Society, Culture & Health

Using social science theory and methods to understand the social and cultural determinants of health and how society produces the lived experience of health.

domain Department

Department of Health Economics Wellbeing and Society

About

The society, culture and health research group contributes new thinking using social science theory and methods to understand the social and cultural determinants of health and how society produces the lived experience of health. We seek to understand how health is experienced and produced within an ecological public health framework - adopting both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Much of our research incorporates a focus on health inequities - with a focus on inequities generated by gender, age, social roles (e.g. paid and unpaid work), evolving cultural practices, and both economic and non-economic resources (e.g. income, time, social support).

Projects and sub-themes include:

Addressing the Hour-glass Ceiling: New case for action on gender inequality
Work hours and health for construction workers
Work hours, working conditions, work attributes and effects on health
Working longer, working well, and keeping productive
MC2020 Partners Study - new parents’ health following smoke & bushfire events
Social singing to support the wellbeing of migrant and refugee mothers
The Great Disruption: Work, caregiving and health post COVID
Socio-cultural contributors to obesity in Australia and Thailand
The COVID-19 Clinical Response Review
The Relations Study: Women who use drugs and their children within the health and welfare system

Publications

Bennetts, S.K., Hokke, S., Crawford, S., Hackworth, N.J., Leach, L.S. Nguyen, C. Nicholson J.M. & Cooklin, A.R. (accepted 11^th December 2018). Using paid and free Facebook methods to recruit Australian parents to an online work-family survey: An evaluation. Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Brown R. Muller, T & Olsen, A. (2019). Australian women’s cervical cancer screening attendance as a function of screening barriers and facilitators. Social Science & Medicine 220, 396-402.

Alam M, Banwell C, Olsen A & Lokuge K (2019) Patients and doctors perception on utility of Telemedicine service for maternal and child healthcare in Bangladesh: a qualitative exploratory study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth (accepted).

Chun J, Olsen A, Taing MW, Clavarino A, Hollingworth S, Dwyer R, Middleton M & Nielsen S. (2019) How prepared are pharmacists to provide over-the-counter naloxone? The role of previous education and new training opportunities. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (accepted)

Olsen A, Lawton B, Dwyer R, Taing MW, Chun J, Hollingworth S & Nielsen S. (2019) Why aren’t Australian pharmacists supplying naloxone? Findings from a qualitative study. International Journal of Drug Policy (accepted).

Zhao, Y, Richardson, A., Poyser, C., Butterworth, P., Strazdins, L., & Leach, L. (Accepted 10 April 2019). Shift work and mental health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health.

Sarma, H., Gerth-Guyette, E., Shakil, S.A., Alom, K.R., Abu-Haydar, E., D’Rozario, M., Tariqujjaman, M, Arifee, S. E., and Ahmed, T. “Evaluating the use of job aids and user instructions to improve adherence for the treatment of childhood pneumonia using amoxicillin dispersible tablets in a low-income setting: a mixed method study”. BMJ Open 2019;9:e024978. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024978.

Projects

Work and mental health

This project investigates the association between job characteristics (such as job quality and workplace bullying) and mental health and suicidal ideation/behaviours using large, longitudinal community-based datasets such as the HILDA study and PATH project.

Status

Current

People

Associate Professor Liana Leach

Work characteristics, major life events, shocks to health, sleep quality and mental health

This project aims to estimate causal effect of sleep quality/sleep issues on mental health

Status

Current

People

Dr Tinh (Jimmy) Doan

Work, nutrition, sleep, exercise inequality, and health outcomes

This project can look at how employment, time use, inequality (economic, time use) affect health behaviors (sleep, nutrition, exercise) and health outcomes

Status

Current

People

Dr Tinh (Jimmy) Doan

Working Well, Working Wisely

We address five key research questions, joining multiple lines of evidence to reveal the diversity of older workers’ work-health dilemmas and effective ways for national policies to solve them.

Status

Current

People

Dr Dina Bowman (Brotherhood of Saint Laurence)
Professor Peter Butterworth (University of Melbourne)

Mental health modelling - Impact of Covid19 on psychological distress and mental health service use

This project models the impact of Covid 19 on psychological distress and mental health service use in Australia using large scale administrative data such as tax data, MBS, PBS, welfare benefit data, Census, and health and other survey surveys. Both predictive modelling and microsimulation were applied in the analysis.

Status

Completed

People

Dr Tinh (Jimmy) Doan

Social causes and consequences of common mental disorders

Current research in this program focuses on how work and family circumstances (and transitions) intersect with the two most common mental disorders – depression and anxiety.