February report for Society Culture and Health

5 February 2020

NEW GRANTS/FUNDING

Smith JP, Stewart M, ANU Gender Institute, Follow up workshop and tool development Gender budgeting for breastfeeding and reporting on the new Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy 2019, November 2019 successful. $5000

Members of SCH, with academics from CMHR and ANUMS prepared a brief proposal to investigate the effects of smoke, health and fear of fire on community functioning in Canberra, and contributed to proposals led by other groups.

KEYNOTE AND INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Smith JPRecognising the value of breastfeeding, and rebalancing costs’, Keynote presentation, Amamantar/Spanish Breastfeeding Association, 20th Anniversary Conference, 23 November 2019.

Leach L. Dads' work and family conflicts - impacts on mental health. Fathers in Family Life. 11-12th December. 2019..Caring Futures Institute. Flinders University. Adelaide, Australia.

OTHER CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

LaBond, C., Banwell, C., Strazdins, L., and Doan, T. (2019) “Blue collar time-scapes: a critical examination of pension eligibility age and the experiences of mature age bus drivers in Australia”, Annual Conference of the Australian Anthropological Society, Canberra, December 2-5, 2019.

Smith JP, Stewart M, Sandoval Guzman, M ANU Gender Institute Submission to Victorian Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts on Gender Budgeting, December 2018

AWARDS

Julie Smith has been awarded an honorary membership of the Australian Breastfeeding Association, December 2019

OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT

Ruth Kharis was the PHAA representative for the ACT Food Regulation Reference Group 5 December 2019 meeting.

MEDIA RELEASES/INTEREST

In December 2019, Julie Smith was interviewed on New Zealand’s biggest radio station, Newstalk ZB, and by ABC in Canberra, including on bushfire emergency implications.

Findings from the ARC LP Working Well, Working Wisely studies were featured in the following newspaper article on older workers. Lyndall Strazdins, Tinh Doan, and Christine Heyes LaBond provided information on the role of ageing workers’ health profiles in labour participation, and the importance of designing jobs to suit older workers’ health needs in order to enable ongoing labour participation: 

Patty, Anna. “Jobs must be redesigned to suit older workers.” The Age, 5 January, 2020, https://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace/jobs-must-be-redesigned-to-suit-older-workers-20191121-p53cpc.html#comments. Accessed 16 January, 2020. 

PAPERS ACCEPTED/PUBLISHED

Dixon, J. Banwell, C. Stradins, L.  Corr, L. Burgess, J. Flexible employment policies, temporal control and health promoting practices: A qualitative study in two Australian worksites. PLOS one. December 20, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224542

Using a practice sociology approach, we compared the accounts of twenty-eight workers in blue and white collar industries with differing degrees of work time flexibility.  This study suggests that a) time demands and strains have increased for a broad sweep of workers since the 1980s, b) the greater control of higher occupational status groups has been eroded by the high performance movement, which has attracted less scrutiny than FWAs, and c) more workers are forced to adapt their daily lives, including their approach to health, to accommodate their job demands.  We conclude that redesigning of the temporalities of working life within worksites need to be accompanied by society-level policies which address caring responsibilities, gender equality as well as broad labour market conditions.

Eden, K., K. Carroll, R. Williamson, Carroll K., Williamson R., Butler A., Smith JP.., 2019, Designated Private Breastfeeding Spaces in the University Sector: An Audit of One Australian University. Breastfeeding Review 27(3): 43-52.

Pramono, A., J. Desborough and JP. Smith, 2019, The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding Policy Review. Breastfeeding Review 27(3): 15-28.

Smith JP A commentary on the carbon footprint of milk formula: harms to planetary health and policy implications, International Breastfeeding Journal, 27 November 2019

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Smith JP ‘Making the National Breastfeeding Strategy more than a motherhood statement, Essence, December 2019.

PROGRESS ON RESEARCH PROJECTS

December 6, 2019, Lyndall Strazdins, Cathy Banwell, Tinh (Jimmy) Doan, and Christine LaBond hosted the annual general meeting for the ARC Linkage Project, Working Longer, Staying Healthy, and Keeping Productive, attended by Linkage partners from industry, government, and academia. The meeting provided an overview of progress across the LP’s five interrelated studies, and served as an opportunity for partners to discuss key messages emerging across the studies, and their relevance to current policy on healthy ageing in the workplace.