Women in contact with the Sydney gay and lesbian community: Report of the Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) Survey 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014

The Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) survey is run by a collaboration of ACON and researchers at the University of Sydney (prior to 2009, researchers were based at the University of New South Wales). It was first carried out in 1996, initiated by workers from two ACON projects, Women Partners of Gay and Bisexual Men and the Gay and Lesbian Injecting Drug Use Project, who were faced with a lack of empirical evidence on which to base their intervention work. The survey is regularly revised to reflect the needs of the community and knowledge deficits identified through research literature. Over its lifetime, SWASH has become a comprehensive survey of sexual health and wellbeing, violence, mental health and levels of psychological distress, and a number of other important health issues relevant to lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women, such as tobacco use, illicit drug use, alcohol consumption, and cancer screening behaviours. Where possible, questions have been used from established national surveys such as the Australian Health Survey, National Drug Strategy Household Survey, Australian Study of Health and Relationships, and Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Health. While research on LBQ women’s health and wellbeing has increased since the birth of the survey, epidemiological data on sexual health, mental health, experiences of abuse and violence and behaviours such as screening, illicit drug use, alcohol and smoking that can leave women vulnerable to adverse health outcomes, is still inconsistent. Moreover, as long as the inclusion of sexuality questions in large epidemiological surveys remains patchy or data is reported only by sexuality and not by sexuality and gender, SWASH provides a unique and important source of health-related information about Australian LBQ women. This report presents results from surveys conducted at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fair Day and other community events and venues during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras seasons in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014.SWASH owes a deep debt of gratitude to ACON, particularly the staff in the Policy, Planning and Research and the Lesbian Health Project, for continued practical and financial support. This research could not have happened without their commitment, enthusiasm and contact

Women in contact with the Northern Rivers and Mid North Coast LGBTQ communities: Report of the SWASH Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Women’s Health Survey 2018

A lack of systematic, nuanced research on the health and wellbeing of Australian lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women has been a significant barrier to understanding, recognising and addressing their health needs. At worst, LBQ women’s health needs have been largely ignored. At best, they have been considered to be synonymous with general women’s health. While sex between women is considered relatively low risk to health, a range of social, psychological and economic factors mean that this minority group has poorer health outcomes than their heterosexual peers. Stigma, family and community rejection and discrimination can impact on health and wellbeing, the delivery of health services, and women’s access to services. The SWASH survey is a comprehensive survey of important health issues relevant to LBQ and other non-heterosexual identifying women engaged with Sydney’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The survey covers sexual health and wellbeing, violence, mental health, tobacco use, illicit drug use, alcohol consumption, and cancer screening behaviours. SWASH has run every two years since 1996, and since 2009 has been run by researchers at the University of Sydney in collaboration with ACON. The survey is regularly revised to reflect the needs of LGBTQ communities and knowledge deficits identified through research literature. Where possible, questions are sourced from established national surveys such as the Australian Health Survey (AHS), National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS), Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), and Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Health (ALSWH). SWASH provides a much needed local evidence base to inform best practice in healthcare and prevention for chronic diseases, mental health and wellbeing, sexual and reproductive health and ageing. Full background on the SWASH project and the results from the 2018 survey can be found in the main SWASH report. For the 2018 iteration of SWASH, we undertook sustained community engagement in the Northern Rivers and Mid North Coast region of NSW to generate sufficient numbers for a regional analysis. The SWASH NR-MNC report presents results based on surveys where participants who resided in this region.ACO

Women in contact with the Sydney gay and lesbian community: Report of the Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) Survey 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016

The Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) survey is a comprehensive survey of important health issues relevant to lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women including sexual health and wellbeing, violence, mental health, tobacco use, illicit drug use, alcohol consumption, and cancer screening behaviours. SWASH is run by a collaboration of ACON and researchers at the University of Sydney (since 2009; prior to this researchers were based at the University of New South Wales). It was first carried out in 1996, initiated by workers from two ACON projects, Women Partners of Gay and Bisexual Men and the Gay and Lesbian Injecting Drug Use Project, who were faced with a lack of empirical evidence on which to base their intervention work. The survey is regularly revised to reflect the needs of the community and knowledge deficits identified through research literature. Where possible, questions are used from established national surveys such as the Australian Health Survey, National Drug Strategy Household Survey, Australian Study of Health and Relationships, and Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Health. Australian epidemiological data on sexual health, mental health, experiences of abuse and violence, preventive health practices, and behaviours such as illicit drug use, alcohol use and smoking remains inconsistent. The inclusion of sexuality questions in large epidemiological surveys remains patchy, and data is often reported only by sexuality and not by sexuality and gender. In this context, SWASH provides a unique and important source of health-related information on Australian LBQ women. This report presents results from surveys conducted at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fair Day and other community events and venues during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras seasons in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. It highlights several areas of particular concern – many of which have persisted over time – where mainstream preventive health interventions that are inclusive of this group or targeted to LBQ women, are needed.ACON Healt

Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering:evidence from secondary analysis of public deliberation

Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the relative power and influence of beneficiaries and others; and the weakness of procedural justice measures that might protect public interests in decision making about climate engineering. We argue that publics are mobilising diverse concepts of justice, echoing both philosophical and practical sources. We conclude that a better understanding of conceptions of justice in this context could assist exploration and understanding of public perceptions of and attitudes towards climate engineering and the different technologies involved. Such detailed public engagement would appear essential if sound, well-informed and morally justifiable decisions are to be made regarding research or development of climate engineering

Women in contact with the Sydney gay and lesbian community: Report of the Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) Survey 2006, 2008 and 2010

The Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) survey was first carried out in 1996. It was initiated by workers from two ACON projects, Women Partners of Gay and Bisexual Men and the Gay and Lesbian Injecting Drug Use Project, who were faced with a lack of empirical evidence on which to base their intervention work. While research on same-sex-attracted women’s health and wellbeing has increased since then, epidemiological data on sexual health, mental health, experiences of abuse and violence and behaviours such as screening, illicit drug use, alcohol and smoking that can leave women vulnerable to adverse health outcomes, is still scarce. Moreover, as long as the inclusion of sexuality questions in large epidemiological surveys remains patchy or data is reported only by sexuality and not by sexuality and gender, SWASH provides a unique and important source of health-related information in Australian lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women. SWASH has been run biennially since 1996 by a collaboration of ACON and researchers at the University of New South Wales (until 2009), and now the University of Sydney (since 2010). The survey is regularly revised to reflect the needs of the community and research needs identified through research literature. Over its lifetime, SWASH has become a comprehensive survey of sexual health and wellbeing, violence, mental health and levels of psychological distress, and a number of other important health issues relevant to LBQ women, such as illicit drug use, alcohol consumption, and cancer screening behaviours. Where possible, questions have been used from established national surveys such as the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS), the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), and the Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Health (ALSWH). This report presents results from surveys collected at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fair Day and other community events and venues during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras seasons in 2006, 2008 and 2010

Short- and Long-term Evolutionary Dynamics of Bacterial Insertion Sequences: Insights from Wolbachia Endosymbionts

Transposable elements (TE) are one of the major driving forces of genome evolution, raising the question of the long-term dynamics underlying their evolutionary success. Long-term TE evolution can readily be reconstructed in eukaryotes, thanks to many degraded copies constituting genomic fossil records of past TE proliferations. By contrast, bacterial genomes usually experience high sequence turnover and short TE retention times, thereby obscuring ancient TE evolutionary patterns. We found that Wolbachia bacterial genomes contain 52–171 insertion sequence (IS) TEs. IS account for 11% of Wolbachia wRi, which is one of the highest IS genomic coverage reported in prokaryotes to date. We show that many IS groups are currently expanding in various Wolbachia genomes and that IS horizontal transfers are frequent among strains, which can explain the apparent synchronicity of these IS proliferations. Remarkably, >70% of Wolbachia IS are nonfunctional. They constitute an unusual bacterial IS genomic fossil record providing direct empirical evidence for a long-term IS evolutionary dynamics following successive periods of intense transpositional activity. Our results show that comprehensive IS annotations have the potential to provide new insights into prokaryote TE evolution and, more generally, prokaryote genome evolution. Indeed, the identification of an important IS genomic fossil record in Wolbachia demonstrates that IS elements are not always of recent origin, contrary to the conventional view of TE evolution in prokaryote genomes. Our results also raise the question whether the abundance of IS fossils is specific to Wolbachia or it may be a general, albeit overlooked, feature of prokaryote genomes

Streptococcus agalactiae clones infecting humans were selected and fixed through the extensive use of tetracycline

Streptococcus agalactiae (Group B Streptococcus, GBS) is a commensal of the digestive and genitourinary tracts of humans that emerged as the leading cause of bacterial neonatal infections in Europe and North America during the 1960s. Due to the lack of epidemiological and genomic data, the reasons for this emergence are unknown. Here we show by comparative genome analysis and phylogenetic reconstruction of 229 isolates that the rise of human GBS infections corresponds to the selection and worldwide dissemination of only a few clones. The parallel expansion of the clones is preceded by the insertion of integrative and conjugative elements conferring tetracycline resistance (TcR). Thus, we propose that the use of tetracycline from 1948 onwards led in humans to the complete replacement of a diverse GBS population by only few TcR clones particularly well adapted to their host, causing the observed emergence of GBS diseases in neonates. \ua9 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Globetrotting strangles: the unbridled national and international transmission of Streptococcus equi between horses.

The equine disease strangles, which is characterized by the formation of abscesses in the lymph nodes of the head and neck, is one of the most frequently diagnosed infectious diseases of horses around the world. The causal agent, Streptococcus equi subspecies equi, establishes a persistent infection in approximately 10 % of animals that recover from the acute disease. Such 'carrier' animals appear healthy and are rarely identified during routine veterinary examinations pre-purchase or transit, but can transmit S. equi to naïve animals initiating new episodes of disease. Here, we report the analysis and visualization of phylogenomic and epidemiological data for 670 isolates of S. equi recovered from 19 different countries using a new core-genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) web bioresource. Genetic relationships among all 670 S. equi isolates were determined at high resolution, revealing national and international transmission events that drive this endemic disease in horse populations throughout the world. Our data argue for the recognition of the international importance of strangles by the Office International des Épizooties to highlight the health, welfare and economic cost of this disease. The Pathogenwatch cgMLST web bioresource described herein is available for tailored genomic analysis of populations of S. equi and its close relative S. equi subspecies zooepidemicus that are recovered from horses and other animals, including humans, throughout the world. This article contains data hosted by Microreact

Women in contact with the Sydney LGBTQ communities: Report of the SWASH Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Women's Survey 2014, 2016, 2018

The SWASH survey is a comprehensive survey of important health issues relevant to lesbian, bisexual, queer (LBQ) and other non-heterosexual identifying women engaged with Sydney's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The survey covers sexual health and wellbeing, violence, mental health, tobacco use, illicit drug use, alcohol consumption, and cancer, STI and HIV screening. SWASH has run every two years since 1996, and since 2009 has been run by researchers at the University of Sydney in collaboration with ACON. The survey is regularly revised to reflect the needs of LGBTQ communities and knowledge deficits identified through research literature. Where possible, questions ore sourced from established notional surveys such as Australian Health Survey, National Drug Strategy Household Survey, Australian Study of Health and Relationships, and Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women Health. Australian epidemiological data on the health and wellbeing of LBQ women remains inconsistent. The inclusion of sexuality indicators in large epidemiological surveys remains patchy, and data is often reported only by sexuality (e.g. LGB people vs heterosexual people) and not by sexuality and gender (e.g. LBO women, GBQ men, heterosexual women, heterosexual women). In this context, SWASH provides a unique and important source of health-related information on Australian LBQ women and now, non-binary people. This report presents results from the three most recent iterations of the survey conducted at the Mardi Gras Fair Day and other community events and venues during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras seasons in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The report highlights several areas of particular concern (some of which have persisted over time), such as the need for mainstream preventative health interventions that ore inclusive of or targeted to this group.ACO