Capturing realities of informal housing in Aotearoa/New Zealand : implications for health and wellbeing

CD containing tracks of interviews restricted (internal files)Research shows population health outcomes are inextricably linked to a range of social indicators, with poor housing (along with lower levels of income, educational attainment and social connectedness) associated with poorer health. Attention in Aotearoa/New Zealand has increasingly focused on a lack of affordable housing which has forced people into crowded, substandard and/or 'informal' accommodation. According to Census figures, thousands of individuals and families are living in dwellings such as tents, garages, caravans and vans, classified as informal for the purposes of this study. This thesis explores the 'realities' of those living in informal housing and considers implications for health and wellbeing. In-depth and follow-up interviews with twenty-five participants living in informal housing on the Coromandel Peninsula and fifteen within the Auckland conurbation (providing a rural and an urban sample) looked at participants' perceptions and experiences of their housing situations, health and wellbeing. Thematic analysis of interviews highlights 'cultural collisions' between mainstream perceptions of housing and health and the perceptions of many of the participants, particularly on the Coromandel. Almost none of the Coromandel participants considered their informal housing compromised their health and wellbeing, although results were more mixed in Auckland. A possible explanation for this difference is the sense of empowerment and choice articulated by Coromandel participants, coupled with a strong sense of connection to the land. The analysis also shows affordable accommodation was a fundamental concern for a majority in both samples and lack of money a frequent (although not universal) pathway into informal housing. Other factors included illness and other disruptive life events such as job loss, family breakdown, violence and natural disasters, along with lifestyle choices. Follow-up interviews six to twelve months later confirmed all but two of the Coromandel sample were in the same informal housing situations, while in contrast many of the Auckland sample had moved into mainstream housing. Results of SF-36 and GHQ-12 self-report health questionnaires completed by participants showed no statistically significant differences from the national averages, although physical functioning was higher for both Coromandel and Auckland participants. These results support thematic analysis findings in terms of physical and mental health and wellbeing. The 'cultural collisions' evident between participant and mainstream perceptions of what constitutes appropriate housing suggest a need for flexibility so that the resourcefulness of participants can be built on to promote health and wellbeing. This has implications for issues of compliance and public health and housing policies at both local and national government levels

Keeping kids safe for active travel to school: A mixed method examination of school policies and practices and children's school travel behaviour.

Active school travel contributes to children's physical, mental and social wellbeing. The prevalence of children's active school travel, however, has been declining in many developed countries. Gaining insights into school culture and environments in relation to school travel behaviour is crucial to inform interventions. Using a multiphase mixed methods approach, this study aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of how school policies and practices supported or inhibited school travel behaviour in Auckland, New Zealand. Data were drawn from Neighbourhoods for Active Kids, a cross-sectional study of 1085 children aged 8-13 years between February 2015 and December 2016. School representatives were interviewed regarding their policies and practices related to school travel behaviour and traffic around school, and the data were analysed thematically. An overarching theme, sub-themes and categories were contextualised for quantitative modelling using objectively measured school variables (school socioeconomic status, active school travel programme, built environments around school). Mixed effects multinomial logistic regression models were employed to determine associations between school travel mode and objectively measured child (sociodemographic characteristics, traffic safety perceptions) and school variables. Safety was the core concept of school travel policies, procedures and programmes. Significant differences in child variables, school socioeconomic status, and cycle lanes and traffic lights around school were found between children who actively travelled or used public transport to school and those driven to school. Overall, this study demonstrated the important role of school policy and procedures and the potential application of an intersectoral approach for interventions to support changes in school travel behaviour.This work was supported by the Health Research Council of New Zealand [grant number 14/436]; and the Medical Research Council [MC_UU_12015/7]. The work was undertaken under the auspices of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence which was funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust. Melody Smith was supported by a Health Research Council of New Zealand Sir Charles Hercus Research Fellowship [17/013]. Suzanne Mavoa was supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellowship [No. 1121035]

Neighbourhoods for Active Kids: study protocol for a cross-sectional examination of neighbourhood features and children's physical activity, active travel, independent mobility and body size.

INTRODUCTION: New Zealand children's physical activity, including independent mobility and active travel, has declined markedly over recent decades. The Neighbourhoods for Active Kids (NfAK) study examines how neighbourhood built environments are associated with the independent mobility, active travel, physical activity and neighbourhood experiences of children aged 9-12 years in primary and intermediate schools across Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Child-specific indices of walkability, destination accessibility and traffic exposure will be constructed to measure the built environment in 8 neighbourhoods in Auckland. Interactive online-mapping software will be used to measure children's independent mobility and transport mode to destinations and to derive measures of neighbourhood use and perceptions. Physical activity will be measured using 7-day accelerometry. Height, weight and waist circumference will be objectively measured. Parent telephone interviews will collect sociodemographic information and parent neighbourhood perceptions. Interviews with school representative will capture supports and barriers for healthy activity and nutrition behaviours at the school level. Multilevel modelling approaches will be used to understand how differing built environment variables are associated with activity, neighbourhood experiences and health outcomes. DISCUSSION: We anticipate that children who reside in neighbourhoods considered highly walkable will be more physically active, accumulate more independent mobility and active travel, and be more likely to have a healthy body size. This research is timely as cities throughout New Zealand develop and implement plans to improve the liveability of intensifying urban neighbourhoods. Results will be disseminated to participants, local government agencies and through conventional academic avenues

Leaving the Minors : The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and the 2011 General Election

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has emerged as a successful environmentally focused party with a solid base. The 2011 General Election represented a high-point for the party, distancing it from the other minor parties. This article explores examples of factors affecting the success of Green parties, and examines the strategy of the New Zealand Green Party prior to the 2011 election. The findings indicate that the party has developed stable support through the development of a consistent policy base and pragmatic approach to its role in parliament. This has allowed the Greens to establish a position following the 2011 election as the third party in New Zealand politics

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Capturing realities of informal housing in Aotearoa/New Zealand : implications for health and wellbeing

CD containing tracks of interviews restricted (internal files)Research shows population health outcomes are inextricably linked to a range of social indicators, with poor housing (along with lower levels of income, educational attainment and social connectedness) associated with poorer health. Attention in Aotearoa/New Zealand has increasingly focused on a lack of affordable housing which has forced people into crowded, substandard and/or 'informal' accommodation. According to Census figures, thousands of individuals and families are living in dwellings such as tents, garages, caravans and vans, classified as informal for the purposes of this study. This thesis explores the 'realities' of those living in informal housing and considers implications for health and wellbeing. In-depth and follow-up interviews with twenty-five participants living in informal housing on the Coromandel Peninsula and fifteen within the Auckland conurbation (providing a rural and an urban sample) looked at participants' perceptions and experiences of their housing situations, health and wellbeing. Thematic analysis of interviews highlights 'cultural collisions' between mainstream perceptions of housing and health and the perceptions of many of the participants, particularly on the Coromandel. Almost none of the Coromandel participants considered their informal housing compromised their health and wellbeing, although results were more mixed in Auckland. A possible explanation for this difference is the sense of empowerment and choice articulated by Coromandel participants, coupled with a strong sense of connection to the land. The analysis also shows affordable accommodation was a fundamental concern for a majority in both samples and lack of money a frequent (although not universal) pathway into informal housing. Other factors included illness and other disruptive life events such as job loss, family breakdown, violence and natural disasters, along with lifestyle choices. Follow-up interviews six to twelve months later confirmed all but two of the Coromandel sample were in the same informal housing situations, while in contrast many of the Auckland sample had moved into mainstream housing. Results of SF-36 and GHQ-12 self-report health questionnaires completed by participants showed no statistically significant differences from the national averages, although physical functioning was higher for both Coromandel and Auckland participants. These results support thematic analysis findings in terms of physical and mental health and wellbeing. The 'cultural collisions' evident between participant and mainstream perceptions of what constitutes appropriate housing suggest a need for flexibility so that the resourcefulness of participants can be built on to promote health and wellbeing. This has implications for issues of compliance and public health and housing policies at both local and national government levels

“Looks like a lot of awesome things are coming out of the study!”: Reflections on researching, communicating and challenging everyday inequalities

In recent years, a growing interest in so-called ‘everyday’ inequalities is raising intriguing questions for qualitative research in psychology. How best might we canvass people's mundane experiences with inequalities given that these experiences are often normalized or entrenched to the extent that they disappear from view, or are otherwise hard to articulate in the course of a conventional qualitative research encounter? And, should we find ourselves as custodians of data that do pinpoint inequalities, what options and opportunities exist for reporting and sharing participants' narratives in challenging and transformative ways? In this article, we present a response to these questions. Moving against the attachment to standardisation that characterises much psychological inquiry, we outline a project where methodological flexibility and a focus on collaborative documentation helped us to surface rich experiential data on everyday ableism. By spending time with participants, and equipped with a toolbox of creative, collaborative and conventional methods, we built the relational foundations necessary for participants to show, tell and share their encounters with ableism with us. From here, we discuss how our experiences with creative and collaborative data collection emboldened us to experiment with a new (to us) way of sharing research findings: the comic. Outlining our research team's collaboration with illustrator Toby Morris, we show and tell the potential of illustrated narratives for sharing research on everyday inequalities – and challenging them