The Importance of Long-Term Social Research in Enabling Participation and Developing Engagement Strategies for New Dengue Control Technologies

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background In recent years, new strategies aimed at reducing the capacity of mosquito vectors to transmit dengue fever have emerged. As with earlier control methods, they will have to be employed in a diverse range of communities across the globe and into the main settings for disease transmission, the homes, businesses and public buildings of residents in dengue-affected areas. However, these strategies are notably different from previous methods and draw on technologies that are not without controversy. Public engagement and authorization are critical to the future success of these programs. Methodology/Principal Findings This paper reports on an Australian case study where long-term social research was used to enable participation and the design of an engagement strategy tailored specifically to the sociopolitical setting of a potential trial release site of Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegytpi mosquitoes. Central themes of the social research, methods used and conclusions drawn are briefly described. Results indicate that different communities are likely to have divergent expectations, concerns and cultural sensibilities with regard to participation, engagement and authorization. Conclusions/Significance The findings show that a range of issues need to be understood and taken into account to enable sensitive, ethical and effective engagement when seeking public support for new dengue control methods

‘Diabesity’ down under: overweight and obesity as cultural signifiers for type 2 diabetes mellitus

This is an Open Access article.Although overweight and obesity are increasingly seen as the key ‘risk factors’ for Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the relationship between them is complex and not well understood. There are many ‘risk factors’ for T2DM, including ageing, genetics, previous gestational diabetes, a family history of the disease, etc. the interplay of which is not entirely clear. While weight gain is a common symptom of T2DM and the disease appears to be more prevalent among ‘obese’ people, individuals from a broad range of weights (including those considered ‘healthy’) can develop the disease. However, in recent years, the idea that fatness is the risk factor and/or central cause of T2DM has become increasingly prevalent and naturalized in popular, academic, and public health discourses in Australia. In these convergences, the complex etiology of the disease and limitations in current knowledge are blurred or reconstituted. To date, the potency of overweight and obesity as cultural signifiers for T2DM and its consequences has received little attention. Drawing on an analysis of government reports, journal articles, and media coverage published since 1998, this article sets out to trace and unpack some of the contours of these convergences, while recognizing their entanglement in earlier moralizing discourses, which continue to have considerable salience

What carers of family members with mental illness say, think and do about their relative's smoking and the implications for health promotion and service delivery: a qualitative study

Author version made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (9 December 2015) in accordance with publisher copyright policy.Few researchers have explored family carers’ perspectives of smoking by their family members with mental illness, despite smoking rates remaining high for people with mental illness. In-depth qualitative interviews with twelve South Australian family carers explored their experiences and views of providing care for people with mental illness who smoke. Data were analysed thematically. Around the central theme of the caring role within the context of mental illness and smoking, were three interrelated themes: (1) responsibility; (2) accommodation; and, (3) dissonance. Carers struggled physically, philosophically and emotionally with perceived responsibilities involving their family member's smoking. They felt isolated and asserted as there was limited support from service providers to assist them. Carers are important agents within the person's immediate environment who could potentially help them to improve their smoking cessation success. Community services aiming to support smoking cessation support for this population need to incorporate the role of family carers

Designing a Community Engagement Framework for a New Dengue Control Method: A Case Study from Central Vietnam

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background The Wolbachia strategy aims to manipulate mosquito populations to make them incapable of transmitting dengue viruses between people. To test its efficacy, this strategy requires field trials. Public consultation and engagement are recognized as critical to the future success of these programs, but questions remain regarding how to proceed. This paper reports on a case study where social research was used to design a community engagement framework for a new dengue control method, at a potential release site in central Vietnam. Methodology/Principal Findings The approach described here, draws on an anthropological methodology and uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to design an engagement framework tailored to the concerns, expectations, and socio-political setting of a potential trial release site for Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The process, research activities, key findings and how these were responded to are described. Safety of the method to humans and the environment was the most common and significant concern, followed by efficacy and impact on local lives. Residents expected to be fully informed and engaged about the science, the project, its safety, the release and who would be responsible should something go wrong. They desired a level of engagement that included regular updates and authorization from government and at least one member of every household at the release site. Conclusions/Significance Results demonstrate that social research can provide important and reliable insights into public concerns and expectations at a potential release site, as well as guidance on how these might be addressed. Findings support the argument that using research to develop more targeted, engagement frameworks can lead to more sensitive, thorough, culturally comprehensible and therefore ethical consultation processes. This approach has now been used successfully to seek public input and eventually support for releases Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, in two different international settings - Australia and Vietnam

The experiences and perceptions of food banks amongst users in high-income countries: An international scoping review

This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (Oct 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyPurpose Food banks have become the main response to food insecurity in many high-income countries, but it has been argued that they lack the capacity to respond consistently and fully to the food needs of the people who use them. This literature review set out to answer the question ‘how do food bank recipients experience food relief services and how does this impact their lives and wellbeing?’ Results A comprehensive search of electronic databases yielded twenty qualitative studies, conducted in developed countries, exploring user perspectives of food banks. From the studies reviewed, there emerged three main categories that represented the different aspects of the food bank process from the food bank user's perspective: the user's perceptions about the idea of being fed from food banks, the user's perceptions about food bank offerings and operations, and the socio-psychological impact of receiving food from food banks. While participants of these studies spoke positively of the volunteers and were thankful for the service, they also consistently report limited food choice, poor quality, shame, stigma and embarrassment associated with food bank use. Conclusions The food bank industry continues to expand despite there being little evidence that food banks are an appropriate response for those facing food insecurity. This is worrying as the results of this review indicate that although participants value the service provided by the food bank, the experience can be largely negative. These findings raise questions about the food bank model as a long-term strategy

Understanding the links between resilience and type-2 diabetes self-management: a qualitative study in South Australia

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background Research conducted by Ward, Muller, Tsourtos, et al. (Soc Sci Med 72(7):1140–1148, 2011) has led to the development of the psycho-social interactive model of resilience, which reveals the interaction between individual resilience factors (i.e. coping, confidence and self esteem) and external resilience environments (i.e. employment, supportive family environments and health promoting policies) in facilitating the development of resilience. This present study explored the utility of this model of resilience for understanding how people self-manage type-2 diabetes. Methods Data were collected via 14 semi-structured life-history interviews with women and men living with type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Participants varied according to socio-demographics (gender, age, education level, income) and were recruited based on their self-reported management (or lack thereof) of T2DM. Results The inter-play of internal traits and external resources with additive and subtractive resilience strategies were consistent with the psycho-social interactive model of resilience. Self-management was influenced by life history. Differences in self-management and material disadvantage were also identified. Alongside increased disadvantage are higher levels of external barriers to self-management practices. Conclusions This paper supports the concepts of additive and subtractive resilience strategies for use with diabetes populations; providing health professionals and policy makers with an increased understanding of how to recognize and foster patient resilience for the improvement of self-care, disease management and ultimately health outcomes

Guidance framework for testing of genetically modified mosquitoes

Reproduced in accordance with the publishers guidelines "The use of content from this health information product for all non-commercial education, training and information purposes is encouraged".Commissioned by TDR and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), this framework was drafted by four different working groups (efficacy; safety; ethical, legal and social; and regulation), each of which received comments about their draft from experts in the field and the public. Genetically modified mosquitoes (GMM) engineered to be incapable of transmitting certain pathogens or able to reduce populations of similar native mosquito vectors have emerged as a promising new tool to combat vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue in the more than 100 countries where they’re endemic. The guidance framework aims to foster quality and consistency among processes for testing and regulating new genetic technologies by proposing standards of efficacy and safety testing comparable to those used for trials of other new public health tools. The framework does not represent the views of the World Health Organization (WHO) or FNIH or provide recommendations on what to do. Rather, it is a document that brings together what is known, based on current research evidence, about how best to evaluate GMM

The 'Host' as uninvited 'Guest': hospitality, violence and tourism

The article explores the outsider status of handicraft traders in a tourism center in India. It demonstrates that they are seen as hosts by international tourists, and may even enact this role. But they are subjected to various forms of violence and exploitation by local landlords who, like many local residents, see them as uninvited outsiders rather than as guests. It is argued that the host-guest framework is inadequate for developing a more nuanced understanding of such interactions on the front line of international tourism. For the sense of welcome and hospitality that underwrites these interactions serves to depoliticize what are often highly exploitative relations

The importance of social research for public engagement in bio-control releases: the case of the Eliminate Dengue project

[Extract] Our central purpose is the development of more\ud ethical, effective, stakeholder-directed and contextsensitive\ud engagement strategies in Australia and\ud Viet Nam. To achieve this, we use anthropology's\ud proven systematic approach to social research to\ud provide a platform for stakeholder engagement\ud and draw on anthropological insights and research\ud techniques to identify and develop solutions to\ud issues that might impede the uptake of a biological\ud initiative for dengue fever control (hereafter the\ud Wolbachia method). At present, we are working\ud closely with those likely to be affected by a Wolbachia\ud intervention to negotiate, design and implement\ud public engagement strategies in northern\ud Australia and, from May 2009, in Viet Nam

From the womb to the tomb: obesity and maternal responsibility

In recent decades overnutrition and obesity have been presented as a looming threat to the health and wellbeing of children and infants, most notably in western industrialised societies. However, this threat is not simply limited to 'children' who are 'over fed' by their 'parents'. Increasingly, maternal overweight and obesity are said to inhibit conception, cause recurrent miscarriage, pose a serious threat to the development and health of the foetus and have long-term implications for the future wellbeing of the child. Parental responsibility looms large in these discourses, in which women in particular are held responsible for the future (fat free) health of their offspring from the womb to the tomb. In this article, it is argued that core assumptions at the heart of obesity science have been taken up uncritically in medical arenas focused on conception, pregnancy and reproduction and that this is providing new opportunities for the surveillance, regulation and disciplining of 'threatening' (fat) female bodies. It is shown that although all women of a reproductive age are being brought under the gaze of this deeply punitive medico-moral discourse, it is the bodies, lives and bedrooms of marginalised women that are singled out as posing the greatest 'risk' to their offspring and then targeted for even greater degrees of health/State intervention and surveillance