'Health is the number one thing we go for': healthism, citizenship and food choice

This paper explores the centrality of pursuit of health to discourse around food purchasing and eating behaviours. Forty-seven participants from metropolitan and rural South Australia were interviewed about how they decided what to purchase and to eat. The majority (n=39) cite the desire to eat healthily as a consideration in food purchasing. Participants reflect upon a personal and moral responsibility to eat well and to feed their family healthily, a duty that is supported by models of governance which favour personal responsibility for health. While all participants reflect upon this responsibility, it is rejected by a group of males on limited incomes who choose food on the basis of cost, taste, convenience and lack of trust in the health care system. The existence of a moral discourse around food is viewed as an example of healthism in which health is central to all aspects of life and self discipline a means to achieving health

Paramedic perceptions of their role, education, training and working relationships when attending cases of mental illness

Mentally ill patients comprise a growing proportion of the workload of paramedics. This descriptive and exploratory study identifies issues in relation to their perception of workload, education and training, organisational culture and their working relationships with other services. Further research is recommended to understand how these perceptions affect paramedic practice in this area

How do South Australian consumers negotiate and respond to information in the media about food and nutrition? The importance of risk, trust and uncertainty

The amount of information in the media about food and nutrition is increasing. As part of the risk society, consumers have a moral imperative to synthesize this information in order to manage their diet. This article explores how media information about food affects how consumers place trust in the food system and strategies adopted to manage conflicting nutritional information. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with 47 shoppers drawn from higher and lower socio-economic metropolitan and rural locations. There was an overriding trust in the Australian food system; however, participants talked about the impact of the large amounts of complex, confusing and often contradictory information. For some, this led to an active search for ‘truth’. For others it created uncertainty and anxiety, and for others a sense of paralysis or stasis. The findings are explored in relation to the production and consumption of risks in late modernity and the interrelationship between trust and risk

Trust in the Australian food supply: innocent until proven guilty

International research demonstrates diminishing trust in the food supply associated with food scares which undermine trust in expert advice. Even though Australia has not experienced major food scares, there is evidence of diminishing trust in the food supply. Interviews were conducted with 47 South Australian food shoppers from high (n = 17) and low (n = 16) socio-economic regions of Adelaide and from rural South Australia (n = 14) about food governance and trust in the Australian food supply. Participants display a high level of trust in the food supply associated with a perception that Australian food is safe; a lack of exposure to food risks; and trust in personal food safety practices. The media was the only factor which created distrust in the food system. Other participants express confidence in the food supply where confidence is understood as a lack of reflection. Contrary to concepts of reflexive modernisation which presume an increasing awareness of risk and placement of trust as a means of reducing uncertainty, participants adopt an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ approach displaying little knowledge or interest in knowing about food regulation, relying instead on routine food safety practices as a means of managing uncertainty

Gendered relations to working time: enterprise bargaining outcomes in acute care and community nursing settings in Australia

In this paper we examine the outcomes of the 2001, 2004, 2007 Enterprise Bargaining Agreements between the Australian Nursing Federation (SA) and the South Australian Government with particular focus on union-based strategies for de-intensifying nurses’ labour in the acute and community sectors. Consistent with the theoretical and empirical research on time, the strategies employed in the acute sector reflect rational, linear, bureaucratic, logical and masculinist relations to time through the use of computerised time and task measures. Community sector solutions are characterised by cyclical, messy and highly relational feminised approaches to reducing work intensification. We argue that the outcomes of these two approaches are contradictory. The community-based solution of case management is less successful in reducing workload, but maintains worker control over the labour process, while in the acute sector, the highly Taylorist approach is successful in de-intensifying workload but at the cost of reduced control over the labour processes

What are the important issues around food safety and nutrition? Findings from a media analysis and qualitative study of consumer trust

Confusion about, and rejection of, media messages about healthy eating have the potential to contribute to the development of chronic illness through a failure to adopt lifestyle changes. Furthermore, it may inhibit the seeking of appropriate information by people with chronic illness. Given a growing emphasis upon primary care and health literacy, health care professionals need to be aware of the messages that their patients receive

After hours nurse staffing, work intensity and quality of care - missed care study: New South Wales public and private sectors. Final report to the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives' Association

The MISSCARE survey was developed by Beatrice Kalisch who defines missed care as “required patient care that is omitted (either in part or in whole) or delayed” and is a response, she claims, to “multiple demands and inadequate resources”. The MISSCARE survey has three components: demographic and workplace data; missed nursing care, which consists of a list of nursing tasks which had been identified; and reasons for missed care. Core nursing tasks routinely omitted in Kalisch’ studies are discharge planning and patient education, emotional support, hygiene and mouth care, documentation of fluid intake and output, ambulation, feeding and general nursing surveillance of the patient. Nurses and midwives consistently attributed instances of missed care to inadequate staffing levels, unexpected heavy workloads, too few resources, lack of supplies, shift rosters with an inappropriate mix of nursing skills, inadequate handovers, orientation to the ward and poor teamwork.The research is funded by a Flinders University Faculty of Health Science Seeding Grant

Comparative examination of trust during times of a food scandal in Europe and Australia

This study compared public confidence in truth-telling by food chain actors in selected EU countries where there have been a number of food safety problems, with consumers in Australia where there have been fewer food crises. A computer-assisted telephone interviewing survey was used to address aspects of truth-telling at times of a food scandal with a random sample of 1109 participants across all Australian states (response rate 41.2%). Results were compared with a survey in six EU countries which had asked similar questions. Australians' trust in truth-telling by food chain actors was low, with 14.2% of the sample expecting various institutions and individuals to tell the whole truth during times of a food scandal. When compared with EU countries, Australia occupied a middle position in trust distribution, and was more similar to Great Britain in giving farmers the most trust in truth-telling. This study has demonstrated that in Australia, as in many EU countries, trust in truth-telling at a time of food scandal is low. The credibility of the food system is highly vulnerable under times of food crisis and once trust in broken, it is difficult to restore