Paul R Ward
Biographic Data
| ID | 260256 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul R Ward |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul R |
| FAMILY NAME | Ward |
| SIGNATURE | WARD P R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Research Centre for Public Health, Equity and Human Flourishing Torrens University Adelaide Australia |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 55 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 158 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Mechanisms for advancing universal health coverage in Kenya
Background Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a cornerstone of Sustainable Development Goal 3, yet its implementation in Africa shows mixed results. This study explores mechanisms driving UHC progress in Kenya. Method Realist interviews were conducted with 44 key informants across Kenya's health ecosystem, including government officials, private sector representatives, insurance agency members, and community and faith-based organizations. The stu…
The Accordion Process
Evidence supports the value of co-designing health policy through meaningful engagement with communities, ensuring their priorities are central to the process. However, there has been limited guidance for ‘how to’ authentically engage community members to create ideas for health policy guided by equity. This paper outlines a clear, actionable process for co-designing health policy that ‘accords’ with lay priorities - the Accordion Process. Using …
Development and validation of the S-TIMHSS
Introduction: Public acceptance of health messaging, recommendations, and policy is heavily dependent on the public's trust in doctors, health systems and health policy. Any erosion of public trust in these domains is thus a concern for public health as it can no longer be assumed that the public will follow official health recommendations. In response, the health policy and health services communities have emphasized a commitment to (re)building…
From past to present
At the 58th World Health Assembly in 2005, the international community charted a course for universal health coverage (UHC), aiming to ensure access to health care for all in need, of sufficient quality, and without causing financial hardship. At the time, barriers to accessing health care were overwhelming, particularly in low-and middle-income countries like Africa. Currently, 50 of Africa’s 54 countries are in various phases of UHC implementat…
‘Moderation Is the Holy Grail’
Factors influencing the adoption of Universal Health Coverage in Africa
Becoming a 'Bricoleur' - Using a Holistic Bricolage Approach to Explore Breast Cancer Candidacy
Bricolage is a 'critical, multi-perspective, multi-modal and multi-theoretical' (Rogers, 2012, p.1) research approach to exploring complex phenomena. Levi-Strauss (1966) suggests it requires the researcher ('bricoleur') to use creativity and 'wild thinking.' The approach develops a repertoire of skills and knowledge that enable bespoke, fit-for-purpose data collection, analysis, and theorisation; combining these to innovate understandings of comp…
Understanding Social Practices Within Public Health Research
Social practice theory offers valuable insights for public health research, particularly in understanding how health inequalities are sustained through everyday practices. A recent increase in social practice theory scholarship has focused on the development of flexible methodologies which allow for empirical investigations of social practices. This paper introduces a flexible, practice-based approach designed to address methodological challenges…
Gendered pleasures, risks and policies
Drinking alcohol facilitates pleasure for women while also elevating disease risk. Symbolic expectations of what alcohol 'does in' life per lay insight (relax, identity-work, connect) sit in tension with scientific realities about what alcohol 'does to' women's bodies (elevate chronic disease risks such as breast cancer). Policy must work amidst - and despite - these paradoxes to reduce harm(s) to women by attending to the gendered and emergent c…
The Emerald Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions for a Post-Pandemic World
The Emerald Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions for a Post-Pandemic World offers a sociological examination of the lived impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through culture(s) of emotion, offering a refreshing contribution to a new and exciting sub-discipline.
Newcomer perceptions of Covid-19 countermeasures in Canada
Newcomers to Canada have been disproportionally affected by COVID-19, with higher rates of infection and severity of illness. Determinants of higher rates may relate to social and structural inequities that impact newcomers’ capacity to follow countermeasures. Our aim was to describe and document factors shaping newcomers’ acceptance of COVID-19 countermeasures. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with individuals living in Cana…
Using social practice theory to examine parenting
Practice theory-based research has been established theoretically as an answer to health and social problems, but its use in empirical research is still emerging. We conducted a scoping review in accordance with JBI guidelines for evidence synthesis to identify methodological characteristics of practice theory-based research concerning parenting. A total of 2681 abstracts were identified, with 214 retained for full text screening. A total of 33 a…
How do you measure trust in social institutions and health professionals? A systematic review of the literature (2012–2021)
The importance of measuring trust in health systems has been accentuated due to its correlation with important health outcomes aimed at reducing COVID‐19 transmission. A systematic review published almost a decade ago identified gaps in measures including the lack of focus on trust in systems, inconsistency regarding the dimensionality of trust and need for research to strengthen the validity of measures. Given developments in our understandings …
Development and validation of the Trust in Government measure (TGM)
This measure can be used within high-income countries, particularly member countries within the OECD already in support of using tools to collect, publish and compare statistics. Our measure should be used by researchers and policy makers to measure trust in government as a key indicator of societal and public health
Through the wine glass
‘I have a healthy relationship with alcohol’
Alcohol consumption by Australian women during midlife has been increasing. Health promotion efforts to reduce alcohol consumption in order to reduce alcohol-related disease risk compete with the social contexts and value of alcohol in women’s lives. This paper draws on 50 qualitative interviews with midlife women (45–64 years of age) from different social classes living in South Australia in order to gain an understanding of how and why women mi…
Assessment of Covid-19 vaccination refusal among healthcare workers in Ethiopia
Background: Even though the emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine and the increasing vaccination rates are promising, there are reports of refusal to get vaccinated in a different segment of the population, including health care workers. Objective: This study determines the acceptance/refusal of the COVID-19 vaccination and its predictors among health care workers in Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted…
Prevalence and Factors Associated With Suicidal Ideation Among Adult Eritrean Refugees in Northern Ethiopia
Background The present study assessed the prevalence of and factor associated with suicidal ideations among adult Eritrean refugees in Tigray, Ethiopia. Methods A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 400 adult refugees living in the Mai-Aini refugee camp in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia from September 2019 to May 2020. The response variable was suicidal ideation and was measured using World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative…
Testing delay in an environment of low Covid-19 prevalence
South Australia has to date (October 2021) been highly successful in maintaining an aggressive suppression strategy for the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, continued success of this strategy is dependent on ongoing testing by people with symptoms of COVID-19 to identify, trace and quarantine emergent cases as soon as possible. This study sought to explore community members’ decisions about having COVID-19 testing in an environment o…
Adaptive capacity
This article explores adaptive capacity as a framework for understanding how South Australian women in midlife (aged 45–64) demonstrated resilience during the early phases of COVID-19. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 40 women mid-2020 as a follow-up study to interviews with the same women undertaken 2018–19 (before COVID-19 emerged). Transcripts were analysed following a critical realist approach using Grothmann and Patt's construct of a…
Mental Health of Physicians During Covid-19 Outbreak in Bangladesh
There have been numerous studies about the health implication of COVID-19 on patients, but little attention has been paid to the impacts of the pandemic on physicians. Our paper attends to this gap by exploring the mental health of physicians in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is particularly important since the mental health of physicians impacts not only on themselves, but also their professional performance and hence the care of …
Covid-19, Alcohol Consumption and Stockpiling Practises in Midlife Women
Introduction: This project examined the impact of COVID-19 and associated restrictions on alcohol practises (consumption and stockpiling), and perceptions of health risk among women in midlife (those aged 45–64 years). Methods: We collected online survey data from 2,437 midlife women in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia in May 2020, recruited using a commercial panel, in the early days of mandated COVID-19 related restrictions in both countri…
Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Concerning Covid-19 in Bangladesh
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has posed a serious risk with pre-existing health conditions. This study was conducted to understand the knowledge, attitude, and practices concerning COVID-19 among patients with chronic illnesses in Bangladesh during the pandemic. The study was conducted in Khulna city of Bangladesh following a qualitative research design. We employed telephone interviews to collect data from 40 participants with four co…
Alcohol Consumption and Perceptions of Health Risks During Covid-19
Australian women's alcohol consumption has increased in frequency during COVID-19. Research suggests this is to cope with stress resulting from the pandemic and COVID-19 countermeasures that require social distancing. This is a critical public health concern because increased alcohol consumption, even for a short period, increases the myriad longer-term health risks associated with cumulative exposure to alcohol. This paper provides unique qualit…
How Australian Health Care Services Adapted to Telehealth During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Background: In Australia, telehealth services were used as an alternative method of health care delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a realist analysis of a survey of health professionals, we have sought to identify the underlying mechanisms that have assisted Australian health services adapt to the physical separation between clinicians and patients. Methods: Using a critical realist ontology and epistemology, we undertook an online su…
Short horizons and obesity futures
Do-it-yourself
How the Media Places Responsibility for the Covid-19 Pandemic—An Australian Media Analysis
Global pandemics are likely to increase in frequency and severity, and media communication of key messages represents an important mediator of the behavior of individuals in response to public health countermeasures. Where the media places responsibility during a pandemic is therefore important to study as blame is commonly used as a tool to influence public behavior but can also lead to the subjective persecution of groups. The aim of this paper…
Differentiating between trust and dependence of patients with coronary heart disease
Sociological health research on the concept of trust has been bedevilled by its multivocalities. This article extends Luhmann's attempts to clarify a sociology of trust. Luhmann argued a semantic distinction between trust and confidence. In this article, we use empirical data on patient 'trust' in doctors to argue that there is also a semantic distinction between trust and dependence. We conducted 37 semi-structured interviews with patients with …
The Dependent Consumer
Although academic writing about risk as a conceptual and theoretical category has burgeoned in recent years, debates about the characteristics of the risk society have tended to by-pass more mundane but ubiquitous dimensions of health and health-related behaviour. In this article, we argue that focusing on lay people's understanding of the risks of a relatively commonplace example of modern medical technology (the use of non-prescription medicine…
A sociology of the Covid-19 pandemic
During the early part of 2020, there has been an abundance of critically important research on Covid-19 from medical, epidemiological and virological disciplines. There is now an urgent need for sociologists to engage theoretically and empirically on the social impact of issues related to Covid-19. As we have moved further into 2020, governments around the world have imposed different types of restrictions on social life, in order to quell the sp…
Critical perspectives on 'consumer involvement' in health research
Researchers in the area of health and social care (both in Australia and internationally) are encouraged to involve consumers throughout the research process, often on ethical, political and methodological grounds, or simply as 'good practice'. This article presents findings from a qualitative study in the UK of researchers' experiences and views of consumer involvement in health research. Two main themes are presented. First, we explore the 'kno…
Alcohol and Flourishing for Australian Women in Midlife
This article responds to calls for empirically grounded and critically analytical research on the sociology of happiness. We explore how 35 Australian women in midlife (45-64 years) navigate alcohol use in the context of gendered lifecourses. In response to emerging themes around happiness in and through alcohol consumption during inductive analysis, data were re-analysed using neo-Aristotlean notions of flourishing. This illuminated alcohol cons…
How do South Australian consumers negotiate and respond to information in the media about food and nutrition
The amount of information in the media about food and nutrition is increasing. As part of the risk society, consumers have a moral imperative to synthesize this information in order to manage their diet. This article explores how media information about food affects how consumers place trust in the food system and strategies adopted to manage conflicting nutritional information. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with 47 shoppers drawn from h…
If your child's vaccinated, why do you care about mine?' Rhetoric, responsibility, power and vaccine rejection
The social responsibility logic underpinning vaccination is omnipresent in the rhetoric surrounding its acceptance and rejection. People who reject vaccination are constantly faced with arguments from the vaccinating mainstream to which they must respond. Understanding the conceptual world of vaccine rejection requires us to understand how vaccine sceptics construct answers to complaints that their choices endanger other people. This article anal…
Media actors’ perceptions of their roles in reporting food incidents
Understanding Social Practices Within Public Health Research
Social practice theory offers valuable insights for public health research, particularly in understanding how health inequalities are sustained through everyday practices. A recent increase in social practice theory scholarship has focused on the development of flexible methodologies which allow for empirical investigations of social practices. This paper introduces a flexible, practice-based approach designed to address methodological challenges…
Student Perspectives on the Reasons for Physical Violence in a Thai Vocational College
Physical violence in Bangkok schools has been the subject of considerable public concern in recent years and yet relatively little is known about the nature of violence perpetrated by vocational college students. This study sought to understand the reasons for such violence through a series of semi-structured interviews with 32 male students. The analysis identified revenge from previous fights as a key motivation for violence. Students described…
The Dependent Consumer
Although academic writing about risk as a conceptual and theoretical category has burgeoned in recent years, debates about the characteristics of the risk society have tended to by-pass more mundane but ubiquitous dimensions of health and health-related behaviour. In this article, we argue that focusing on lay people's understanding of the risks of a relatively commonplace example of modern medical technology (the use of non-prescription medicine…
Health researchers’ attitudes towards public involvement in health research
Objective To investigate health researchers’ attitudes to involving the public in research. Background Public involvement in research is encouraged by the Department of Health in the UK. Despite this, the number of health researchers actively involving the public in research appears to be limited. There is little research specifically addressing the attitudes of health researchers towards involving the public: how they interpret the policy, what …
Critical perspectives on 'consumer involvement' in health research
Researchers in the area of health and social care (both in Australia and internationally) are encouraged to involve consumers throughout the research process, often on ethical, political and methodological grounds, or simply as 'good practice'. This article presents findings from a qualitative study in the UK of researchers' experiences and views of consumer involvement in health research. Two main themes are presented. First, we explore the 'kno…
Complex problems require complex solutions
Applying social quality theory allows researchers and policy makers to measure and respond to the multiple sources of oppression and advantage experienced by certain population groups, and to monitor the effectiveness of interventions over time
Form and semantics of communication in dental encounters
The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it introduces a new method for capturing the intricacy of communication in contemporary healthcare encounters. The method, termed ‘form analysis’, was developed from the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. It is hoped that the paper will introduce form analysis as a new method to help understand complex communications in health systems. Second, the paper demonstrates an application of form analysis in …
Fruit and vegetable consumption – the influence of aspects associated with trust in food and safety and quality of food
Objective To profile adults who eat less than the recommended servings of fruit and vegetables per day. Design Australia-wide population telephone survey on a random sample of the Australian population, with results analysed by univariate and multivariate models. Setting Australia. Subjects One thousand one hundred and eight interviews, respondents’ (49·3 % males) mean age was 45·12 ( sd 17·63) years. Results Overall 54·8 % and 10·7 % were eating…
How do South Australian consumers negotiate and respond to information in the media about food and nutrition
The amount of information in the media about food and nutrition is increasing. As part of the risk society, consumers have a moral imperative to synthesize this information in order to manage their diet. This article explores how media information about food affects how consumers place trust in the food system and strategies adopted to manage conflicting nutritional information. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with 47 shoppers drawn from h…
The impact of education programs on smoking prevention
Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Register, ACTRN12612001070820
Differentiating between trust and dependence of patients with coronary heart disease
Sociological health research on the concept of trust has been bedevilled by its multivocalities. This article extends Luhmann's attempts to clarify a sociology of trust. Luhmann argued a semantic distinction between trust and confidence. In this article, we use empirical data on patient 'trust' in doctors to argue that there is also a semantic distinction between trust and dependence. We conducted 37 semi-structured interviews with patients with …
The role of the media in construction and presentation of food risks
In this article we examine how and why the media construct food risks, from the perspective of ‘media actors’ (people involved in different types of media) using data from 30 interviews conducted in 2013 with media actors from Australia and the United Kingdom. In modern society, many risks are invisible and are brought to the attention of the public through representations in the mass media. This is particularly relevant for food safety, where th…
Newcomers in a hazardous environment
Public health and social welfare interventions and programmes need to build social networks, social support and solidarity within FSW communities, and provide health education and HIV prevention resources much earlier in women's sex work careers
Media actors’ perceptions of their roles in reporting food incidents
Institutional (mis)trust in colorectal cancer screening
INTRODUCTION: Colorectal cancer (CRC) has the second highest cancer mortality rate in Australia. The Australian National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) aims to increase early detection of CRC by offering free Faecal Occult Blood Testing (FOBT), although uptake is low for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups. AIM OF PAPER: To present data on trust and mistrust in the NBCSP by population groups with low uptake and thus to hig…
Six-months follow-up of a cluster randomized trial of school-based smoking prevention education programs in Aceh, Indonesia
Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry, ACTRN12612001070820
Short horizons and obesity futures
Student Perspectives on the Reasons for Physical Violence in a Thai Vocational College
Physical violence in Bangkok schools has been the subject of considerable public concern in recent years and yet relatively little is known about the nature of violence perpetrated by vocational college students. This study sought to understand the reasons for such violence through a series of semi-structured interviews with 32 male students. The analysis identified revenge from previous fights as a key motivation for violence. Students described…
Obtaining consumer perspectives using a citizens’ jury
Consumers in this study engaged with the topical issue of CoOL and provided their opinions. Overall, consumers do not think that the current CoOL system in Australia enables consumers to make informed choices. Recommendations for changes, including increasing the size of the label and the label's font, and standardising its position, were made
A model for (re)building consumer trust in the food system
The article presents a best practice model that can be utilized by food system actors to assist with (re)building trust in the food system, before, during and after a food incident defined as 'any situation within the food supply chain where there is a risk or potential risk of illness or confirmed illness or injury associated with the consumption of a food or foods' (Commonwealth of Australia. National Food Incident Response Protocol. Commonweal…
Challenges to evidence-based health promotion
Developing the evidence base for health promotion can be challenging because interventions often have to target competing determinants of health, including social, structural, environmental and political determinants; all of which are difficult to measure and thus evaluate. Drawing on a case study of food insecurity, which refers to inadequate access to food due to financial constraints, we illustrate the challenges faced by community-based organ…
Do-it-yourself
Food literacy programmes in secondary schools
Objective: The current review aimed to synthesise the literature on food literacy interventions among adolescents in secondary schools, the attitudes and perceptions of food literacy interventions in secondary schools, and their effects on dietary outcomes. Design: The systematic review searched five electronic databases from the earliest record to present. Setting: The studies selected for the review were from sixteen countries: Australia ( n 10…
Developing and Maintaining Public Trust During and Post-Covid-19
Trust in public health officials and the information they provide is essential for the public uptake of preventative strategies to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. This paper discusses how a model for developing and maintaining trust in public health officials during food safety incidents and scandals might be applied to pandemic management. The model identifies ten strategies to be considered, including: transparency; development of protocol…
Expectations and everyday opportunities for building trust in the food system
Purpose Consumers’ trust in food systems is essential to their functioning and to consumers’ well-being. However, the literature exploring how food safety incidents impact consumer trust is theoretically underdeveloped. This study explores the relationship between consumers’ expectations of the food system and its actors (regulators, food industry and the media) and how these influence trust-related judgements that consumers make during a food sa…
A sociology of the Covid-19 pandemic
During the early part of 2020, there has been an abundance of critically important research on Covid-19 from medical, epidemiological and virological disciplines. There is now an urgent need for sociologists to engage theoretically and empirically on the social impact of issues related to Covid-19. As we have moved further into 2020, governments around the world have imposed different types of restrictions on social life, in order to quell the sp…
How the Media Places Responsibility for the Covid-19 Pandemic—An Australian Media Analysis
Global pandemics are likely to increase in frequency and severity, and media communication of key messages represents an important mediator of the behavior of individuals in response to public health countermeasures. Where the media places responsibility during a pandemic is therefore important to study as blame is commonly used as a tool to influence public behavior but can also lead to the subjective persecution of groups. The aim of this paper…
Medicine (41 works) · Psychology (30 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Political science (21 works) · Public health (17 works) · Qualitative research (17 works) · Nursing (16 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Social science (16 works) · Environmental health (15 works)