanted messages about specific actions that they could take to protect themselves and their families and to mitigate any consequences. They wanted transparent and factual communication where both good and bad news is conveyed by people who they could trust.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The responses from all groups endorsed the need for community based risk management including information dissemination. Engaging with communities will be essential to facilitate preparedness and build community resilience to future pandemic events. This research provides an illustration of the complexities of how people understand and respond to health messages related to the H1N1 pandemic. The importance of the differences identified in the analysis is not the differences per se but highlight problems with a "one size fits all" pandemic warning strategy.</p

Warning fatigue : Insights from the Australian Bushfire Context

Warning Fatigue or Cry-Wolf effect is a taken-for-granted phenomenon that can result from being ‘over-warned’. The terms are used to describe situations where individuals who are exposed to recurring warning messages about a disaster which then does not eventuate become cynical, apathetic and ‘tired’ of hearing warnings. They may become desensitised to the risk thereby endangering themselves even more. The assumption by practitioners (emergency managers and governmental policy-makers for example) that warning fatigue is a problem presents emergency agencies with a conundrum: they want to avoid the accusation of panicking the public but worry they may run the risk of under-preparing them at the same time. As a result, they may be tempted to err on the side of caution, delay issuing a warning and downplay the possible severity of a potential disaster. Examination of the literature, and an analysis of presentations and news stories have shown that policy-makers, emergency managers, academics and the public use the term ‘cry wolf’ or ‘warning fatigue’ in everyday life. They regard it as conventional wisdom and believe it can influence risk perception and warning response. Nonetheless it has been presumptively assigned by some disaster theorists to the category of a myth. A limited warning fatigue literature has examined the phenomenon in the context of rapid-onset disasters and has concluded that risk perception is not affected by warning fatigue. However, it also suggests there is a direct relationship between warning time, preparedness and response. This allows for the possibility that warning fatigue may not be a myth, but a function of the type of disaster, the frequency of warnings and warning lead-time. This thesis makes a distinction between rapid-onset and prolonged lead-time disasters and hypothesises that prolonged lead-time disasters are responded to in very differently ways than rapid-onset ones. Australian bushfires provide the context in which this research was conducted because bushfires are repeatedly warned about yet rarely (once every ten or twenty years) result in a major disaster. Using social constructionist and social representation theoretical frameworks, and integrating psychosocial and sociological perspectives, this thesis examines the role that warning fatigue plays in the risk perceptions, warning responses and decision-making processes of people living in bushfire-prone areas of Australia. Utilisation of a mixed methods design, a substantive literature review and two rounds of semi-structured interviews resulted in a conceptualisation of a bushfire warning fatigue measure (BWFM). Application of the measure among at-risk Australian communities validated the measure. Through empirical statistical analysis, this standardised instrument was revised (BWFM-R) and used to measure the change in warning fatigue levels over a fire season (November 2011-April 2012). Analysis showed that warning fatigue appears to be multi-faceted comprising five aspects: Trust and credibility, over-warning, false alarms, scepticism and helplessness. It was also found that warning fatigue responses are contextual and interconnected with ‘unofficial’ warnings (such as media stories). The direction of the change and analysis of the qualitative component of the survey implied that unofficial bushfire rhetoric from the media during the winter months may produce a warning fatigue effect, so that when the official warnings were issued at the beginning of the bushfire season, the public were already ‘tired’ of the message. Trust and credibility, over-warning, false alarms, scepticism and helplessness are not new factors in public warning response to disaster communication, but this research demonstrates that they can combine in a unique way to produce ‘warning fatigue’. It proposes that if emergency and disaster agencies differentiate between rapid-onset and prolonged lead-time disasters, understand the complexities of warning fatigue and design their warnings accordingly, then disaster risk communication will become more effective, increasing public engagement and improving disaster response

Health Risk Communication: Reporting of Avian Influenza in New Zealand Newspapers 2002-2008

Those who are interested in the public mood, including politicians and economists, comment that the public are becoming ever more sceptical about many things, but health risk information should not be one of them. If health risk information is perceived by the public as ‘just another scary story’, or ‘more of the same we heard last month’, then the ability of risk messages to convey urgency and recommend action could be greatly diminished; the ‘cry wolf’ scenario becomes more real every time a threat appears in the media but fails to materialise. This thesis explores how avian influenza, (H₅N₁), as a health risk category, has been reported and represented in the New Zealand media. By analysing avian influenza-related items in four New Zealand newspapers over a six-year period, 2002-2008, and by comparing results with those found in a U.S. study by Dudo, Dahlstrom & Brossard (2007), this thesis explores the dominant themes and discourses the media drew upon when reporting the health threat of avian influenza. In addition, data from four focus groups sessions was analysed for the purpose of exploring public perceptions of health risk messages and the influence of the media on those perceptions. This thesis was situated within a constructionist epistemology, and employed a mixed-methods methodology with content, thematic and textual analyses. Risk communication theories and models, media conventions of agenda-setting and framing, and sociological concepts informed how the topic of health risk communication was operationalised. The analysis of the focus group data explored how the participants discussed the threat of H₅N₁; how they constructed concepts of personal and community risk, what role, if any, they attributed to the media in their construction and how they positioned themselves in regards to illness and contagion. The focus group analysis revealed that three dominant themes - risk, media and ‘othering’ – represented how the focus group participants talked about the risk of avian influenza. These and several sub-dominant themes shared similarities to those found in the newspaper analysis. Whilst initial discussions seemed to indicate a nonchalant attitude towards the risk of avian influenza, the many topics and themes that characterised the way the participants discussed the risk between them, showed that they had thought about the personal consequences of a possible health risk, and had formed strong opinions about many facets of that risk. Results from the newspaper analysis largely mirrored those of the above U.S. study, and showed that the New Zealand media favoured episodic over thematic framing; sensationalising the reporting of avian influenza, whilst providing little in the way of scientific and contextual information. Moreover, the analysis showed that, when reporting health risks, media templates are well established. The analysis of the focus group data revealed that the participants wanted media health risk messages to be clear, concrete and factual. However, this desire for messages that communicate certainty about risk, which is, by definition inherently uncertain, raises questions about the very nature of risk communication. Findings of this thesis suggest that future risk communication research should focus, not on how the media are reporting health risks, but how the public conceptualise risk, construct it in times of crisis and evaluate their ability to control it

Translational Research in Aphasia: From Neuroscience to Neurorehabilitation

Purpose: In this article, the authors encapsulate discussions of the Language Work Group that took place as part of the Workshop in Plasticity/NeuroRehabilitation Research at the University of Florida in April 2005. Method: In this narrative review, they define neuroplasticity and review studies that demonstrate neural changes associated with aphasia recovery and treatment. The authors then summarize basic science evidence from animals, human cognition, and computational neuroscience that is relevant to aphasia treatment research. They then turn to the aphasia treatment literature in which evidence exists to support several of the neuroscience principles. Conclusion: Despite the extant aphasia treatment literature, many questions remain regarding how neuroscience principles can be manipulated to maximize aphasia recovery and treatment. They propose a framework, incorporating some of these principles, that may serve as a potential roadmap for future investigations of aphasia treatment and recovery. In addition to translational investigations from basic to clinical science, the authors propose several areas in which translation can occur from clinical to basic science to contribute to the fundamental knowledge base of neurorehabilitation. This article is intended to reinvigorate interest in delineating the factors influencing successful recovery from aphasia through basic, translational, and clinical research