Browsing by Author "Hawe, Penelope"

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    30+ years of media analysis of relevance to chronic disease: a scoping review
    (2020-03-20) Rowbotham, Samantha; Astell-Burt, Thomas; Barakat, Tala; Hawe, Penelope
    Abstract Background Chronic, non-communicable diseases are a significant public health priority, requiring action at individual, community and population levels, and public and political will for such action. Exposure to media, including news, entertainment, and advertising media, is likely to influence both individual behaviours, and attitudes towards preventive actions at the population level. In recent years there has been a proliferation of research exploring how chronic diseases and their risk factors are portrayed across various forms of media. This scoping review aims to map the literature in this area to identify key themes, gaps, and opportunities for future research in this area. Methods We searched three databases (Medline, PsycINFO and Global Health) in July 2016 and identified 499 original research articles meeting inclusion criteria: original research article, published in English, focusing on media representations of chronic disease (including how issues are framed in media, impact or effect of media representations, and factors that influence media representations). We extracted key data from included articles and examined the health topics, media channels and methods of included studies, and synthesised key themes across studies. Results Our findings show that research on media portrayals of chronic disease increased substantially between 1985 and 2016. Smoking and nutrition were the most frequent health topics, and television and print were the most common forms of media examined, although, as expected, research on online and social media channels has increased in recent years. The majority of studies focused on the amount and type of media coverage, including how issues are framed, typically using content analysis approaches. In comparison, there was much less research on the influences on and consequences of media coverage related to chronic disease, suggesting an important direction for future work. Conclusions The results highlight key themes across media research of relevance to chronic disease. More in-depth syntheses of studies within the identified themes will allow us to draw out the key patterns and learnings across the literature.
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    Anticipating the potential for positive uptake and adaptation in the implementation of a publicly funded online STBBI testing service: a qualitative analysis
    (2018-01-30) Chabot, Cathy; Gilbert, Mark; Haag, Devon; Ogilvie, Gina; Hawe, Penelope; Bungay, Vicky; Shoveller, Jean A
    Abstract Background Online health services are a rapidly growing aspect of public health provision, including testing for sexually transmitted and other blood-borne infections (STBBI). Generally, healthcare providers, policymakers, and clients imbue online approaches with great positive potential (e.g., encouraging clients’ agency; providing cost-effective services to more clients). However, the promise of online health services may vary across contexts and be perceived in negative or ambiguous ways (e.g., risks to ‘gold standard’ care provision; loss of provider control over an intervention; uncertainty related to budget implications). This study examines attitudes and perceptions regarding the development of a novel online STBBI testing service in Vancouver, Canada. We examine the perceptions about the intervention’s potential by interviewing practitioners and planners who were engaged in the development and initial implementation of this testing service. Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with 37 healthcare providers, administrators, policymakers, and community-based service providers engaged in the design and launch of the new online STBBI testing service. We also conducted observations during planning and implementation meetings for the new service. Thematic analysis techniques were employed to identify codes and broader discursive themes across the interview transcripts and observation notes. Results Some study participants expressed concern that the potential popularity of the new testing service might increase demand on existing sexual health services or become fiscally unsustainable. However, most participants regarded the new service as having the potential to improve STBBI testing in several ways, including reducing waiting times, enhancing privacy and confidentiality, appealing to more tech-savvy sub-populations, optimizing the redistribution of demands on face-to-face service provision, and providing patient-centred technology to empower clients to seek testing. Conclusions Participants perceived this online STBBI testing service to have the potential to improve sexual health care provision. But, they also anticipated actions-and-reactions, revealing a need to monitor ongoing implementation dynamics. They also identified the larger, potentially system-transforming dimension of the new technology, which enables new system drivers (consumers) and reduces the amount of control health care providers have over online STBBI testing compared to conventional in-person testing.
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    Applying systems thinking to knowledge mobilisation in public health
    (2020-11-17) Haynes, Abby; Rychetnik, Lucie; Finegood, Diane; Irving, Michelle; Freebairn, Louise; Hawe, Penelope
    Abstract Context Knowledge mobilisation (KM) is a vital strategy in efforts to improve public health policy and practice. Linear models describing knowledge transfer and translation have moved towards multi-directional and complexity-attuned approaches where knowledge is produced and becomes meaningful through social processes. There are calls for systems approaches to KM but little guidance on how this can be operationalised. This paper describes the contribution that systems thinking can make to KM and provides guidance about how to put it into action. Methods We apply a model of systems thinking (which focuses on leveraging change in complex systems) to eight KM practices empirically identified by others. We describe how these models interact and draw out some key learnings for applying systems thinking practically to KM in public health policy and practice. Examples of empirical studies, tools and targeted strategies are provided. Findings Systems thinking can enhance and fundamentally transform KM. It upholds a pluralistic view of knowledge as informed by multiple parts of the system and reconstituted through use. Mobilisation is conceived as a situated, non-prescriptive and potentially destabilising practice, no longer conceptualised as a discrete piece of work within wider efforts to strengthen public health but as integral to and in continual dialogue with those efforts. A systems approach to KM relies on contextual understanding, collaborative practices, addressing power imbalances and adaptive learning that responds to changing interactions between mobilisation activities and context. Conclusion Systems thinking offers valuable perspectives, tools and strategies to better understand complex problems in their settings and for strengthening KM practice. We make four suggestions for further developing empirical evidence and debate about how systems thinking can enhance our capacity to mobilise knowledge for solving complex problems – (1) be specific about what is meant by ‘systems thinking’, (2) describe counterfactual KM scenarios so the added value of systems thinking is clearer, (3) widen conceptualisations of impact when evaluating KM, and (4) use methods that can track how and where knowledge is mobilised in complex systems.
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    Associations between Aspects of Friendship Networks, Physical Activity, and Sedentary Behaviour among Adolescents
    (2014-09-24) Sawka, Keri Jo; McCormack, Gavin R.; Nettel-Aguirre, Alberto; Blackstaffe, Anita; Perry, Rosemary; Hawe, Penelope
    Background. Adolescent friendships have been linked to physical activity levels; however, network characteristics have not been broadly examined. Method. In a cross-sectional analysis of 1061 adolescents (11–15 years), achieving 60 minutes/day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and participating in over 2 hours/day of sedentary behaviour were determined based on friendship network characteristics (density; proportion of active/sedentary friends; betweenness centrality; popularity; clique membership) and perceived social support. Results. Adolescents with no friendship nominations participated in less MVPA. For boys and girls, a ten percent point increase in active friends was positively associated with achievement of 60 minutes/day of MVPA (OR 1.11; 95% CI 1.02–1.21, OR 1.14; 95% CI 1.02–1.27, resp.). For boys, higher social support from friends was negatively associated with achieving 60 minutes/day of MVPA (OR 0.63; 95% CI 0.42–0.96). Compared with low density networks, boys in higher density networks were more likely to participate in over 2 hours/day of sedentary behaviour (OR 2.93; 95% CI 1.32–6.49). Social support from friends also modified associations between network characteristics and MVPA and sedentary behaviour. Conclusion. Different network characteristics appeared to have different consequences. The proportion of active close friends was associated with MVPA, while network density was associated with sedentary behaviour. This poses challenges for intervention design.
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    Friendship networks and physical activity and sedentary behavior among youth: a systematized review
    (BioMed Central, 2013-12-01) Sawka, Keri Jo; McCormack, Gavin R.; Nettel-Aguirre, Alberto; Hawe, Penelope; Doyle-Baker, Patricia K.
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    Safety on a Shrinking Margin: Manual Fallers, Uncertainty and Culture in the Southeastern B.C. Logging Industry
    (2014-05-05) Patterson, Patrick Brooke; Hatt, Doyle G.; Hawe, Penelope
    In recent decades the rates of serious injuries and fatalities in the British Columbia logging industry have consistently remained higher than those in other dangerous workplaces, such as petroleum exploration and heavy construction, despite the implementation of technological improvements and safety awareness programs. Within the logging industry, manual tree fallers — workers who use chain-saws to fell trees — are the occupational category at greatest risk. Government inquests have suggested that the absence of a strong “safety culture” in the logging industry is a contributing factor in accident rates, but the inquests do not explain where the existing culture came from or how it might be changed. This dissertation presents an ethnographic study of manual tree fallers in the East Kootenay/Columbia region of British Columbia, focussed on the nature of their occupational culture and how it is perpetuated within their physical and social environment. The ensuing analysis draws on several areas of anthropological and social theory but throughout this thesis the emphasis is on the ethnographic material and on the perspectives of manual fallers and their colleagues. The ethnographic chapters focus on the organizational cultures of logging crews, the common experiences manual fallers have during their work tasks, as well as the economic and regulatory systems the industry operates within. This thesis argues that the occupational culture of manual fallers and the culture in the wider logging industry emerge mainly in response to continuous exposure to physical and financial uncertainty. Logging contractors and their employees, particularly manual fallers, assume that they cannot control important parts of their work and therefore their practices revolve around the trading off of alternative risks and an occupational tendency to keep several options available so that they can reduce the damage from hazardous events. In contrast, forest product companies and government agencies focus on control and respond to high accident rates by placing greater constraints on logging operations. However, by doing this, they reinforce loggers’ sense of uncertainty. The thesis concludes by discussing intervention strategies and suggesting how more effective workplace safety interventions might be achieved through partnerships between government agencies, forest product companies, and local loggers.
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    Small area contextual effects on selfreported health: Evidence from Riverside, Calgary
    (BioMed Central, 2010-05-20) Godley, Jenny; Haines, Valerie A.; Hawe, Penelope; Shiell, Alan
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    Using Social Network Analysis to Identify Key Child Care Center Staff for Obesity Prevention Interventions: A Pilot Study
    (2013-08-05) Marks, Jennifer; Barnett, Lisa M.; Foulkes, Chad; Hawe, Penelope; Allender, Steven
    Introduction. Interest has grown in how systems thinking could be used in obesity prevention. Relationships between key actors, represented by social networks, are an important focus for considering intervention in systems. Method. Two long day care centers were selected in which previous obesity prevention programs had been implemented. Measures showed ways in which physical activity and dietary policy are conversations and actions transacted through social networks (interrelationships) within centers, via an eight item closed-ended social network questionnaire. Questionnaire data were collected from (17/20; response rate 85%) long day care center staff. Social network density and centrality statistics were calculated, using UCINET social network software, to examine the role of networks in obesity prevention. Results. “Degree” (influence) and “betweeness” (gatekeeper) centrality measures of staff inter-relationships about physical activity, dietary, and policy information identified key players in each center. Network density was similar and high on some relationship networks in both centers but markedly different in others, suggesting that the network tool identified unique center social dynamics. These differences could potentially be the focus of future team capacity building. Conclusion. Social network analysis is a feasible and useful method to identify existing obesity prevention networks and key personnel in long day care centers.