Supporting nursing and allied health student placements in rural and remote Australia: a narrative review of publications by university departments of rural health.

University departments of rural health are Commonwealth-funded to improve recruitment and retention of the rural allied health and nursing (including midwifery) workforce, primarily through student placements. We examined publications by university departments of rural health that were focused on allied health and nursing students undertaking placements in rural Australia, to understand the characteristics, main findings and implications of the research conducted. Interprofessional learning was a key feature of placements and placement education, although other activities such as community engagement added to placement experiences.

Critical realist exploration of long-term outcomes, impacts and skill development from an Australian Rural Research Capacity Building Programme: a qualitative study.

Objectives: Research capacity building programmes usually only examine short-term outcomes, following up participants after 1 or 2 years. Capacity building in health research requires a long-term view to understand the influence and impact of capacity building endeavours. This study examined long-term outcomes for individuals regarding the maintenance and use of research skills and the conduct of real-world research in a rural area.

‘What is this about? Let’s play this out’: the experience of integrating primary health care registered nurses with school learning and support teams.

Changes in public health profiles and moves towards inclusive models of education have led to significant number of students in mainstream schools with special health needs. Addressing these needs requires collaboration between health professionals, educators and families. Integrated models of school-based health care can facilitate this collaboration; however, there is little evidence to guide their implementation.

Is Time Spent Outside the Family Home a Risk Factor for Lead Exposure in Pre-School Children Living in Broken Hill?

Broken Hill is amongst a group of communities internationally that are at greater risk from lead due to active or historical lead industries. Current evidence suggests there is no safe level of lead for young children. This paper describes places outside the family home where young Broken Hill children spend time and considers the potential for this to contribute to lead risk.

Blood lead levels among Broken Hill children born 2009-2015: a longitudinal study to inform prevention strategies.

Objectives: To describe blood lead levels (BLLs) and their distribution among children in Broken Hill, New South Wales (NSW), at each of the scheduled testing points aligned with childhood immunisation and to determine how BLLs change over time for individual children. These data can inform action to prevent future lead exposure in Broken Hill children.

Study Type: Retrospective longitudinal study.

'We're definitely that link': the role of school-based primary health care registered nurses in a rural community.

Children and adolescents in rural Australia experience poorer health and educational outcomes than those in urban areas. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study exploring the role of primary health care registered nurses (RNs) working in the School-Based Primary Health Care Service in Broken Hill, far west New South Wales. The Service integrates health district-employed RNs with school learning and support teams to increase service access and improve health and education outcomes for students.

Beyond the black stump: rapid reviews of health research issues affecting regional, rural and remote Australia.

Unlabelled: CHAPTER 1: RETAIL INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE THE HEALTHINESS OF FOOD ENVIRONMENTS IN RURAL, REGIONAL AND REMOTE COMMUNITIES: Objective: To synthesise the evidence for effectiveness of initiatives aimed at improving food retail environments and consumer dietary behaviour in rural, regional and remote populations in Australia and comparable countries, and to discuss the implications for future food environment initiatives for rural, regional and remote areas of Australia.

Study Design: Rapid review of articles published between January 2000 and May 2020.

Data Sources: We searched MEDLINE (EBSCOhost), Health and Society Database (Informit) and Rural and Remote Health Database (Informit), and included studies undertaken in rural food environment settings in Australia and other countries.

Embedding public health advocacy into the role of school-based nurses: addressing the health inequities confronted by vulnerable Australian children and adolescent populations.

There has been a growth in Australian school-based nurses to address the inequities confronted by vulnerable students and school populations. Failure to address inequities can be evidenced in intergenerational poverty, poorer health and educational attainment and diminished life opportunities. School-based nurses are ideally located to advocate for public health policies and programs that address social determinants that detrimentally affect the health of school populations.

The case for integrated health and community literacy to achieve transformational community engagement and improved health outcomes: an inclusive approach to addressing rural and remote health inequities and community healthcare expectations.

Context: Despite the substantial investment by Australian health authorities to improve the health of rural and remote communities, rural residents continue to experience health care access challenges and poorer health outcomes. Health literacy and community engagement are both considered critical in addressing these health inequities. However, the current focus on health literacy can place undue burdens of responsibility for healthcare on individuals from disadvantaged communities whilst not taking due account of broader community needs and healthcare expectations.

Patterns of emergency department use in rural and metropolitan New South Wales from 2012 to 2018.

Objective: To explore the patterns of and investigate the factors associated with rises in emergency department presentations in rural and metropolitan New South Wales from 2012 to 2018.

Design: A retrospective descriptive study of de-identified data from the New South Wales Emergency Department Data Collection.

Setting: New South Wales, Australia.

Stemming the flow: how much can the Australian smartphone app help to control COVID-19?

Objectives: Our objective is to assess the potential contribution of the Australian Government's mobile smartphone tracing app (COVIDSafe) to the sustained control of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Study Type: Development and analysis of a system dynamics model.

Methods: To define the pandemic context and specify model-building parameters, we searched for literature on COVID-19, its epidemiology in Australia, case finding processes, and factors that might affect community acceptance of the COVIDSafe smartphone app for contact tracing.

Workplace-based health research training: a qualitative study of perceived needs in a rural setting.

Background: The calls for increased numbers of researchers in rural health are growing. To meet this demand, training is needed. If training is to be effective, the value placed on research, the organisational need for research training and key targets for research skill development within a rural health organisation must be understood.

The place of research in the rural health workplace structure: a content analysis of a rural health organisation's strategic and operational documents.

Introduction: Research training is conducted within rural health organisations without a clear understanding of the role of research within the structure of the organisation itself, potentially limiting the effectiveness of that training. This study sought to identify the role of research within the organisational structure of a large rural health organisation in Australia. Specifically, the study sought the answer to the following questions: Is research identified within the strategic documents of the organisation? If so at what level of the organisation is responsibility for research attributed? Is research identified within the position descriptions of staff? If so, at what level of the organisation are staff expected to conduct research? Is there evidence of research activity elsewhere within the organisational structure?

Methods: This qualitative study used a critical realist approach and content analysis to identify and contextualise the terms 'research' and 'evaluation' within publicly available and internal documents from a large rural health organisation in New South Wales, Australia.

A community engaged primary healthcare strategy to address rural school student inequities: a descriptive paper.

Aim: This descriptive paper aims to describe the design and implementation of a community engaged primary healthcare strategy in rural Australia, the Primary Healthcare Registered Nurse: Schools-Based strategy. This strategy seeks to address the health, education and social inequities confronting children and adolescents through community engaged service provision and nursing practice.

Background: There have been increasing calls for primary healthcare approaches to address rural health inequities, including contextualised healthcare, enhanced healthcare access, community engagement in needs and solutions identification and local-level collaborations.

A mapping study to guide a palliative approach to care.

Introduction: All healthcare providers can influence the delivery and outcome of a palliative approach to care, ensuring that everyone has 'equitable access to quality care based on assessed need as they approach and reach the end-of-life'. This study mapped the delivery of palliative care in far west New South Wales (NSW), Australia, with objectives to: identify who was involved in providing such care in the Far West Local Health District (FWLHD), how they connect, and any gaps in the network describe what care was provided and identify any challenges to care provision. The mapping process and outcomes can be used to guide the implementation of new models of care by building on the localised knowledge of current networks, provision of care and challenges.

Design, Development, and Evaluation of an Injury Surveillance App for Cricket: Protocol and Qualitative Study.

Background: Injury surveillance and workload monitoring are important aspects of professional sports, including cricket. However, at the community level, there is a dearth of accessible and intelligent surveillance tools. Mobile apps are an accessible tool for monitoring cricket-related injuries at all levels.

Design and delivery of an innovative speech pathology service-learning program for primary school children in Far West NSW, Australia.

Background: Children growing up in Australian rural communities have more communication impairments than their urban counterparts. Communication impairments, if left unresolved in school starters, lead to long-term learning and behavioural problems. Rural communities are disadvantaged by a scarcity of health professionals.

Two decades of building capacity in rural health education, training and research in Australia: University Departments of Rural Health and Rural Clinical Schools.

This review article reports on the contribution of university Departments of Rural Health and Rural Clinical Schools to the development of rural health and the rural health workforce and is set at the Australian Government's university Departments of Rural Health and Rural Clinical Training and Support Programs. The main outcome measures include educational infrastructure, clinical academic workforce, student numbers, community engagement, research outputs, rural health and workforce outcomes. As a result, university Departments of Rural Health and Rural Clinical Schools have established a substantial geographical footprint covering most of the rural and remote populations and regions across Australia.

Cricket Injury Epidemiology in the Twenty-First Century: What is the Burden?

Background: At the turn of the century, a new format of cricket [Twenty20 (T20)] was introduced that has led to more matches being played. Since then, it has been debated whether T20 cricket has increased the risk of overuse injuries.

Objectives: The primary aim of this study was to meta-analyse the cricket injury rates in the twenty-first century.

Rural and remote health research: Does the investment match the need?

Objective: To determine the percentage of research projects funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council in the period 2000-2014 that aimed specifically to deliver health benefits to Australians living in rural and remote areas and to estimate the proportion of total funding this represented in 2005-2014.

Design: This is a retrospective analysis of publicly available datasets.

Setting: National Health and Medical Research Council Rural and Remote Health Research 2000-2014.

Growing health partnerships in rural and remote communities: what drives the joint efforts of primary schools and universities in maintaining service learning partnerships?

Unlabelled: AimThis study explored the partnership between universities and local primary schools to deliver a classroom-based paediatric communication impairment service provided by undergraduate speech pathology students. It aimed to understand how partnerships work to facilitate programme replication.

Background: The partners included universities sending students on rural clinical placement, local host academic units and primary schools who worked together to provide paediatric speech and language services in primary schools in three sites in Australia.

Rural and remote speech-language pathology service inequities: An Australian human rights dilemma.

Access to healthcare is a fundamental human right for all Australians. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges the right to freedom of opinion and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. Capacities for self-expression and effective communication underpin the realisation of these fundamental human rights.