Global Principles, Regional Action: Guiding Ecohealth Practice in Oceania.

In Oceania, a region challenged by rapid urbanisation and climate change, integrative frameworks are required to enable effective actions on health and sustainability. The Ecohealth approach provides a framework for practice that acknowledges human health is intrinsically linked to ecosystem health. This research communication reports on a study involving interviews with twenty-seven leading health and sustainability thinkers from Oceania and across the globe.

Networked resilience in rural Australia--a role for health promotion in regional responses to climate change.

Issues Addressed: This paper provides a model for how health promotion teams might establish and support regional collaborations of organisations in a broad response to climate change that enables emergence of multiple strategies tailored to regional needs.

Methods: Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAS) and Organisational Learning informed action to foster a Climate Change Collaboration that engaged in strategies to improve transport options, food security and energy sustainability. Social Network Analysis was used to evaluate the degree to which member organisations became networked, the evolution of key network qualities and the way the organisations were affiliated via their participation in emergent strategies.

Making sense in a complex landscape: how the Cynefin Framework from Complex Adaptive Systems Theory can inform health promotion practice.

Health promotion addresses issues from the simple (with well-known cause/effect links) to the highly complex (webs and loops of cause/effect with unpredictable, emergent properties). Yet there is no conceptual framework within its theory base to help identify approaches appropriate to the level of complexity. The default approach favours reductionism--the assumption that reducing a system to its parts will inform whole system behaviour.

The population approach to falls injury prevention in older people: findings of a two community trial.

Background: There is a sound rationale for the population-based approach to falls injury prevention but there is currently insufficient evidence to advise governments and communities on how they can use population-based strategies to achieve desired reductions in the burden of falls-related injury. The aim of the study was to quantify the effectiveness of a streamlined (and thus potentially sustainable and cost-effective), population-based, multi-factorial falls injury prevention program for people over 60 years of age.

Methods: Population-based falls-prevention interventions were conducted at two geographically-defined and separate Australian sites: Wide Bay, Queensland, and Northern Rivers, NSW.

Tooty Fruity Vegie in Preschools: an obesity prevention intervention in preschools targeting children's movement skills and eating behaviours.

Issue Addressed: This paper outlines the implementation strategies and evaluation methods of the Tooty Fruity Vegie (TFV) in Preschools program in NSW Australia which addressed diet, movement skills and overweight indicators.

Methods: The TFV program was a one-year intervention conducted during 2006 and 2007 in 18 preschools (matched with 13 control preschools). The study had a quasi-experimental design with pre- and postintervention evaluation of nutrition and physical activity variables as well as anthropometric measures.

Multimedia campaign on a shoestring: promoting 'Stay Active - Stay Independent' among seniors.

Issue Addressed: This paper describes a multimedia campaign implemented in rural New South Wales on a budget smaller than that typical of many published campaigns. The 'To Be Young at Heart - Stay Active Stay Independent' (SASI) campaign was one arm of a multi-strategic program to reduce falls among seniors by promoting physical activity.

Methods: This 18-month campaign used social marketing techniques.

Incidence and outcomes of mental disorders in a regional population: the Northern Rivers Mental Health Study.

Objectives: To estimate the incidence of mental disorders in a cohort of previously symptom-free individuals who are representatives of a regional Australian population. To map changing patterns of diagnosis and comorbidity within the cohort over a 2 year period.

Method: Two year follow-up of a community-based cohort drawn from a telephone screening of 9191 randomly selected adults.

The tooty fruity vegie project: changing knowledge and attitudes about fruits and vegetables.

Objectives: The Tooty Fruity Vegie (TFV) project was a multi-strategic, school-based intervention aimed at preventing the large decline in fruit and vegetable intake that typically starts during primary school.

Methods: During 1999 and 2000, TFV was implemented in 10 volunteer primary schools across the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Surveys were conducted, in late 2000, with children, parents, teachers and principals across nine intervention and three matched control schools.

Falls prevention in rural general practice: what stands the test of time and where to from here?

Objective: General practitioner recall of the 1992-96 'Stay on Your Feet' (SOYF) program and its influence on practice were surveyed five years post-intervention to gauge sustainability of the SOYF General Practice (GP) component.

Methods: A survey assessed which SOYF components were still in existence, current practice related to falls prevention, and interest in professional development. All general practitioners (GPs) situated within the boundaries of a rural Area Health Service were mailed a survey in late 2001.

Substance use disorders in an Australian community survey.

A community survey of the common mental disorders in a geographically defined treatment service area was used to explore the socio-demographic correlates and service utilization of people with alcohol and drug use disorders living in the area. These data represent the most comprehensive data on substance use disorders in a defined geographic region in Australia. Alcohol and drug use disorders were most likely to be found in the young, with those aged 18-34 years being three times more likely to have an alcohol use disorder than those aged 55 years and over.