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Editorial
Fran Collyer
Department of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Sydney, NSW
Article Text
I would like to open this editorial with the introduction of two new members of our editorial team. Dr Simon Kitto comes to us as a Senior Lecturer from the Monash University Department of Rural and Indigenous Health, in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. Simon's research interests are focussed in the areas of the sociology of surgery and evidence-based medicine, alternative and complementary therapies, and the use of information technology in medical and health sciences education. Dr Pauline Savy teaches sociology at the Albury-Wodonga Campus of La Trobe University in Victoria. Her interests include the problem of self-identity and experience in dementing illnesses, the special methodological challenges for researching individuals unable to speak, or speak coherently about their problems, and the particular housing needs of this social group. Readers may remember Pauline as the guest-editor of our 2005 special issue, Closing Asylums for the Mentally Ill: Social Consequences. Simon and Pauline are a very welcome addition to our existing editorial team, which currently comprises myself (from the University of Sydney), Jane Edwards and Peter Gale (from the University of South Australia), and Dorothy Broom (from the Australian National University).
This edition of Health Sociology Review should contain much of interest for policy makers, practitioners, students, researchers, academics and scholars of the health care system. Topics include the puzzling phenomena of the rising popularity of complementary and alternative modes of healing; the problematic concept of social capital; unpaid care work; and community health interventions in Aboriginal communities. This diversity of subject matter is brought to us from scholars across the globe, from countries such as Argentina, Barbados, Australia, Scotland, the United States of America, and Israel.
Several of our articles are particularly timely in the Australian context. During 2007, in response to a looming election and a report outlining the extent of child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory; the Commonwealth government, led by the conservative Prime Minister of the Liberal Party, John Howard, launched a new policy initiative involving the deployment of the Australian Army. Two articles in this edition specifically address the health-related problems commonly found in Indigenous communities. One is by Campbell, Pyett and McArthy, and the other by Senior and Chenhall. Neither provide much hope for the besieged Liberal party, as both use historical evidence to suggest a more co-operative, collaborative, community approach would have a greater chance of success in improving the health of Indigenous Australians.
Other articles in this edition address the unequal health outcomes for various groups in the community. For instance De Maio examines the health inequalities arising in Argentina; while Airey, McKie and Backett-Milburn look to the health outcomes for women with the double work-load of caring for elderly parents while employed in retail outlets in Scotland. Green focuses on another socially disadvantaged group: people with disabilities. Her study analyses the perceptions of university students, investigating the connection between health, social stigma and disability in a South Florida university.
Two of the articles turn their focus to the problems of health care systems. Xanthos examines the attitudes of doctors toward their patients, finding a continuing prevalence of paternalism among hospital doctors in Barbados. Collyer's article tackles the pressing (and almost universal) problem of shortages of health and medical workers. Based on a large qualitative study of Australian workers in senior positions within the health care system (primarily surgeons, pathologists, radiologists, pharmacists, hospital administrators and managers); Collyer argues that the participants' analysis of the ‘problem' and its ‘solution' should be taken seriously, given that this is based on years of experience and an ‘insider's view' of the system. Participants in the sector challenge the adequacy of current neo-liberal policies which fail to understand the nature of the health system, and seek to eliminate shortages by increasing the number of graduates or shifting government funding toward the private sector. The alternative, proposed by the participants, is to ‘fix the broken spirit of medicine' by re-building its social and cultural infrastructure, and take a ‘whole of government' approach to policy making. The article is, like those on Indigenous health, somewhat timely, given another policy announcement by the Howard government to ‘fix' nursing shortages by removing nursing education from the public universities and to pay private companies to train new nurses. If the participants of this study were to be given the opportunity to comment on this initiative, they may well ask, ‘and where will we find the trainers for these student nurses? Won't this program merely further deplete the skilled nursing workforce in the public sector hospitals and universities? Why is this government so determined to destroy the university and public hospital systems upon which medicine depends?'
A rather different perspective is taken by two of the other articles in this edition. The paper by Edwards and Cheers takes the case of same-sex-attracted women in a rural community, to pose the question of whether social capital is necessarily positive for all members of a population. The article offers a rather provocative challenge to the concept of social capital, and suggests the need for future scholars to be much more cautious in its use. Coulter and Willis take up the issue of the growing popularity of complementary and alternative medicine, and suggest this might be a feature of postmodernism and the legitimating role of the social sciences.
The article by Rier completes the edition. Rier investigates the role of the internet in regulating, or at least influencing, health behaviours. While much of the existing literature assumes the internet to be an arena largely divorced from moral norms, Rier's analysis of support group ‘chat', challenges this view, showing the possibility of the internet as an agent of social change.
The final part of this issue is packed with reviews of books for academics, students, researchers, policy workers and practitioners. If you are looking for something to read at the weekend, it is well-worth perusing our suggestions.
As always, I wish to conclude this editorial by expressing appreciation for the hard work of our editorial team, the valuable contributions from the authors, reviewers, editorial board, and subscribers, and the ongoing support from our publisher, the editors' various universities, and The Australian Sociological Association. Without the help of these many individuals and organisations, this issue would not, and could not, have been produced. Thank you.
Fran Collyer
Editor-in-Chief
Health Sociology Review
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