Amenable mortality within the New Zealand homeless population: we can do better!

Aim: To describe the context surrounding the deaths of homeless people in New Zealand and to determine the proportion of deaths that could be considered amenable to healthcare.

Method: We used coroners' findings related to 171 deaths of persons with "no fixed abode" at the time of death, from 2008 to 2019. Recent lists of amenable mortality from the New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Office of National Statistics in the UK were combined to determine the rate of amenable mortality.

Men's re-placement: Social practices in a Men's Shed.

Transitions into retirement can be difficult at the best of times. Many men find themselves having to reflect on who they are and what their lives are about. Their access to social supports and material resources are often disrupted.

Nutritionism and the construction of 'poor choices' in families facing food insecurity.

The dominant research approach to both food insecurity and charitable meal provision is nutritionistic, deficit-orientated and ignores wider socio-economic issues. This reinforces existing power dynamics and overlooks the agency of people living food-insecure lives. We critique this dominant approach and draw on the everyday experiences of families facing food insecurity to ground an alternative approach that emphasises food as a social determinant of health.

Metonymic objects, cultural practices and narrative repair: Sri Lankan responses to the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami resulted in a tragic loss of life and immense suffering. This article explores the ways in which a group of people from Sri Lanka worked to address the disruption to their life narratives caused by the loss of loved ones. We go beyond a focus on 'talk' in narrative research in health psychology to explore the importance of material objects in sustaining continued bonds with the deceased.

Being healthy in unhealthy places: health tactics in a homeless lifeworld.

Street life can compromise a person's health. In response, homeless people exert considerable agency in attempts to preserve their health. Drawing on ethnographic research in central Auckland, this article explores the ways in which a homeless man maintains his health.

"Near and far": social distancing in domiciled characterisations of homeless people.

For domiciled individuals, homeless people provide a disturbing reminder that all is not right with the world. Reactions to seeing homeless people frequently encompass repulsion, discomfort, sympathy and sometimes futility. This paper considers domiciled constructions of homeless people drawn from interviews with 16 participants recruited in the central business district of a New Zealand city.

The mobile hermit and the city: considering links between places, objects, and identities in social psychological research on homelessness.

This article explores aspects of a homeless man's everyday life and his use of material objects to maintain a sense of place in the city. We are interested in the complex functions of walking, listening and reading as social practices central to how this man forges a life as a mobile hermit across physical and imagined locales. This highlights connections between physical place, use of material objects, imagination, and sense of self.

Questioning 'black humour': racial exploitation, media and health.

This commentary explores the relevance of media racism to health psychology. While supporting Dr Estacio's call for health psychologists to get involved in promoting social justice via the media, we propose that health psychologists should not overstate the negative influence of the media on racism in society. Media content is complex and contradictory.