A Concurrent Mixed Method Study Exploring Iraqi Immigrants\u27 Views of Michigan

Failure of emergency response personnel to communicate effectively with different cultures can have dire consequences during an emergency, including loss of lives and litigation costs. For emergency response personnel to communicate the risk of an emergency, it is important to understand how different groups, especially newly arrived foreign immigrants, perceive warnings and related messages. This study addressed how one of the largest category of immigrants in Michigan perceived severe tornados, influenza pandemics, power outages, severe floods, and snowstorms. The research question examined the degree to which the equation, Risk = Hazard + Outrage, explained perceptions of these hazards in Michigan among newly arrived Iraqi immigrants. A concurrent mixed-method design was used. In-person interviews were conducted using quantitative and qualitative questions based on the equation and the PEN 3 model with 84 immigrants from Iraq who lived in the United States 4 years or less. Respondents\u27 levels of outrage and hazard were compared using ANOVA. The calculated levels were compared with the qualitative comments made during the interviews. Snowstorms measured the highest outrage, and power outages measured the least. The reported awareness level was lowest for snowstorms with the highest being power outages. More information needs to reach Iraqi immigrants regarding unfamiliar hazards. Communicators should use Iraqi immigrants\u27 experience with familiar hazards to identify effective ways of responding to this population. The results of this study may promote social change of more effective communication and saving lives in the future should an emergency occur in Michigan that affects Iraqi immigrants

Researching poverty to make a difference: The need for reciprocity and advocacy in community research

Growth in poverty throughout the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] hurts people. The Auckland City Mission Family100 project explores the everyday lives, frustrations and dilemmas faced by 100 families living in poverty in Auckland. This article reflects on poverty in New Zealand, associated welfare ‘reforms’, the consequences of recent change in exacerbating hardship, and our own efforts to advocate for the rights of beneficiaries. Specific attention is given to a workshop run by the research team with the judiciary, and what such activities foreground in terms of the relational nature of research, reciprocity and advocacy

Representations of Homelessness in Four Canadian Newspapers: Regulation, Control, and Social Order

This article reports on a content analysis of homelessness representations in four Canadian newspapers: two city broadsheets, one city tabloid, and one national newspaper. Clear differences between the papers emerged showing that in general coverage of homelessness in Calgary was much more positive than coverage in Vancouver. It conveyed a stronger sense of crisis or urgency and a stronger sense of optimism that the problem should and can be solved. Experts dominate public discourse about homelessness, with people who experience homelessness themselves marginalized as speakers. Despite these differences, the four papers present a unified narrative of homelessness in which readers are exhorted to be sympathetic to the plight of homeless people while at the same time, \u27they\u27 are presented as needing to be controlled and regulated in order to maintain social order. This narrative has implications for citizenship and social inclusion of people who experience homelessness

Characterizations of Pacific Island people in the New Zealand press

Researchers have documented how ethnic minorities are often disadvantaged in mainstream media coverage, which function to silence minority voices and to privilege majority voices. Such representational practices have very real implications for the position of ethnic minorities in society, and their associated rights and life chances. Portrayals of Pacific Islanders in newspapers reflect processes whereby media monitor marginalized groups and give prominence to negative attributes. This paper documents both promising and negative trends in print news portrayals of Pacific peoples and provides a basis for us to open a dialogue with Pacific media activists

How do environmental factors influence walking in groups? A walk-along study.

Insufficient attention has been given to the influence of context on health-related behaviour change. This article reports on walk-along interviews conducted with 10 leaders of walking groups while leading their groups to investigate the influence of contextual factors on walking behaviours in groups. Data analysis used ideas from thematic analysis and grounded theory, approaching the data inductively. We identified that characteristics of place influenced the type of walking that people do in groups and the processes used by walkers to make sense of their behaviours in the places they walk. This research provides insight into how place influences walking in groups. It also suggests recommendations for co-ordinators and policymakers that could be used to facilitate behaviour change, when designing interventions targeting public health within the community

Māori and community news constructions of Meningococcal B: the promotion of a moral obligation to vaccinate

News media communicate various risks of disease, showcase medical breakthroughs and disseminate texts that both reflect and renegotiate shared cultural understandings of health and illness. Little is known about the role of Māori and community news media in the social negotiation of health and illness in Aotearoa. To address this gap in the literature, this paper reports findings from a study of news reporting on Meningococcal B by the Māori Television Service and two community newspapers serving Māori communities. Findings document how news works to position vaccination as a ‘common sense’ practice that whānau have a moral obligation to undergo. Neglected are wider socio-structural considerations that impact the prevalence of illness among Māori

Street health: Practitioner service provision for Maori homeless people in Auckland

Drawing insights from interviews with Maori homeless people, health professionals, and relevant local and international literatures, this chapter focuses on the provision of medical care to homeless people. In particular, we propose that health services orientate to accommodate the worldviews and circumstances of Maori homeless people. Below we consider colonialism and societal developments that have led to homelessness among Maori today. We then present a case study of ‘Grant’, which was compiled from common aspects of various Maori homeless people who access health services at the Auckland City Mission (ACM); an organisation with a long history of catering to the needs and hopes of dispossessed groups, providing food, clothing, advocacy, social and health services. The relational orientation of healthcare at the ACM is discussed, and leads to an exploration of ‘judgement-free service space’ for meeting client needs (cf., Trussell & Mair, 2010). Lastly, we focus on how health professionals can respond to the multiple healthcare needs of Maori homeless people, in partnership with social services

Review Essay: Emplacement and everyday use of medications in domestic dwellings

To extend knowledge of relationships between people and domestic settings in the context of medication use, we conducted fieldwork in twenty households in New Zealand. These households contained a range of ‘medicative’ forms, including prescription drugs, traditional remedies, dietary supplements and enhanced foods. The location and use of these substances within domestic dwellings speaks to processes of emplacement and identity in the creation of spaces for care. Our analysis contributes to current understandings of the ways in which objects from ‘outside’ the home come to be woven into relationships, identities and meanings ‘inside’ the home. We demonstrate that, as well as being pharmacological objects, medications are complex, socially embedded objects with histories and memories that are ingrained within contemporary relationships of care and home-making practices

Homeless lives in New Zealand: The case of central Auckland

Homelessness is a pressing and increasingly visible concern in New Zealand. Many people sleeping rough are male and of Maori or Pacific descent. This research focuses on understanding the nature of resilience through the lived experiences of homeless people. To gain insights into cultures of homelessness, a qualitative case study research design was used to engage six homeless people who took part in a series of interviews and photoproduction exercises. Participants are of Maori, Pacific Island, and Pakeha ethnic backgrounds. It therefore may become important to document how homeless people see themselves in relation to their communities of origin and the wider public