How does climate change impact people who use alcohol and other drugs? A scoping review of peer reviewed literature.

Background: The world has experienced devastating extreme weather events, alongside slow-onset processes including increasing temperature means, that scientists agree are manifestations of human-induced climate change. Even with radical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, effects of climate change will become increasingly severe.

Objectives: The aim of this review was to classify impacts of climate change for people who use alcohol and other drugs (AoD), as reflected in peer reviewed literature.

Young people returning to alcohol and other drug services as incremental treatment.

Young people who attend intensive alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment commonly do so more than once. This paper aims to understand precipitators, enablers and barriers to young people's re-engagement in programs. Data come from a longitudinal qualitative study involving three waves of interviews with Australian young people recruited while attending intensive AoD programs (n = 38 at wave 1).

Drinking alcohol at home feels different from drinking in public places: a qualitative study of midlife Australians.

This paper shows how drinking in one's own home affords different affective experiences to drinking in public settings such as bars, pubs and restaurants. A thematic analysis of interviews with 40 Australians aged 30-65 identified three main variations in alcohol-associated feelings, sensations and urges. Alcohol was used at home to decelerate, but in contrast, people were enlivened when drinking in public venues.

Alcohol's contribution to climate change and other environmental degradation: a call for research.

Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. The production, distribution and consumption of many fast-moving consumer goods contribute substantially to climate change, principally through releasing greenhouse gas emissions. Here we consider just some of the ways that alcohol-already a key contributor to an array of health, social and economic burdens-exacerbates environmental harms and climate change.

Educating students about volatile substance use in Australian schools: Is the current approach evidence-based, and how should we do it?

Australian national, state and territory school-based drug education policies advise that volatile substance use (VSU) should be excluded from general drug education curriculum for fear of alerting young people to the intoxicating properties of substances such as petrol, sprays and glues. We review evidence from the United States and United Kingdom on the effects of including volatile substances in school-based drug education, to argue that these policies are due for reconsideration. Nitrous oxide and nitrites are classified as volatile substances along with solvents such as those listed above, although their patterns of use, effects and harms are different.

The experiences of a regional Aboriginal community accessing primary health care during times of crisis.

Introduction: The importance of primary health care (PHC) to Aboriginal Australians is widely acknowledged, as is the underservicing of the Aboriginal Australian population. Aboriginal People continue to face significant obstacles when accessing and using health care services.

Objective: This study identifies environmental factors (beyond personal and service delivery) that functioned as barriers and enablers to Aboriginal Australians' experiences accessing PHC during crises and recommends approaches during future events.

Risk and restraint-The key to understanding the decreasing use of alcohol for young people in high income countries?

Introduction: In this article we seek to understand the changing social position of alcohol use for young people in Australia by identifying how alcohol has become framed as posing a significant risk to their bodies and futures.

Methods: Forty interviews were conducted with young people aged 18-21 years from Melbourne, Australia, who had previously identified as light drinkers or abstainers. Drawing on insights from contemporary sociologies of risk, we explored how risk was discussed as a governing concept that shaped young people's views of alcohol, and how it encouraged or necessitated risk-avoidance in daily life.

Associations Between Heavy Episodic Drinking, Drinking While Gambling, and Risky Gambling.

Introduction: Understanding how patterns of drinking are associated with risky gambling in Australia is needed to inform an effective approach to minimise harm.

Methods: This cross-sectional questionnaire study reports on 2,704 subsampled participants who completed survey questions about their patterns of drinking. With logistic regressions, we examined whether frequency of heavy episodic drinking (HED) and alcohol use while gambling were associated with risky gambling while controlling for sociodemographic variables.

'I just wanted a change, a positive change': Locating hope for young people engaged with residential alcohol and drug services in Victoria, Australia.

In this article, we investigate young people's involvement with residential alcohol and other drug (AOD) services as part of their broader engagement with hope. This study draws on qualitative interviews conducted with 20 young people aged 17-23 from Victoria, Australia, who were either in, or had recently left, residential AOD services. Interviews explored their experiences with AOD services and included questions about their hopes for the future.

How do people drink alcohol at a low-risk level?

Reducing the risks associated with drinking is an ongoing public health goal. Approximately two-fifths of Australian adults consume alcohol within low-risk guidelines, yet little is known about their drinking patterns or practices. In this paper, we use social practice theory to consider low-risk drinking at home as a routinised social practice with material, meaning and competence dimensions.

Home alone: Patterns and perceptions of solitary home alcohol consumption in an Australian convenience sample.

Introduction: In contrast with extensive literature exploring sociable alcohol use, few studies focus on drinking alone at home, even though the home is the place where the majority of drinking occurs.

Methods: We draw on survey and interview data gathered in 2018/2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, to identify prevalence and perceptions of solitary home drinking in an Australian convenience sample of heavy and light drinkers (LD).

Results: A substantial minority of survey participants identified drinking home alone, with over a quarter of heavy drinkers (27%) reporting that they only drank alone in their own home (compared to 15% of LD).

Sober Curiosity: A Qualitative Study Exploring Women's Preparedness to Reduce Alcohol by Social Class.

Background: Urgent action is required to identify socially acceptable alcohol reduction options for heavy-drinking midlife Australian women. This study represents innovation in public health research to explore how current trends in popular wellness culture toward 'sober curiosity' (i.e.

The delivery of essential newborn care in conflict settings: A systematic review.

Introduction: Although progress has been made over the past 30 years to decrease neonatal mortality rates, reductions have been uneven. Globally, the highest neonatal mortality rates are concentrated in countries chronically affected by conflict. Essential newborn care (ENC), which comprises critical therapeutic interventions for every newborn, such as thermal care, initiation of breathing, feeding support, and infection prevention, is an important strategy to decrease neonatal mortality in humanitarian settings.

Workplace Assessment Scale: Pilot Validation Study.

First responders, such as police officers, paramedics, and firefighters are at an increased risk of experiencing negative mental health outcomes compared to the general population. This predisposition can partially be attributed to common occupational stressors, which may provoke strong feelings of betrayal and humiliation. The Workplace Assessment Scale (WAS) was developed as there is currently no appropriate measure to assess such feelings in the first responder population.

Becoming a nitrous oxide user on social media: Learning to maximise pleasures and minimise harms.

Background: In his classic work 'Becoming a marihuana user', Howard Becker (1953) showed how drug use learning occurred in social interactions and settings, which in turn shape drug use. Today, social media offers people opportunities to learn about drugs without physical proximity. In this paper, we identify nitrous oxide (NO) users' key concerns about how to maximise pleasures and minimise harms, as expressed on the social media platform Reddit.

"There's a lot of stereotypes going on": A cross-national qualitative analysis of the place of gender in declining youth drinking.

Introduction: Significant declines in drinking among young people have been recorded in many high-income countries over the past 20 years. This analysis explored the role of gender - which we interpret as socially constructed and relational - to provide insight into whether and how gender might be implicated in declining youth drinking.

Methods: Interview data from four independent qualitative studies from Australia, Denmark, Sweden and the UK (n=194; participants aged 15-19 years) were analysed by researchers in each country following agreement about analytical focus.

Increasing harms for bingo players: digitisation, commercialisation and regulatory inadequacy: a multi-site case study.

Background: Bingo is often understood as a low-harm form of gambling. This view has been challenged by a growing body of literature identifying gambling harm to bingo players in a range of countries. In this study, we aimed to identify which conditions enabled, facilitated, intensified or mitigated gambling harm for bingo players in three populations in Victoria in the context of corporate, technological and regulatory changes.

Parents' management of alcohol in the context of discourses of 'competent' parenting: A qualitative analysis.

How parents manage potential tensions between normative discourses of 'competent parenting' and their desires to consume alcohol has received little attention. In this article, we explore the elements that encourage or constrain parents' drinking and investigate how parents consider and manage their alcohol use in the context of multiple social roles with sometimes conflicting demands and expectations around 'competent parenting'. Our analysis draws on 30 semi-structured interviews with Australian parents, conducted as part of a broader project which aimed to explore how home drinking is integrated into everyday life.

Feasibility and acceptability of Narrative Exposure Therapy to treat individuals with PTSD who are homeless or vulnerably housed: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Background: Diagnosed PTSD rates in people who are homeless are more than double that of the general population, ranging between 21 and 53%. Complex PTSD (cPTSD) also appears to be more common than PTSD. One treatment option is Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), a brief trauma-focused psychotherapy which attempts to place trauma within a narrative of the person's life.