A web of harms: serious and organised crime and its impact on Australian interests

Overview This report analyses serious, transnational and organised crime and the harms it causes to Australia’s interest, with the aim of reinvigorating a discussion of this critical matter amongst Australians. This web impacts on our national interests to the sum of an estimated $15 billion per year. That very conservative estimate includes costs to government through denied revenue and increased law enforcement costs. But there are also social, health and economic harms to individuals, community and business. The report poses a series of questions to be considered by the community, business and government

Optimising a co-production framework for developing public health interventions: application and testing of school-based Research Action Groups

Existing frameworks for developing public health interventions have limited guidance for researchers on how to work with stakeholders to co-produce context-specific interventions. To address this, a promising framework for the co-production of public health interventions was developed through a previous review of school-based co-production. The present study aimed to optimise this co-production framework through applying and testing it in real-world secondary school contexts. Within schools, Research Action Groups (RAGs) were established with multiple school stakeholders supported by an external facilitator to use school data to produce school-specific mental health and wellbeing interventions. A mixed method process evaluation of two contextually diverse case study secondary schools in the UK was used to optimise the co-production framework. The process evaluation sought the views of those involved (students, school staff, school Senior Management Team (SMT) members, and the external co-production facilitator/researcher) on the co-production functions they were involved in so they could be modified, if needed. Data collected for the process evaluation during co-production were a researcher diary (n = 45 entries), and observations of student photography (n = 21) and RAG meetings (n = 8). Post co-production, interviews, and surveys with RAG students (n = 18) and staff (n = 8), and two school-specific SMT focus groups (n = 10) were conducted. The study identified four recommendations to optimise and integrate co-production into real world practice. They include the need to: assess schools for their readiness to undertake co-production; more effectively communicate the necessity to have stakeholders from the whole system involved; work with SMTs throughout co-production functions; involve stakeholders outside the school to support producing solutions to change school mental health and wellbeing priorities. The framework is intended to be used by researchers to integrate stakeholders into a shared decision-making process to develop interventions that meet the needs and contexts of individual schools. It could be transferred to other settings to support the development of public health interventions for other health areas, and populations. Further evaluation to test its use in other settings is needed

Exploratory trial of a school-based alcohol prevention intervention with a family component: Implications for implementation

Purpose – Involvement of parents/carers may increase effectiveness of primary school-based alcohol-misuse prevention projects through strengthening family-based protective factors, but rates of parental engagement are typically low. This paper reports findings from an exploratory trial of a school-based prevention intervention – Kids, Adults Together (KAT), based on the Social Development Model, which aimed to promote pro-social family communication in order to prevent alcohol misuse, and incorporated strategies to engage parents/carers. The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility and value of conducting an effectiveness trial of KAT. Design/methodology/approach – The study was a parallel-group cluster randomised exploratory trial with an embedded process evaluation. The study took place in south Wales, UK, and involved nine primary schools, 367 pupils in Years 5/6 (aged 9-11 years) and their parents/carers and teachers. Questionnaires were completed by pupils at baseline and four month follow-up, and by parents at six month follow-up. Findings – Overall KAT was delivered with good fidelity, but two of five intervention schools withdrew from the study without completing implementation. In total, 50 per cent of eligible parents participated in the intervention, and KAT had good acceptability among pupils, parents and teachers. However, a number of “progression to effectiveness trial” criteria were not met. Intermediate outcomes on family communication (hypothesised to prevent alcohol misuse) showed insufficient evidence of an intervention effect. Difficulties were encountered in identifying age appropriate outcome measures for primary school-age children, particularly in relation to family communication processes. The study was unable to find comprehensive methodological guidance on exploratory trials. Research limitations/implications – It would not be appropriate to conduct an effectiveness trial as key progression criteria relating to intervention and trial feasibility were not met. There is a need for new measures of family communication which are suitable for primary school-age children, and more guidance on the design and conduct of exploratory/feasibility trials. Originality/value – KAT achieved high rates of parental involvement, and its theoretical framework and processes could be adapted by other interventions which experience difficulties with recruitment of parents/carers

The World Health Organization’s Health Promoting Schools framework: a Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Healthy children achieve better educational outcomes which, in turn, are associated with improved health later in life. The World Health Organization's Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework is a holistic approach to promoting health and educational attainment in school. The effectiveness of this approach has not yet been rigorously reviewed. METHODS: We searched 20 health, education and social science databases, and trials registries and relevant websites in 2011 and 2013. We included cluster randomised controlled trials. Participants were children and young people aged four to 18 years attending schools/colleges. HPS interventions had to include the following three elements: input into the curriculum; changes to the school's ethos or environment; and engagement with families and/or local communities. Two reviewers identified relevant trials, extracted data and assessed risk of bias. We grouped studies according to the health topic(s) targeted. Where data permitted, we performed random-effects meta-analyses. RESULTS: We identified 67 eligible trials tackling a range of health issues. Few studies included any academic/attendance outcomes. We found positive average intervention effects for: body mass index (BMI), physical activity, physical fitness, fruit and vegetable intake, tobacco use, and being bullied. Intervention effects were generally small. On average across studies, we found little evidence of effectiveness for zBMI (BMI, standardized for age and gender), and no evidence for fat intake, alcohol use, drug use, mental health, violence and bullying others. It was not possible to meta-analyse data on other health outcomes due to lack of data. Methodological limitations were identified including reliance on self-reported data, lack of long-term follow-up, and high attrition rates. CONCLUSION: This Cochrane review has found the WHO HPS framework is effective at improving some aspects of student health. The effects are small but potentially important at a population level

Effect of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the mental health of carers of people with intellectual disabilities

Introduction: The measures implemented to manage the COVID‐19 pandemic have been shown to impair mental health. This problem is likely to be exacerbated for carers. Method: Informal carers (mainly parents) of children and adults with intellectual disabilities, and a comparison group of parents of children without disabilities, completed an online questionnaire. Almost all the data were collected while strict lockdown conditions were in place. Results: Relative to carers of children without intellectual disability, carers of both children and adults with intellectual disability had significantly greater levels of a wish fulfilment coping style, defeat/entrapment, anxiety, and depression. Differences were 2–3 times greater than reported in earlier pre‐pandemic studies. Positive correlations were found between objective stress scores and all mental health outcomes. Despite their greater mental health needs, carers of those with intellectual disability received less social support from a variety of sources. Conclusions: The greater mental health needs of carers in the context of lesser social support raises serious concerns. We consider the policy implications of these findings

Performance of a non-invasive test for detecting mycobacterium bovis shedding in European badger (meles meles) populations

The incidence of Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis, in cattle herds in the United Kingdom is increasing, resulting in substantial economic losses. The European badger (Meles meles) is implicated as a wildlife reservoir and is the subject of control measures aimed at reducing incidence in cattle populations. Understanding the epidemiology of M. bovis in badger populations is essential to direct control interventions and understand disease spread; however, accurate diagnosis in live animals is challenging and currently uses invasive methods. Here we present a non-invasive diagnostic procedure and sampling regime using field sampling of latrines and detection of M. bovis with qPCR, the results of which strongly correlate with the results of immunoassay testing in the field at the social group level. This method allows M. bovis infection in badger populations to be monitored without trapping and provides additional information on the quantity of bacterial DNA shed. Our approach may therefore provide valuable insights into the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis in badger populations and inform disease control interventions

On the relationship between BL Lacertae objects and radio galaxies

We present deep radio images at 1.4 GHz of a large and complete sample of BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) selected from the Deep X-ray Radio Blazar Survey (DXRBS). We have observed 24 northern sources with the Very Large Array (VLA) in both its A and C configurations and 15 southern sources with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) in its largest configuration. We find that in the DXRBS, as in the 1-Jy survey, which has a radio flux limit roughly ten times higher than the DXRBS, a considerable number (about a third) of BL Lacs can be identified with the relativistically beamed counterparts of Fanaroff-Riley type II (FR II) radio galaxies. We attribute the existence of FR II-BL Lacs, which is not accounted for by current unified schemes, to an inconsistency in our classification scheme for radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN). Taking the extended radio power as a suitable measure of intrinsic jet power, we find similar average values for low- (LBL) and high-energy peaked BL Lacs (HBL), contrary to the predictions of the blazar sequence.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRA

A Lack of Variability Between Repeated Spitzer Phase Curves of WASP-43b

Though the global atmospheres of hot Jupiters have been extensively studied using phase curve observations, the level of time variability in these data is not well constrained. To investigate possible time variability in a planetary phase curve, we observed two full-orbit phase curves of the hot Jupiter WASP-43b at 4.5 microns using the Spitzer Space Telescope, and reanalyzed a previous 4.5 micron phase curve from Stevenson et al. (2017). We find no significant time variability between these three phase curves, which span timescales of weeks to years. The three observations are best fit by a single phase curve with an eclipse depth of 3907 +- 85 ppm, a dayside-integrated brightness temperature of 1479 +- 13 K, a nightside-integrated brightness temperature of 755 +- 46 K, and an eastward-shifted peak of 10.4 +- 1.8 degrees. To model our observations, we performed 3D general circulation model simulations of WASP-43b with simple cloud models of various vertical extents. In comparing these simulations to our observations, we find that WASP-43b likely has a cloudy nightside that transitions to a relatively cloud-free dayside. We estimate that any change in WASP-43bs vertical cloud thickness of more than three pressure scale heights is inconsistent with our observed upper limit on variation. These observations, therefore, indicate that WASP-43bs clouds are stable in their vertical and spatial extent over timescales up to several years. These results strongly suggest that atmospheric properties derived from previous, single Spitzer phase curve observations of hot Jupiters likely show us the equilibrium properties of these atmospheres.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, Published in the Astronomical Journal (AJ