Sediment runoff from land use change and unsustainable development is missing from global priorities despite being one of the greatest threats facing freshwater and marine ecosystems, Griffith University researcher reveals.
Published in Science, Dr Caitlin Kuempel from the Australian Rivers Institute outlines how the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), targeted to halt biodiversity loss and restore natural ecosystems by 2030 overlooks sediment runoff, a key driver of poor water quality that threatens freshwater and marine ecosystems.
While the GBF includes four goals and 23 targets to halt biodiversity loss and restore natural ecosystems, including goals to reduce pollution from sources such as plastics and nutrients, none relate to the enormous loads of sediment being washed into waterways.
Dr Caitie Kuempel from the Australian Rivers InstituteandLecturer at theSchool of Environment and Science, Griffith University
“To conserve aquatic environments, the global community must prioritize explicit indicators and commitments to reduce excess sediment,” Dr Kuempel said.
Excess sediment is caused by land-use change and unsustainable development including logging, agriculture, and construction.
“When that sediment enters rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, it can smother nonmobile organisms, such as plants and corals,” Dr Kuempel said.
“The cloud of sediment settling out of the water column shades out the available light that is essential for many species to grow, feed, and reproduce.”
For this reason, excess sediment in waterways can have real consequences for ecosystem health and function and crucially reduce the resilience of freshwater and marine ecosystems to climate change.
Globally, more than 40% of coral reefs are at risk from sediment export, and in the southern hemisphere sediment run-off from land use change has increased by more than 40% since 1984.
“Governments and industry need to work together with scientists to monitor and mitigate anthropogenic sediment impacts on freshwater and marine systems,” Dr Kuempel said.
“Water quality and erosion metrics are relatively easy to measure using traditional and remote sensing methods and can be used to identify high sediment levels.”
In addition to systematic land restoration and protection to combat land conversion, mitigating the negative effects of sediment requires erosion and sediment control, including maximizing covered ground, management of overland water flow, and sediment trapping, particularly in areas with high erosion risk like steep slopes.
“On the other side of the coin, we also need to take into account that infrastructure like dams can prohibit the sediment flow that is needed downstream,”Dr Kuempel said.
“The Australian government has committed to sediment reduction regulations in catchments near the Great Barrier Reef, but policies to reduced sediment loads must be incorporated into global conservation commitments.”
“Managing sediment pollution would help to achieve global goals by facilitating habitat and species conservation, promoting sustainable food production and responsible urbanization, and improving natural resource management, while at the same time increasing the resilience of freshwater and marine ecosystem to climate change.”
Griffith University contributed to a global review highlighting the effects of racism, social exclusion and discrimination on achieving universal safe water and sanitation in high-income countries and published in The Lancet Global Health.
Griffith Cities Research Institute and Coauthor Associate Professor Cara Beal said despite Australia being one of the richest per capita countries in the world, clean, reliable water and energy provision in Australia’s First Peoples communities has long been inadequate.
Associate Professor Cara Beal
“Australian First Peoples do not enjoy the same level of service for water and energy that the majority of non-Indigenous Australians do, and the issue is finally getting the attention it deserves,” Associate Professor Beal said.
The findings in a recent water industry report released formally by Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney prompted an announcement by the Federal Government to commit $150 million over four years to support First Nations water infrastructure.
“Remote and isolated communities experience water insecurity in ways that are specific to location, climate and culture – it’s not enough to simplify the management of water and energy resources from a city management perspective — we must collaborate with the people who live it and experience it every day,” Associate Professor Beal said.
“In remote areas affected by drought or seasonal insecurity, water is used much differently to urban areas and some communities are experiencing drinking water shut-off periods for most of the day.”
Co-authored by experts from the US, Europe and University of Western Australia, the Lancet Global Health review uses high-income countries, Australia and the UK, as case studies and provides recommendations for public health services.
Associate Professor Cara Beal collaborating with community to evaluate water use and access.
Griffith research in remote and isolated communities
In previous research, the Griffith team travelled to remote and isolated communities to conduct collaborative research with four communities in the Torres Strait Islands, Cape York and the Northern Territory.
State-of-the-art smart meters were installed in 77 participating homes and discussions were held with a range of community members and stakeholders including councillors, business owners, residents, youth and elders about water usage, habits and impacts of management decisions on daily life.
Research Fellow with the Griffith Climate Action Beacon Dr Melissa Jackson said water use in remote communities is five times higher, sometimes more, per person than the average Southeast Queensland resident.
“The cost of pumping and treating this water via diesel-fueled generators is expensive and unsustainable,” Dr Jackson said.
“We discovered 75% of water in remote communities is used outdoors, often for cultural and family activities.
“Water is used to hose down roads and dirt areas in extreme heat because dry dust is a breathing hazard and some residents hose down their homes to manage temperature in extreme heat.
“Fishing and hunting are important cultural and food activities which were also found to require a lot of water to clean and prepare.
“The importance of considering water and energy together was also highlighted where residents might manage their electricity costs by letting their power cards reach a zero balance until the next pay day – this means no air conditioning, fridge or freezer or hot water during that period, with significant risks to health.
“These water use activities are specific to remote and isolated communities and without their explicit involvement in research, there can be no appropriate solution.”
Developing sustainable management strategies
The team of Griffith researchers and industry and government partners were awarded an Australian Research Council grant of r over $690,000 to advance this work to co-design a digital and community toolbox to assist residents living in remote communities with the sustainable and efficient management of water and energy.
The ‘iKnow, WE know’ toolbox, named to reflect the interaction of Indigenous Environmental, and traditional knowledge and culture around water and energy practices, combined with digital approaches to create practical, culturally appropriate tools that support sustainable, climate resilient water and energy use and management.
Founder of Indigenous Technology, Cheryl Bailey, enabling Indigenous communities through design and delivery of ethical and sustainable business technology outcomes.
Project partner and Director and Founder of Indigenous Technologies, Muruwari woman Cheryl Bailey said the challenge is to find ways to engage communities appropriately using day to day means such as smart phones and Apps.
“By understanding the challenges of life in remote Australia and working closely with locals, we will identify and co-design with local communities some reasonable and realistic ways to reduce non-essential water and energy use,” Ms Bailey said.
“This will include near-real time feedback of water and energy use, community digital notice boards, virtual water stories from community Elders and online leak reporting and repair training and tracking.”
From March 2023 in Australia, Gamble Responsibly advertising taglines are being dropped in favour of a set of messages designed to influence gamblers consideration of whether gambling is worth the loss. Whether they will be effective in influencing behavioural choices is hotly debated, with commentary suggesting capability of GR taglines reducing or preventing harm as low . While the GR taglines are certainly an improvement to the ambiguous ‘gamble responsibly’ message, do they go far enough?
What are the new taglines?
Online betting companies are required to use new taglines in ads they share across multiple platforms including television, radio apps, digital or print advertising, social media and websites. A tagline is a short and easily remembered phrase that a company uses so people will recognise it or its products.
The seven new Gamble Responsibly taglines are designed to encourage consumers to pause and consider the consequences of losing a bet highlighting loss attributes such as:
‘Chances are you’re about to lose.’
‘What’s gambling really costing you?’
‘You win some. You lose more.’
‘What are you prepared to lose today? Set a deposit limit.’
Or asking consumers to question their behavioural choices such as:
‘Imagine what you could be buying instead.’
‘Think. Is this a bet you really want to place?’
‘What are you really gambling with?’
To reduce message fatigue the new taglines are to be rotated over a 12-month and accompanied with a call to action ‘For free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au’.
“Australians lose an astounding $25 billion dollars a year on legal forms of gambling and are some of the world’s heaviest gamblers per capita.”
Gambling-sport normalisation is further reinforced by the ubiquitousness of gambling advertising with the industry spending a whopping $287.2 million on advertising in 2021, compared to $15.9 million in 2020. With this level of investment in ad spend it isn’t surprising that children and young adults are extremely adept at recalling and recognising the logos, jingles, taglines, colours and celebrity endorsers – such as Shaquille O’Neal – of sport bet brands. This level of gambling advertising rings alarm bells as young people, particularly young males, are increasingly drawn into sports betting. Young males are more likely to make their first bet prior to 18 years, bet more when drinking and experience greater levels of gambling harm relative to women. Yet women’s betting is also on the rise with the emergence of female-focussed gambling ads.
Are the ad messages enough to influence behaviour?
There is no doubt that the new GR taglines are a positive replacement to the broad, ambiguous ‘gamble responsibly’ messages. Based on behavioural insights, the GR taglines highlight a variety of harm reduction motivations and preconceptions. Importantly, the message heuristics aim to reduce cognitive distortions of gambling and bet size to cut-through a gamblers ‘illusion of control’ and fixation on ‘loss chasing’ behaviour.
Yet, as with majority of tagline messaging, the onus of preventative responsibility lies with the individual experiencing gambling harm. Targeting conscious decision-making there is an assumption that the gambler’s response will be positive and rational. That by informing gamblers of the risks and low chances of winning they will correct their behaviour. By default, challenging a gambler’s cognition competes with their perception of smart decision-making – that they can win against the odds – that they are a smart gambler – that they have control – that they don’t have a problem!
The new GR taglines are a positive start towards nudging gamblers to consider their losses and behavioural choices. They address key gambling biases. Yet, unless the individual acknowledges they have a problem it is unlikely the messages will have a significant impact on influencing gambler’s behavioural choices, particularly high-at risk gamblers.
“There is growing concern about the relationship between betting companies and professional sports teams and the growing reliance on betting money.”
Leveraging insight from tobacco and road safety contexts, preventative advertising alone is insufficient. Government harm reduction policy and legislative enforcement, alongside addressing influences in the broader system is critical. Australia led the race in reducing tobacco harm with significant investment to addressing system impacts including bans on tobacco sport sponsorship, tobacco advertising and counter display communications, alongside plain packaging requirements. In turn, these actions significantly reduced capability of tobacco companies to recruit new smokers. Australia’s road safety achievements are attributed to significant investment in road safety advertising, improvements to roads and universal changes in driver training and attitudes.
To reduce gambling harm greater attention needs to be directed to the ‘gambling system’ rather than simply devolving all responsibility for addressing gambling harm to the individual, which in turn absolves betting companies’ responsibility beyond abiding government regulations. There is growing concern about the relationship between betting companies and professional sports teams and the growing reliance on betting money. Wagering companies have had a long relationship with professional sporting organisations, clubs, broadcasters and former stars. For example, it’s estimated the AFL possibly receives close to $40 million annually from their sports betting relationship. Taking a stance to alleviate the tension between Australian sport and normalisation of wagering there is hope with a growing movement of clubs and former stars ‘saying no’ to sports betting funding.
There is also momentum questioning whether gambling advertising needed at all. Australia took a stance to reducing harm from tobacco by attacking tobacco advertising and sport funding relationships. The question at the time raised by professional sporting leagues was ‘what will we do without tobacco funding?’. Sporting organisations survived. No doubt this question will be asked again if the government takes a strong stance to reduce wagering normalisation. No doubt sporting leagues will again survive.
Author
Dr Marie-Louise Fry is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing in Griffith Business School Her research interests brings practical and theoretical insight into understanding consumption behaviour across a variety of marketing arenas. She specialises in social marketing – alcohol behaviour change – giving particular attention to why people do things that are manifestly bad for them; why they won’t do things that are obviously good for them and what will it take to reverse that. Marie-Louise is widely published in leading marketing and behaviour change journals, sits on the editorial board of two academic journals and is a frequent speaker at behaviour change and marketing conferences.
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With the current housing crisis, more and more young people are couchsurfing.
Couchsurfing is a growing form of homelessness in many countries including Australia, however, new research suggests it is especially common within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community.
Couchsurfers traditionally do not view themselves as homeless because they have an indoor place to sleep so are less likely to access housing resources or use social services than those who are sleeping rough or living in shelters, or are often told they are less of a priority given their roofed status.
When Griffith University researchers set out to collect information about young people (under 25) who were couchsurfing, they were surprised to discover almost 50 per cent of respondents identified as queer in some way.
Considering only about four per cent of the Australian population identify as queer, this is quite an overwhelming statistic.
Additionally, almost all respondents in the study identified as having poor mental health and high levels of psychological distress.
Lead researcher Dr Katie Hail-Jares said this is a population that really needs more support.
“There really is a need for better mental health care and support for families because the young people even acknowledged their parents were trying, but they just didn’t have the resources, like connections to services or education around mental health to know how to help their child, and that’s ended up leading to a lot of problems.
“One positive was that queer young people were less likely to mention their sexuality when talking about what led them to leave home, which may suggest parents are becoming more accepting of young people who come out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
“Unfortunately, young trans and gender diverse people did often mention their gender identity as a reason why they became homeless though, so we still have a way to go in supporting queer young people.”
A further concern however, was the discovery of how frequently labour or sexual exchange was being added in to couchsurfing arrangements, often in addition to monetary compensation.
While domestic work such as cleaning or yard work was the most common form of compensation, sexual exchange came in third, with respondents identifying a power imbalance leaving them unable to decline advances, or hosts simply expecting that by providing a “couch,” they were entitled to sexual access.
This experience was particularly common among bi-sexual or queer women, with almost all reporting sexual exchange as part of couchsurfing.
Young queer people also identified staying in abusive relationships and giving emotional time and labour, in order to maintain housing.
While young queer people are at a substantially greater risk of homelessness and housing precarity than their cis and heterosexual peers, it wasn’t all bad news, with some respondents saying couchsurfing had allowed them to focus more on exploring their gender identity and seek support, with the ability to not be “closeted” eventually leading to improved mental health.
The recent UK experiment assessing the impact of a 4-day work week trialled for six months by over 60 UK organisations, has reportedly produced largely positive results. Over 90% of the organisations plan to continue with this structural change in work hours, although most will continue to a 12-month trial and then re-evaluate the costs and benefits.
The 4-day work week has also been trialled by organisations in other countries, including within the US, Australia and New Zealand. The key principle of the 4-day work week is no reduction in actual workload. Instead of working ‘smarter’ by reducing non-essential work (e.g., formal meetings) and informal occurrences (e.g., corridor conversations), aims to produce at least the same work productivity as a 5-day work week. Some UK organisations in this trial reported increased productivity by their workers, although this was only assessed in the short-term of course.
Importantly, for some organisations in this UK trial, the experiment was unsuccessful and was abandoned. Recent staff shortages have already intensified workloads for many employees, so increasing work intensification even further, even with the lure of a 3-day weekend, was just too difficult for some organisations to achieve. The issue of equality of this work hours structure for workers across different sectors of an organisation was also difficult for some to achieve. So, management and administrative workers were generally able to adapt to a four-day week more easily than could public-facing or operational workers, for example. Plus, organisations already under financial pressure post-COVID-19, had scarce financial capital available to hire more workers to cover the ‘fifth’ working day. So even with a staggered day off (e.g., having Wednesdays and Fridays as the nominated days off for different groups of staff), there were still insufficient workers available on these days to complete the core operating business.
“Recent staff shortages have already intensified workloads for many employees, so increasing work intensification even further, even with the lure of a 3-day weekend, was just too difficult for some organisations to achieve.”
Work/Life balance?
The concept of a shorter working week is not new. Both 3-day and 4-day working weeks have been trialled, with varying success over the last few decades, including for example, with healthcare workers and police officers. What is evident from all these trials, including the recent UK one, is repeating the core workplace wellbeing principles which organisational health psychology has been relaying to employers since work-related ‘technostress’ was first recognised in the 1980s. These wellbeing principles have been significantly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, to the extent that ‘work-life balance’ is now an admirable aim that most workers can strive for, rather than being primarily focused on new employed parents balancing intensive childcare demands.
These principles focus on:
The effective utilisation of technology for work to provide more employee choice and control over where and when they work. For some workers this may mean a compressed work week of working fewer days, or working the same days but fewer hours per day. Certainly, there’s an increased permanence to working from home and avoiding the wastage of commuting time, which is showing few signs of diminishing post-COVID-19.
Workers are certainly focused on work-life balance post-COVID-19. The traditional ‘male model’ of long work hours is thankfully now becoming as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. Instead, working flexibly with opportunities to also perform child school runs, participation in sport, fitness, or further training, or simply to walk the dog each evening is increasingly recognised by employers as being desirable for the achievement of healthy, engaged and productive workers.
Treating high levels of employee stress and burnout seriously by a reduction in actual workloads, rather than introducing trendy initiatives which are only window-dressing (shoulder massages, mindfulness training, etc). Sending a massaged worker back to the same high workload will not reduce their stress levels in the long-term!
The most effective way to reduce workloads is to provide sufficient resources – especially human. Employing more workers and spreading workloads is directly associated with increases in productivity and employee wellbeing, and there is long-term evidence to support this point.
Finally, engaging workers in direct discussions about their working preferences. The most successful compressed working week trials were those which allowed workers to decide when they worked, including the organisation of their shift-work and rosters. Support from managers to enable such employee participatory decision-making processes is directly associated with gains in workers’ levels of wellbeing, commitment and performance.
“The most effective way to reduce workloads is to provide sufficient resources – especially human. Employing more workers and spreading workloads is directly associated with increases in productivity and employee wellbeing”
How to achieve balance?
So, these work wellbeing principles inform our understanding of what decent, respectable work looks like, and the structures we can utilise to now achieve respectable working environments for ourselves. The COVID-19 pandemic has served to heighten this awareness and has encouraged many workers to recognise that work isn’t actually the most important component of our lives. Whether you work 3, 4, or 5 days a week, having enough work to do (but not too much), which is suitably challenging and meaningful (but not impossible), and allows sufficient time for your important non-work activities (families, relationships, hobbies) is ultimately the key to achieving work wellbeing.
Author
Professor Paula Brough is the Director of the Centre for Work, Organisation & Wellbeing at Griffith University. Paula is formerly Professor of Organisational Psychology at Griffith University. Her research focuses on occupational stress, coping, the psychological health of high-risk workers (e.g., emergency service workers), work-life balance, and the effective measurement of psychological constructs.
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If any further proof were needed that we live in a post-satire society, then look no further than the current international furore over the 15-minute city concept. The utopians and dystopians are both deeply invested, with the war of ideas playing out in media. One side sees 15-minute cities as a sustainability utopia, the other as outrageous authoritarianism and social control.
The basic concept is simple: urban areas are (re)planned to ensure most daily necessities can be accomplished by either walking or cycling within a 15-minute radius. It’s about organising urban neighbourhoods, not entire cities, into semi-independent villages. The concept has been described by some as a return to a local way of life, harking back to a time to the classic neighbourhoods of Paris or London, or the mid-century New York captured in the work of Jane Jacobs. For others, it’s the beginning of de-facto outdoors prisons, where residents are spatially restricted from exercising their rights to social, economic and travel opportunities.
The last few years have seen a rapid cultural diffusion of the idea, with many cities experimenting to various degrees with concept. For example, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority recently released a new master plan that included the goal of ‘20-minute towns’ set within a ‘45-minute city’. Shanghai emphasises the ‘15-minute community life circle’, aimed at allowing residents to complete all their daily activities within 15 minutes on foot. Various cities in the UK, including Oxford, are currently experimenting with the idea. Paris was an early adopter.
“The basic concept is simple: urban areas are (re)planned to ensure most daily necessities can be accomplished by either walking or cycling within a 15-minute radius. It’s about organising urban neighbourhoods, not entire cities, into semi-independent villages.”
Photo: La Rambla, Barcelona, Spain via Wikimedia
Working from home a game changer
The work from home shift brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic led to a drastic change in the way people feel about the necessity to be in the office every day, or even at all. Of course, thinking has changed quickly and often on this topic in very recent times. It now seems that working from home occasionally will be utilised by many employees to reduce commuting a few times a week. Working from home has become a lifestyle choice for many. However, these people do not necessarily need or want to be bound to their neighbourhoods for everything.
Still, the seemingly permanent shift to more working from home in many cities has enhanced the 15-minute city concept in the minds of some planners and policymakers. The big demand for re-thinking local neighbourhood planning has faded a bit from the intense imaginations of 2020/21. Nonetheless the general understanding of the value of good neighbourhoods is more heightened in the public mind now. Seizing the moment, many policymakers and planners have leveraged the 15-minute city concept as a neat solution.
The main dilemma of the 15-minute city concept is something that has long challenged urban planning: translating a compelling theoretical idea into a successful, universally accessible, and desirable spatial reality. Creating functional urban spaces is surprisingly tricky, not least because the realities of human behaviours, perceptions and desires are often at odds with the ideological expectations of planners. What looks good in two dimensions may be a disaster in three.
For a clear example of this, consider the Modernist movement. Inspired by the utopian promises of the architect, Le Corbusier, high-rise social housing towers sprung up across European cities from the mid-twentieth century onwards. The trend spread further than that and can be seen in Australian cities also.
Old wine, new bottle
Promised as thriving neighbourhoods in the sky, most of these developments in European cities were poorly designed, built an integrated with their surrounding cities. Social infrastructure was usually non-existent or very basic. Many soon fell into social dysfunction, disconnection, and despair. Housing the needy using Modernist planning and design principles looked utopian on paper but turned out to be the exact opposite in practice. Despite the clear lessons, many of these developments limp on in increasingly poor repair, perpetuating cycles of social and spatial deprivation.
Looking coldly at the 15-minute cities concept through my professional eyes as an Urban Planner, I would say it’s something of a fad; unwarranted, unworkable, and unnecessary. There’s a smell of old wine from a new bottle.
Cities all over the world have already spent decades, and had variable success, in their efforts to deliver vibrant urban neighbourhoods before now. Urban consolidation, new urbanism, transit-orientated developments are just some of the similar concepts that have gone before. Realising the current 15-minute city vision successfully in spatial realities will require massive behaviour change and public buy-in. None of this is guaranteed, no matter how convinced some planners and policymakers might already be.
Slashing car use and relying on reasonable walking and cycling distances to reach all the services we need is a massive logistical and financial undertaking for governments and councils. It’s probably not even feasible, at least not at scale. Duplication of services would be required at levels far beyond current provision. Market efficiencies would be disrupted, perhaps lost, ensuring that many private service providers won’t go along with it.
“I have yet to read an article proclaiming the benefits of 15-minute cities that deeply considers the impacts on children, people with disabilities, pregnant women, seniors, or any other cohort with limited or reduced mobilities.” Dr Tony Matthews
The right setting is crucial
I have yet to read an article proclaiming the benefits of 15-minute cities that deeply considers the impacts on children, people with disabilities, pregnant women, seniors, or any other cohort with limited or reduced mobilities. I find similar silence in the literature when it comes to accounting for the carriage of goods and people’s belongings. Likewise, any evidence of real consideration of how outdoor climates and exposures might be properly accounted for. It’s easy to design space for young, healthy, and childfree adults, but it’s much more difficult and expensive to design for universal access and inclusion, which are increasingly becoming foundational urban design standards, not add-ons.
A final point – this one raised often by the dystopians – is the concern city authorities will confine residents to their 15-minute neighbourhood, using surveillance technology to minimise the number of times they can leave, and fining them for breaches. Obviously, restricting movement in such a way would be a gross violation of human rights and extends way beyond the brief of a city council. For a 15-minute city project to have hope of success, its primary goal must be to realise the promise, so people genuinely won’t need to leave often. Compliance can only ever be voluntary. Councils should pay close attention to communicating this promise at every opportunity if they are to secure wide public support.
In my view, the success of any 15-minute city project will depend on it happening in right setting, based on extensive consultation with all residents, stakeholders, and user groups, and ultimately backed by clear and transparent governance. It’s a tall order.
My overarching view on 15-minute cities in one sentence: Planning history is filled with two dimensional dreams materialising into three dimensional nightmares, and based on the evidence, I see low potential for 15-minute cities to be any different.
Author
Dr Tony Matthews is an award-winning Urban and Environmental Planner, with portfolios in academia, practice and the media. He is a faculty member at Griffith University, where he is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Environment & Science and the Cities Research Institute.
In addition to a Masters and PhD in Planning, Tony holds the professional designation of Chartered Town Planner, earned through the Royal Town Planning Institute. While primarily based in planning academia and research, Tony maintains an active practice portfolio. He has led and participated in a wide variety of planning and sustainability projects in collaboration with government, the private sector and community organisations. Tony is also an in-demand public speaker and regularly delivers invited keynotes and speeches at academic and industry events.
Three Griffith University research projects have been successful in gaining grants from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
The MRFF seeks to transform health and medical research and innovation to improve lives, build the economy and contribute to health system sustainability.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Professor Lee Smith said the grants will go a long way in improving health outcomes.
“We have some incredible researchers here at Griffith working on ground-breaking solutions to worldwide issues.
“These teams are very passionate about what they do, with Professor Belinda Beck working with osteoporosis patients, Dr Mo Chen working on a biological nerve bridge device for repairing spinal cord injury and Dr Justin Chapman helping those with mental illness.”
Professor Beck of Griffith’s School of Health Sciences and Social Work and Menzies Health Institute Queensland has been offered a $1.4 million Effective Treatments and Therapies grant for her projectSTOP FRACTURE!which stands for Strength Training for Optimum Prevention of Fracture: Refocussing a Clinical Paradigm That Underutilises Recognised Effective Therapy.
Professor Belinda Beck
Her team is addressing the growing problem that osteoporosis presents, dramatically reducing quality of life and leading to loss of independence and an increased risk of an earlier death.
While there are some medications that improve bone mass and reduce risk of osteoporotic fracture, many patients dislike them and prefer lifestyle interventions.
The team has shown high intensity resistance and impact training improves bone and reduces falls that cause fracture, however awareness of the program they’ve developed is quite low.
Professor Beck said one of the biggest challenges they’ve faced is doctors tending to have no faith in exercise as therapy for osteoporosis.
“To make bone adapt, you have to load it heavily, but doctors didn’t want to tell people with osteoporosis to go do heavy lifting because they thought they would break them,” she said.
“We did a series of trials and all of them show this exercise program we have is effective and safe if it’s supervised.
“We’ve been delivering our heavy lifting exercise program for eight years now, and while there is a small group of clinicians who are constantly referring patients to us because they know it works, this grant will be used to build awareness and referral pathways to exercise physiologists instead of simply issuing drug prescriptions, working with GPs and fracture liaison services in hospitals, to improve osteoporosis care.”
The partners for this project include Healthy Bones Australia, Exercise & Sports Science Australia, Western Sydney Local Health District, Gold Coast University Hospital, Royal North Shore Hospital, The Garvan Institute of Medical Research, The University of Adelaide, The Bone Clinic and Lismore Base Hospital.
Dr Justin Chapman
Research Fellow Dr Justin Chapman and his team at the Griffith Research Centre for Mental Health also received an Effective Treatments and Therapies grant of $591,249 for an implementation study trialling the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of exercise for improving quality of life in people with severe mental illness.
The four-year trial will build on substantial community implementation of exercise programs for people with mental health issues that have benefitted over 600 participants since 2016.
Dr Chapman said partnerships with health services and non-government organisations are essential in this translational work, with Communify QLD, Stride, Neami National, Richmond Fellowship Queensland, Metro North Mental Health, Metro South Addictions and Mental Health and Psychosis Australia on board for the project.
The partners for this project are Brisbane North Primary Health Network, PCYC Queensland, Neami National, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia, Communify Qld, Stride and Richmond Fellowship Queensland.
Dr Mo Chen, a Research Fellow at the Menzies Health Institute – The Clem Jones Centre, was awarded an MRFF Early
Dr Mo Chen
to Mid-Career Researchers grant of $761,471 for a biological nerve bridge device (BIOND) for repairing spinal cord injury in humans.
The BIOND is a ground-breaking 3D cellular product for treating spinal cord injury (SCI), completely composed of autologous olfactory ensheathing cells obtained from nasalbiopsies, with no artificial materials.
Dr Chen’s team has already extensively tested the nerve bridge in preclinical SCI animal models and identified further enhancements to improve efficacy that they will test with this funding, with the overall goal of introducing them into their existing clinical trial pipeline.
The project partners are Clem Jones Foundation and Perry Cross Spinal Research Foundation (PCSRF).
A video game featuring a mystical character named Rumble has helped Griffith University researchers investigate how school kids fared following lockdown disruption.
Dr Jacqueline Allen from Griffith’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice headed up the team looking at self-reported wellbeing in a sample of primary school-aged children in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia.
The team used an innovative video game called Rumble’s Quest, developed wholly within Griffith University, which measures the four key facets of wellbeing, as well as three executive functions by allowing children to respond to questions and stimuli in a very natural way.
While it appears to be a simple, fun game, it is in fact a sophisticated and reliable assessment tool specifically tailored to the primary school-age group.
Player’s characters are transported to a mystical land, where they meet friendly villagers and join the curious creature Rumble on a quest to save the village.
Along the way, they respond to a range of questions about social and emotional wellbeing, giving insight into how well they get along with their peers, how things are going at home and how comfortable and engaged they feel at school.
The study was originally just focused on children’s overall wellbeing, however the advent of COVID presented a new assessment window, with one cohort having played the game twice before any disruption, and another playing once before and once after the lockdowns.
Dr Allen said the results showed there was a drop in feelings of family support in the lockdown-affected group, with students suggesting things weren’t quite as good at home post-COVID as they had been before.
Dr Jacqueline Allen
“We did find the change was more pronounced for girls, which could just come down to the fact that some girls tend to be a little better at picking up on stressful family dynamics than boys,” she said.
“We know families were stressed trying to do home schooling and deal with work closing down and maybe losing jobs, so the kids were likely picking up on a degree of family stress happening at the time.”
Perhaps surprisingly, boys tended to fare better than girls upon their return to the school environment.
“We looked at reports of a supportive family environment, such as feeling safe at home, getting along with parents; emotional wellbeing, which includes feelings of worry and anxiety; and behavioural wellbeing, including problematic behaviours like aggression, acting out and getting in trouble at school,” Dr Allen said.
“Boys seemed to have derived some positive benefit from a break from the school environment, particularly if they’d been having problems with peers or their teachers.
“The thing to remember with the gender difference is that overall, girls do tend to fare better than boys in terms of wellbeing, so when we say boys improved a bit, girls are still doing better.”
Sadly, children who had lower family support scores in the first sitting scored even lower following the lockdown, suggesting the experience exacerbated pre-existing problems for those families.
Dr Allen emphasised the results certainly weren’t a bad news story.
“There were lots of ways in which wellbeing really didn’t change all that much and I think that’s testament to how hard schools and families worked to support children during the pandemic,” she said.
“They moved mountains to keep kids engaged and I think that’s showing up in our data and that’s amazing.
“The key takeaway here is, to support children, we need to support families.”
The paper, titled ‘Child well-being before and after the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns in three Australian states’ has been published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues.
Investigating the food environment to increase wellbeing.
Poor diet has been shown to be one of the largest risks to health and which an urgent need for action to improve dietary behaviour. But when it comes to changing eating patterns – are we too focussed on an individual M.O. (modus operandi – or method of operation) and not enough on the M.M.O. (means, motive and opportunity) individuals exercise to eat well?
Everyone needs down time, a way to relax after a busy week. Perhaps a favourite TV show? Something easy to follow? Maybe even with a predictable format or plot line. Mine is investigative or courtroom drama. The predictable plotline? A thief is recognised by their familiar method, or a defendant convicted after it is established that they had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit a crime. Recently, a trailer for one of these programs starting me thinking about the difference between these two plotlines. Particularly how this applies to our thinking about dietary behaviour, and how we go about creating programs to support people to adopt behaviours to better support their health and wellbeing.
Means, motive and opportunity
Many healthy eating programs, campaigns and policy initiatives focus on the individual and ignore other factors. These include education, information, guidelines, and persuasive messaging—which at a population level, have little effect. These strategies effectively ask individuals to become ‘motivated’ and take on a different M.O. Given the complex and challenging food environments we live in, it is not easy to turn this motivation into action.
If we shifted our focus to the M.M.O., we would need to consider whether individuals have the means, motive, and opportunity to make healthy food choices; to establish behavioural habits, practices and patterns that support their wellbeing. Means can be considered as ability or capability; but together with motivation and opportunity all three are considered necessary for behaviour to occur.
“Opportunities to eat healthfully within communities varies greatly across different areas. Studies have shown that types of food stores are different in across these areas, with more takeaway stores known to provide foods high in fat, salt and sugar.”
Where you live may be adding to poor food choices
The food environment has a strong influence on our food choices, particularly for children, adolescents, and those from low socio-economic backgrounds. Opportunities to eat healthfully within communities varies greatly across different areas. Studies have shown that types of food stores are different in across these areas, with more takeaway stores known to provide foods high in fat, salt and sugar. Our work has shown that suburbs classified as more disadvantaged offer less availability of health foods, less information to support healthy eating, and a different pricing structure—healthy alternatives (for example, wholemeal bread) are often premium priced (given a higher price) in comparison to their less healthy equivalents (such as white bread).
Some adults have occupations that prevent them from preparing their own meals everyday (such as shift workers, fly-in fly-out workers, and the military). They spend time working away from home, often for long periods, and are heavily reliant on catered food services, or nearby food outlets—which often do not support healthy eating. Their occupational duties can be demanding and provide only short meal breaks. If they are new in the role, they may be experiencing a time of change and disruption, after moving away from home, and having to adjust to a new work pattern. This can lead to comfort eating which often involves consuming foods that are not considered central to a healthy diet.
Some behaviours that contribute to dietary patterns are subject to automatic or low-level conscious actions. Cues in the physical eating environment and social sphere can trigger hunger, choice of one item over another, and the amount of food eaten. People choose foods that are visually stand out, and that are easy to serve, or eat. This is especially so when people are tired, busy, or distracted.
Deliberate choices
How should we move forward to create positive dietary behaviour change? Working with, and not for people, is crucial. Understanding what people want and need allows for programs to be designed with their involvement, to understand which program elements are most likely to engage them, and which barriers individuals find most frustrating and obstructive. Critical examination of the context in which behaviour occurs is also needed to determine what factors might prompt automatic behaviours, which would indicate how the environment can be shaped to better support healthy behaviour. Understanding how elements interact as a system allows for capacity building partnerships (with experts and stakeholders) to be created to foster system-wide or collective action to change systemic elements that currently make healthy behaviour challenging. Efforts need to move beyond (only) asking individuals to change and extend to those who can progress substantive change to improve food environments.
Are there things we can we do to improve our own dietary behaviour – or that of our family, friends, or wider community? Although it requires some motivation initially, we can make structural changes in our home to help us when our motivation is absent or low. Making healthy options more convenient (for example by keeping them in reach) and making unhealthy items inconvenient (keeping them out of sight, and hard to reach) can increase healthy eating. Similarly, using small portions for unhealthy snacks (a small bowl or packet for a treat), and larger containers for healthy foods (a large bowl to serve a salad) can also increase healthy eating. Studies have shown these small changes are effective. In fact, they are effective when we apply them to healthy foods to increase consumption, but they have an even greater effect when we apply them to unhealthy foods to decrease consumption. These types of approaches have also been effective with children and adolescents.
We might be reliant on others in food service systems to make changes outside our homes, but we are not completely powerless to drive change. Consumers are demanding foods that are healthy, natural and sustainable. As consumer hunger (pardon the pun) for these products grows, the demand shapes supply. We can all use the consumer dollars we have to contribute to driving these changes. Using our consumer voice through advocacy (citizen juries) consumer communications (to government officials, consumer protection agencies or the relevant ombudsman) are considered to be underutilised methods to generate collective pressure on governments and food companies to create a more supportive food environment.
As a society, we need to do things differently. We can no longer continue to ask people to carry the responsibility for their health alone, by asking them to overcome a challenging food environment. We need to ask ourselves, our business leaders and government leaders what we can collectively do to create the means, motivation, and opportunities for people to live their best life.
Author
Dr Julia Carins is an Associate Professor in Social Marketing @ Griffith at Griffith University. Julia has extensively partnered with industry and government to conduct research and develop programs focused on creating supportive environments, fostering collective action towards systemic change, and developing engaging individual behaviour change strategies to increase impact. She is passionate about enabling and empowering people to eat well, which allows them to give their best and live their best.
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The Climate Ready Initiative has strengthened national action towards a low carbon and climate resilient future with the addition of a 10th high-profile partner to its Climate Ready Australia 2030 Alliance of Peaks.
CRA2030 is the flagship project of the Climate Ready Initiative (CRI), which is the practice armof Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon.
CRA2030 brings together partners from across society to develop the shared agenda, investment plan and national capability needed to drive climate action in Australia.
Former Liberal Party leader Dr John Hewson AM is Chair of the Board at BCDSA and also a CRI board member.
Dr Hewson said the aim of the Alliance of Peaks was to identify common priorities for sectors and peak body members, and to use this understanding the underpin the development and advancement of a robust shared agenda for collective climate action.
“Peak bodies working with the Climate Ready Australia 2030 project are forward thinkers who want to prepare their industries for a better future and are committed to working together to achieve it. That aligns with the BCSDA’s mission to accelerate the transition to a sustainable Australian by making sustainable business more successful.”
“BCSDA sharpens the strategic lens of the Alliance. It’s the Australian partner of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD),a community of over 200 of the world’s leading sustainable businesses from all sectors and economies, actively working to accelerate the system transformations needed for a net zero, nature positive, and more equitable future.”
Andrew Petersen, CEO of BCSDA says the organisation is proud to join the Climate Ready Australia 2030 Alliance of Peaks.
“The Alliance is committed to preparing industries for a better future, and as the national peak body representing sustainable businesses, we’re excited to bring our strategic lens and play a productive role. Our participation will significantly expand the reach of CRA2030’s activities, as we represent over 150,000 employees across Australia. We look forward to contributing to the development of a robust shared agenda for collective climate action and collaborating with our fellow partners to drive climate action in Australia.”
BCSDA is the 10th official Alliance of Peaks (AoP) partner, and joins the following organisations:
Australian Institute of Landscape Architects
Australian Youth Affairs Coalition
Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand
EcoTourism Australia
Engineers Australia
Indigenous Carbon Industry Network
Infrastructure Sustainability Council
Planning Institute of Australia
United Nations Association of Australia
CRA2030 provides a unique industry and professional engagement platform for identification and delivery of multiple research projects and partnerships.
CRI has worked with the Alliance of Peaks to finalise the first strategic phase of the Climate Ready Australia 2030 project: developing a Shared Agenda for climate action. This was tabled at the group’s February roundtable event. The Shared Agenda organises climate actions around four themes:
Enabling policy to provide sectors with certainty for investment and climate action.​
Capacity building of public institutions, businesses, organisations, and individuals to help embed and advance climate action.​
Accelerating decarbonisation, by providing clarity on decarbonisation pathways and targets to help drive action and accelerate results. ​
Adaptive resilience: adaptation will help to protect quality of life, bolster resilience, and provide appropriate hazard responses, goods, and services.
With the Shared Agenda now in place, the Alliance of Peaks is scoping its first projects, focused in the areas of climate policy, and the tracking and reporting of emissions.
The CRA2030 project is guided by CRI’s high-profile advisory board chaired by Rosemary Addis, with board members including Dr Hewson, Professor Brendan Mackey, Terri Butler, Tony McAvoy SC, Dr Helen Szoke, Leona Murphy, Sophia Hamblin Wang and Sam Mackay.
Dr Julia Carins