Health and Community Service Industries

It is widely noted that rural populations have poor health status and are ageing. In Australia, state and national policies and programs have been instigated to redress this, but few rural residents would agree that their town is the same as an apparently similar sized one nearby or across the country. This article reports a projec ....

Objectives: To gain a consensus view of potential roles for Nurse Practitioners (NPs) in a rural Australian hospital and identify the barriers and enablers in their development and implementation. Design: A three round Delphi study. Setting: A rural hospital. Participants: Twenty eight nurses, five doctors, four consumers, two heal ....

Three primary healthcare nurses were funded by the Commonwealth Government to establish a primary healthcare program for three clusters of small rural communities (four towns in each cluster) of less than 1000 people. The role of the nurses was to include the provision of clinical nursing support to GPs in outreach locations simila ....

Advances in information technology and telecommunications may offer many potential benefits to Australia's under-served communities [1]. Communication and information technologies can reduce the barriers of distance and space that disadvantage rural areas, where the health status of residents is often worse than that of their urban ....

The Department of Rural Health at the University of Melbourne has developed a framework for conducting research in partnership with Indigenous communities. This article provides an overview of the framework which addresses past inappropriate research practices, incorporates cultural understandings, and outlines culturally appropria ....

Background: Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing chronic diseases internationally. The health complications associated with type 2 diabetes can be prevented, delayed, or improved via early diagnosis and effective management. This research aims to examine the impact of a primarily web-based educational intervention on the diabetes care pr ....

This paper reviees the debate on the supply of doctors in Australia from an economic perspective. It focuses on the supply between urban and rural areas and on Australia's reliance on foreign-born overseas-trained doctors. Evidence shows that doctors are concentrated in cities and rural Australians have relatively poor access; and there is heavy ....

This paper uses a panel data set of Connecticut communities to offer several empirical insights into the economics of local public health services. First, the demand characteristics associated with local public health services are explored. Tax-share, income, and aid elasticities of local public health demand and the congestability of local publi ....

Education plays a key role in recruitment of health workforce to rural and remote locations. In Australia, Schools of Nursing have set up a variety of educational programmes to encourage rural workforce choices. These programmes include rural campuses and short-term rural placement programmes out of urban campuses. This study compares the relativ ....

This study examines whether the use of swimming pools can reduce the high prevalence of infections among children in remote Aboriginal communities. The communities of Jigalong and Mugarinya, in Western Australia, had public swimming pools installed in 2000, which were managed by the Royal Life Saving Society with regard to water te ....

The Healthy for Life program provides funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to address health and wellbeing issues in an interconnected and holistic way, in an integrated primary health care model that uses the best evidence and the ability to adapt initiatives to fit the local context. The aim of the Health ....

This resource sheet explores what is known about service delivery coordination activities in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia. It examines the principles that underpin service delivery coordination efforts to improve the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. Drawing on research, documented practice, and practitioner kno ....

Strong and healthy relationships play a vital role in building the ongoing health and wellbeing of individuals, families and the broader community. With increasing pressure on the traditional social support mechanisms of extended family, friends and neighbours, particularly in non-urban regions, there is a growing need for professi ....

Background. Increasing the recruitment of doctors, including general practitioners (GPs), to rural areas is recognised as a health priority internationally. Australian GP trainees (registrars) complete a mandatory minimum of 6 months training in a rural area. The rationale for this includes the expectation of increased likelihood o ....