Publications by authors named "Simone McCarthy"

Article Synopsis
  • Health-harming industries actively interfere with academic research, creating personal and professional challenges for public health researchers studying their impacts.
  • A qualitative study involved 28 public health researchers in Australia and the UK, revealing experiences such as social media attacks, legal threats, and overall well-being impacts due to their research.
  • There’s a need for universities to acknowledge these risks and develop better support systems and resources to help researchers engage in important work related to public health and equity.
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Cigarettes, alcohol, vaping and gambling products can cause significant harm to children and young people. The industries that make these products employ a range of tactics that aim to normalize their products and resist policy and regulatory reform. This includes 'responsibility' framing, in which parents are often held responsible for educating their children about the risks of these products.

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Article Synopsis
  • Gambling sponsorship in professional sports is under scrutiny globally, especially regarding online betting, with focus on how it impacts community sports in Australia.
  • Interviews with leaders in community sports revealed three main themes: alignment of values regarding sponsorship, ethical engagement with gambling sponsors, and consideration of the organization's reputation versus financial needs.
  • The study suggests that addressing gambling sponsorship requires interventions like regulation, formal sponsorship policies, and education on associated risks.
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Conflicts of interest (COIs) have the potential to create bias in research, policy and practice. Although disclosure cannot fully protect individuals and public policy from vested interests, it is an important step to support trust in scientific and public discourse, and transparency in decision-making. However, COIs are often unreported, underreported or difficult to identify.

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Public health researchers have investigated how youth are exposed to and influenced by traditional forms of commercial marketing from health-harming industries. Limited research has investigated youth opinions about the broader marketing and public relations strategies of these industries. This study aimed to understand youth perceptions of the impact and influence of a range of marketing and public relations strategies used by health harming industries.

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Background: Alcohol consumption presents a threat to the health and wellbeing of women. The alcohol industry often pushes back at global efforts to prioritise the prevention of alcohol harms to women. Qualitative researchers have investigated how younger and midlife women conceptualise their alcohol consumption, but there is very limited research relating to older women (those 60 years and over).

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Background: Marketing has a significant impact on the normalisation of gambling for youth across the globe. This has included shaping positive attitudes towards gambling, as well as increasing the social and cultural acceptance of gambling - particularly aligned with valued activities such as sport. Because of this, public health experts argue that gambling marketing poses a significant risk to the health and wellbeing of youth.

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Background: The climate crisis is a significant risk to the health and wellbeing of children, young people, and future generations. While there are calls for children and young people's engagement in climate decision making, current power structures limit their participation. This paper aimed to understand children's perspectives about the impact of the climate crisis on their futures, their ability to influence climate decisions, and strategies and mechanisms to facilitate their greater engagement in decisions made about the climate crisis.

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Online qualitative surveys-those surveys that prioritise qualitative questions and interpretivist values-have rich potential for researchers, particularly in new or emerging areas of public health. However, there is limited discussion about the practical development and methodological implications of such surveys, particularly for public health researchers. This poses challenges for researchers, funders, ethics committees, and peer reviewers in assessing the rigour and robustness of such research, and in deciding the appropriateness of the method for answering different research questions.

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Perceptions of the risks associated with the climate crisis are shaped by a range of social and political contexts and information sources. While some have expressed concerns about the impact of the spread of climate misinformation through social media platforms on young people, others have shown that the youth climate movement has played a key role in countering misinformation. Despite this, there has been very limited research with children about how they conceptualize the risks associated with the climate crisis, how they receive climate information, and how they understand and apply this to their own and others' lives.

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Young people's exposure to gambling marketing has had a clear impact on their gambling attitudes, risk perceptions and consumption intentions. Celebrities and social media influencers (SMIs) are increasingly used by the gambling industry in a wide range of promotions. While there is evidence that these types of promotions are influential in shaping young people's attitudes towards other harmful products, there is limited evidence in relation to gambling.

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The commercial determinants of health (CDoH) have a significant impact on the health and well-being of children and young people (subsequently referred to as young people). While most research has focused on the influence of harmful industry marketing on young people, more recent CDoH frameworks have emphasized that a range of commercial systems and practices may influence health and well-being. Focusing on the impact of traditional and digital media, contemporary marketing strategies and corporate production and consumption processes, the following article outlines the impact of the CDoH on the health and wellbeing of young people.

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The influence of commercial actors, practices and processes on the health and wellbeing of women is still not well understood. The alcohol industry has developed a range of products to appeal to new 'health conscious' markets, such as 'low-calorie' and 'low-sugar' products. While these products may have specific appeal for women, there has been little in-depth research that has sought to understand how women conceptualize these products and the range of symbolic meanings that women associate with these products.

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Objective: The climate crisis poses a significant public health threat to current and future generations. Limited research has examined young people's perspectives about the role of social media for climate awareness, action, and policy change.

Methods: Qualitatively led online survey of n=500 young Australians (aged 15-24).

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Issue Addressed: There are concerns that unhealthy industries may use sponsorships to align their brands with the increased popularity of professional women's sporting events. This study aimed to identify and compare the sponsors of Australian male and female professional sporting teams in relation to unhealthy industries (alcohol, gambling, discretionary food and drink, and venues) and health-promoting companies and organisations (charities, government departments, and educational institutions).

Methods: A web-based scan was conducted from July to October 2021 to identify team and uniform sponsors, with descriptive statistics used to identify and compare results.

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Introduction: Rapid changes in the Australian gambling environment have amplified the risks for gamblers and pose significant threats to public health. Technological advances, saturation of marketing, and the embedding of gambling in sport have all contributed to significant changes in the gambling risk environment. Older adults have witnessed the changes to the way gambling is provided and promoted in public spaces, but little is known about how these changes have shaped the way they conceptualize the risks associated with gambling.

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Background: Younger women's engagement with gambling has changed over recent decades due to a range of socio-cultural, environmental and commercial factors. However, younger women's distinct lived experiences with gambling have rarely been considered. The following critical qualitative inquiry explored factors that influenced younger women's engagement with gambling and their perceptions of gambling risks.

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Objective: Research has demonstrated that gambling is becoming increasingly normalised for women. As limited research has sought to understand women's perspectives on this issue, we sought women's opinions about the factors that may contribute to the normalisation of gambling for women, and the strategies that may counter this normalisation.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 women in young and middle adulthood, aged 20-40 years.

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Background: Gambling poses a global threat to public health due to its far-reaching impacts. Research has demonstrated a ripple effect of harmful gambling on social network members and broader communities. While researchers have documented extreme harms associated with an affected other, limited research has qualitatively investigated how women describe their concerns about the gambling of a social network member, and any subsequent negative impacts on their own lives.

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Older women are vulnerable to the risks associated with some forms of gambling. While research has examined how individuals functionally interact with gambling products, very limited research has investigated how individuals conceptualise and interpret the risks associated with these products. Theorists suggest that risk-taking is not based on a lack of knowledge but on the different ways people make sense of their lives.

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Objective: To understand the range of factors that may influence the normalisation of gambling for young women in Victoria, Australia.

Methods: In-depth qualitative telephone interviews with 45 women aged 18-34 years.

Results: Young women were exposed to gambling environments and some were gambling from an early age.

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