Gambling and Public Health
Commercial gambling now permeates our society. In Australia, pubs, clubs, newsagents and casinos sell gambling products, and Australians spend (or, it might be said) lose around $18 billion a year, most of it on poker machines (also known as electronic gambling machines, or EGMs). Gambling businesses sponsor elite sports and good causes; state governments reap billions from the proceeds of gambling. But at any one time hundreds of thousands of Australians are directly affected by the consequences of excessive or 'problem' gambling, and many times that number of family members, employers or loved ones are affected by the gambling problems of others with whom they have a connection. The consequences of excessive gambling include physical and mental ill-health, family breakdown, the neglect and abuse of children, financial ruin, crime and associated incarceration, and in some cases self-harm and suicide. These are not trivial, and it is clear that commercial gambling in its current form presents a serious threat to health and wellbeing.
Health Literacy and Health Communication
Health literacy is am emerging issue for research in Australia. At the individual level, health literacy is regarded as service users' ability to understand and to act in their own interest; such that service users have a capacity to obtain, process, and grasp the health information and services they need to make appropriate health decisions. At the systems level, health literacy represents the actions and approaches taken by health care service providers to effectively engage and work with their current and potential service users, as well as the approaches taken to service delivery and design.
Health Promoting Health Services and Health Services Research
The Department of Health Social Science is a member of the WHO Health Promotion Health Service Network.
Health Impact Assessment
Internationally, Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a discipline that is rapidly expanding with considerable interest in its development and practical application worldwide. In more recent years, Australian research and development work has focussed on exploring HIA and its application in policy development has occurred. Monash University has embraced this trend
Women's Health
When studied from a gender equity perspective, women's health is vulnerable to a range of social determinants of he alth. Gender is a system of social relations that are embedded with values and norms at all levels of society. Women in Australia still experience negative stereotypes, subordinate status, lower incomes and a relative lack of power and influence whether in political arenas, workplaces or within familes. Gender is embodied in inequities in health and these differences are largely socially determined. Women carry the major responsibilities for families and the burdens associated with caring. The impacts related to hospital and health system reforms are mostly on women. The health costs of violence against women are higher than any other risk factors including high blood pressure, obesity and smoking. These are issues for women not just in Australia, but globally.
