Prevention or Patch up?
Linking Scientific Knowledge with Policy in Public Health
It is not necessary to consult tables of statistics to realise that Australia has a challenge to overcome in its health policy. It is sufficient simply to stand at the entrance to any metropolitan railway station and watch the passing traffic of undernourished or overweight teenagers. Every very such individual is evidence that our society is not imparting sufficient life capacities to its families and that the health system is not a sufficiently effective safety net when life capacities are deficient.
A model for transitioning the population to sustainable well-being will be built up here, element by element, through focused essays and scientific articles. The model aims to apply scientific method systematically to a complex problem that has metaphysical, biophysical, socio-cultural, economic and governance dimensions.
Contributions welcome. There are several options:
- write to health@royalsocietyqld.org.au
- for a narrative or essay, follow the simplified Well-being Narratives Style Guide
- for a scholarly research article destined for publication in Proceedings, conform to the more detailed style guide on the Proceedings 130 webpage.
FRONT MATTERS
Verso page
Table of contents
ARTICLES IN The Mandarin ONLINE NEWSLETTER (PDFs to come).
The Mandarin has been chosen as a vehicle for publishing a series of opinion pieces that will over time build into a coherent model. This online newsletter is widely read in the national policy community, which is appropriate because the series is not primarily an exposition of medical or scientific facts and figures; it is focused on bringing transdisciplinary knowledge into policy analysis.
Collected articles
The Mandarin has tagged the articles and the whole series is available by clicking here.
Introduction
Prevention or Patch-up: Introduction and rationale for involvement of The Royal Society of Queensland; and on a national canvas, the Royal Societies of Australia. 28 February 2024.
Crises have Long Gestations: What emerge as contemporary ‘crises’ commonly have long preceding causes. Public health forums with specialist practitioners and scholars across jurisdictions, disciplines and sectors are desperately needed. 14 March 2024.
‘Feasible Path’ implementation framework – five capacities are essential to a program’s success, at one locus
It is possible to craft excellent policy, based on thorough research and wide-ranging consultation with people who know the subject, yet ultimately nothing happens, or nothing happens speedily enough. Before we cover medical subjects, we sketch out some elements of a successful program, ‘successful’ being one that is implemented effectively. An unimaginable amount of thoughtful advocacy and policy analysis is not implemented because of the absence of perhaps just one of these capacities at the location where it is needed. Frontline workers burn themselves out because of a lack of institutional support.
Some preconditions are essential for public policy: Every action in human affairs has consequences. Also, every action is preceded by circumstances and forces that predetermine or are conducive to the action. 28 March 2024.
Prevention needs coordinated powers or it’s just patch-up: A common feature of failed programs is the absence of an empowered individual who is accountable for results and is given the authority (power) to achieve them. 11 April 2024.
‘Staff are our most valuable resource’ – really? How hollow do the clichéd management words seem to any officer who has been a victim of organisational restructure, enforced redundancy, cuts to training budgets, forced casualisation or stonewalling in the HR department in response to a grievance! 2 May 2024.
Data, information, and knowledge are not ‘wisdom’. The skills that enable somebody to gain preselection and then sufficient community support for election to political office are not the same skills required to formulate public policy. 9 May 2024.
Lack of political will behind failure to build healthy communities. ‘Shortage of money’ is not really a valid excuse for failing to nourish the services that build healthy, peaceful communities. 23 May 2024.
SPECIFIC ISSUES
Domestic violence
Stopping domestic violence requires understanding its causes. Focusing on causation would have been a responsibility of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. Unfortunately, the task seems to have been flubbed. 6 June 2024.
National plan to end gender violence must stand on robust theory. Modern policy-making must take advantage of expert and lay knowledge from all quarters. It’s not just a matter of biology vs sociology. 27 June 2024.
Male shame is a risk factor for domestic violence. ‘Shame’ is an emotion typically felt by powerless men and can animate them to exercise aggressive power over others. 11 July 2024.
Human development
“It takes a village to raise a child”: To come.
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Brain injury is a health condition, not a crime: To come.
A sugar tax
To come.