Anna Ziersch
Biographic Data
| ID | 832344 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna Ziersch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna |
| FAMILY NAME | Ziersch |
| SIGNATURE | ZIERSCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Flinders University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6600-2568 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 64 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 398 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 64 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Reproductive health care experiences and rights of displaced Afghan women, and intersecting factors influencing outcomes
BACKGROUND: Forcibly displaced Afghan women face a high risk of poor reproductive outcomes from preexisting and post-settlement inequalities intensified by displacement and inadequate culturally responsive care. Understanding Afghan women's pre- and post-settlement reproductive issues and experiences, across periods of political and social transition, can highlight needs and improve reproductive outcomes. OBJECTIVE: This scoping review provides a…
Mental health service satisfaction among adults with mental illness attending a psychiatric outpatient clinic
Background Patient satisfaction with services is both a direct and indirect indicator of healthcare quality. It influences healthcare outcomes, patient retention, and the likelihood of medical malpractice claims. However, there is limited evidence on patient satisfaction with mental health services in Africa. Therefore, we aimed to assess mental health service satisfaction and its determinants in adult patients with mental illness in an outpatien…
Making sense of academic service in unpredictable times
Despite operating in unpredictable times and rhetoric to the contrary, universities make it hard for academics to pursue transformative agendas, meaningful community engagement, and activism to inform social and policy changes. This disjuncture is acute for academics working in fraught areas, such as forced migration. The frailty of higher education, caused by decades of neoliberal governance, increasingly restricts what ‘counts’ as academic serv…
Oral health, quality of life and general health of people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds from South Asia and the Middle East resettled in South Australia
This study highlights the significant barriers to good oral health for people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds and the broader impacts of poor oral health on quality of life and general health. The findings indicate the importance of better oral health supports for new arrivals, including facilitation of access to affordable dental care and culturally appropriate health promotion interventions
Decolonising solidarity in higher education
Decolonising solidarity in higher education: navigating barriers and enablers in advocacy with people from displaced backgrounds
How immigration detention harms children
Immigration detention is a preventable and profoundly negative reception experience for already vulnerable children. It is unavoidably associated with multiple additional adverse exposures with significant health and public health consequences. The proposed framework demonstrates adversity in each socioecological sphere of the detained child's life and across time. The framework can inform migration, child protection, and public health policy. Ad…
Quality of life among people with mental illness attending a psychiatric outpatient clinic in Ethiopia
In this study, the QoL of people with mental illness was poor, with the psychological health domain the most affected. Sociodemographic factors, social support-related factors, drug use factors, and clinical factors, directly and indirectly affected QoL through the mediator variables of physical health domains, psychological health domains, social relation health domains, and environmental health domains. In order to improve the QoL of people wit…
Housing and health for people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds
Rebuilding a sense of home and ontological security is a key resettlement priority and crucial for wellbeing. More comprehensive strategies to facilitate this for refugees and asylum seekers are required
Discrimination in the private rental market in Australia
Securing appropriate housing is a crucial component of resettlement for people with refugee experience, but many face challenges in securing private rental housing, including discrimination, particularly for large families. This paper explores refugee and asylum seeker experiences of discrimination in the private rental market through in-depth semi-structured interviews with refugees and asylum seekers from large families (N = 22), service provid…
Refugee women and work
Obtaining employment is a high priority for people with refugee backgrounds in countries of resettlement and an important aspect of integration. There are a range of barriers to gaining work for new arrivals; however, much of the existing quantitative evidence on characteristics of employment and facilitators and barriers to work faced by refugees does not consider gender or focuses primarily on men. We used a large, longitudinal survey of over 2…
Next Steps in Decolonising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Primary Health Care Policy in Australia
Following a failed 2023 referendum on constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Australian governments must work with Indigenous leaders to chart a new way forward in policy to support Indigenous health and wellbeing. Here we report on key stakeholder views on what is required to decolonise Indigenous primary health care (PHC) policy. This article reports on qualitative research conducting yarns with 20 senior st…
‘I really want to work for me to feel good myself ‘
Work is an important social determinant of health. However, people from refugee backgrounds face various barriers to employment and women especially have significantly lower levels of employment. Many refugees also work in jobs with poor conditions. Given the higher risk of poor health for refugees more generally, the impact of employment experiences on health is an important area of investigation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 42 refugee w…
Housing in Place
Housing is an important part of building a new life for people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. However, relatively little is known about how housing and neighbourhood experiences affect resettlement and integration. This paper explored experiences of housing and neighbourhood for refugees and asylum seekers in South Australia, Australia. A survey was completed by 423 participants, recruited through service providers, community network…
Health and wellbeing impacts of experiences of public spaces for young people from refugee backgrounds in Australia
While there is evidence from the general population that experiences in public spaces can affect health and wellbeing, there is relatively limited research exploring this relationship for young people from refugee backgrounds, who are at higher risk of poor health. This paper draws on interviews, mapping and photovoice with 10 young people from refugee backgrounds and interviews with 16 service providers working with refugee youth, recruited thro…
Social Capital and Rural Health for Refugee Communities in Australia
Refugee resettlement significantly contributes to Australia's migration programs, with recent policy directives prioritising rural resettlement. As a result, the cultural diversity of populations of several Australian rural towns has substantially expanded. Newcomers may encounter challenges becoming part of closed social networks and accessing the resources they need for a healthy life in resettlement. However, there are also benefits that stem …
Having a good friend, a good neighbour, can help you find yourself
Social networks and access to resources are important to refugee integration but there is limited research with people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds. This mixed methods paper reports on the social capital of refugees and asylum seekers and relevance to settlement satisfaction and integration. Surveys were completed by 423 adult refugees and asylum seekers living in South Australia. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were condu…
Strategies to improve access to mental health services
Access to mental health services is essential to improving health and well-being of population groups including migrants. This paper describes views and perspectives of African migrants and service providers about how to improve access to mental healthcare services for African migrants in South Australia. The study employed a qualitative design using one-on-one interviews with 20 African migrants and 10 service providers through Zoom or WhatsApp …
Understanding mental health from the perception of Middle Eastern refugee women
Women from a refugee background suffer higher psychological distress levels than men with a refugee background. Conceptualisation of mental health plays an important role in using mental health services for people from refugee groups. The purpose of this review is to synthesize literature describing how Middle Eastern refugee women perceive mental health and its influence on mental health service utilisation. The review is registered with Prosper…
Post-Migration Stressors and Mental Health for African Migrants in South Australia
We conducted a qualitative study involving African migrants ( n = 20) and service providers ( n = 10) in South Australia to explore mental health stressors, access to mental health services and how to improve mental health services for African migrant populations. This paper presents the views and experiences of African migrants about the post-migration stressors they faced in resettlement that pose mental health challenges. The participants were…
South Australia's quiet multiculturalism
Despite the long‐standing connection between South Australia and the national development of immigrant multiculturalism, epitomised through the role of Premier Don Dunstan, recent policy developments have not yet been studied at the state level. This article evaluates the development and ‘policy success’ of multiculturalism in South Australia from 2007 to 2017, a period characterised by the so‐called ‘backlash against multiculturalism’ in many li…
Housing and health for people with refugee- and asylum-seeking backgrounds
Housing is a social determinant of health, and previous research has linked housing with health for the general population. Less research has explored this relationship for people with refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds in resettlement countries. This article reports on findings from the photovoice component of a larger study exploring housing and health for refugees and asylum seekers in South Australia. Participants were 11 refugees and asylu…
More Important than Covid-19”
Refugees and asylum seekers on temporary visas typically experience interacting issues related to employment, financial precarity, and poor health and well-being. This research aimed to explore whether these issues were exacerbated by the social impacts of COVID-19. Interviews were conducted both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic with 15 refugees and asylum seekers living in South Australia on temporary visas. While this research found th…
Challenges facing primary health care in federated government systems
Migrants and Service Providers’ Perspectives of Barriers to Accessing Mental Health Services in South Australia
International mobility has increased steadily in recent times, bringing along a myriad of health, social and health system challenges to migrants themselves and the host nations. Mental health issues have been identified as a significant problem among migrants, with poor accessibility and underutilisation of the available mental health services (MHSs) repeatedly reported, including in Australia. Using a qualitative inquiry and one-on-one in-depth…
Relapse into Undernutrition in a Nutritional Program in HIV Care and the Impact of Food Insecurity
The relapse into undernutrition after nutritional recovery among those enrolled in a nutritional program is a common challenge of nutritional programs in HIV care settings, but there is little evidence on the determinants of the relapse. Nutritional programs in HIV care settings in many countries are not well designed to sustain the gains obtained from enrolment in a nutritional program. This study examined relapse into undernutrition and associa…
Neighbourhood life and social capital
Do perceived neighbourhood cohesion and safety contribute to neighbourhood differences in health
Responding to racism
Health implications of access to social capital
Inequalities in social capital and health between people with and without disabilities
Involvement in civil society groups
Study objective: To determine the involvement in civil society groups (CSGs) and the impact of this on health. Design: Case study, cross sectional, self completion questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. Setting: Residents in two suburbs in Adelaide, South Australia. Participants: Every household (1038) received a questionnaire asking the adult with the next birthday to complete it. A total of 530 questionnaires were returned. Sixteen ques…
Aboriginal Australians' experience of social capital and its relevance to health and wellbeing in urban settings
Having a good friend, a good neighbour, can help you find yourself
Social networks and access to resources are important to refugee integration but there is limited research with people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds. This mixed methods paper reports on the social capital of refugees and asylum seekers and relevance to settlement satisfaction and integration. Surveys were completed by 423 adult refugees and asylum seekers living in South Australia. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were condu…
Negative consequences of community group participation for women's mental health and well‐being
Participation in community groups is argued to be an important way to create health‐promoting social capital. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which gender affects the health promotion potential of participation. This paper reports on a qualitative study of women's experiences of participation in a diverse range of community groups, and considers how such involvement can potentially have a negative impact upon men…
Faking til you make it
Racism, social resources and mental health for Aboriginal people living in Adelaide
Employment for women with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds in Australia
Employment is a key aspect of resettlement, and research has shown that it is highly valued by people with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. However, less is known about the employment experiences and programmes available specifically to women from these backgrounds. This commentary paper draws upon three data sources – the Building a New Life in Australia longitudinal survey, a desktop review of employment programmes and interviews with ser…
What is the Meaning of ‘Social Mix’? Shifting perspectives in planning and implementing public housing estate redevelopment
This paper unravels a variety of perspectives about the concept of social mix, drawing on a case study of the implementation of a redevelopment project in Melbourne. The first part provides a theoretical overview of two internationally predominant academic debates around policy interpretations of this concept, namely social mix as a means for promotion of social inclusion; and as a state-led form of gentrification. These two arguments are usually…
General Motor Holden's closure in Playford, South Australia
Deindustrialisation and the closure of automotive manufacturing can differentially affect the socioeconomic prospects of workers and their communities, and contribute to social and health inequity. We used Bacchi's problematisation approach to examine the South Australian (SA) Labor government's policy responses to the General Motors Holden (GMH) Elizabeth plant closure announcement. We focused on the way that these policy responses framed the ‘p…
Social mix and the role of design
Who participates? Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Women's Participation in Voluntary Groups
Participation in voluntary groups is potentially an important way to create health promoting social capital. This paper investigates women's participation in voluntary groups, utilising data from a postal survey of 968 female respondents and in‐depth interviews with 30 women. Logistic regression was conducted to examine factors associated with frequency of women's group involvement. Not working full time, living in a married relationship, and hav…
Housing and health for people with refugee- and asylum-seeking backgrounds
Housing is a social determinant of health, and previous research has linked housing with health for the general population. Less research has explored this relationship for people with refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds in resettlement countries. This article reports on findings from the photovoice component of a larger study exploring housing and health for refugees and asylum seekers in South Australia. Participants were 11 refugees and asylu…
Neighbourhood Life, Social Capital and Perceptions of Safety in the Western Suburbs of Adelaide
In this paper we report on a South Australian study of perceptions of safety and aspects of neighbourhood life including social capital which involved the analysis of 2400 self‐completed questionnaires. A path analysis found that perceptions of safety were directly associated with gender, age, perceptions of neighbourhood pollution and neighbourhood trust, and indirectly associated with age, neighbourhood pollution and neighbourhood connections. …
More Important than Covid-19”
Refugees and asylum seekers on temporary visas typically experience interacting issues related to employment, financial precarity, and poor health and well-being. This research aimed to explore whether these issues were exacerbated by the social impacts of COVID-19. Interviews were conducted both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic with 15 refugees and asylum seekers living in South Australia on temporary visas. While this research found th…
Social mix in context
During the past 30 years, social mix has been on the policy agenda of many countries as a tool for deconcentrating urban disadvantage and enhancing social inclusion. However, these projects often take diverse forms in different institutional and policy contexts. In this article, we compare two separate studies of current urban regeneration programs in Australia and Israel. The comparative analysis reveals major similarities and differences regard…
Discrimination in the private rental market in Australia
Securing appropriate housing is a crucial component of resettlement for people with refugee experience, but many face challenges in securing private rental housing, including discrimination, particularly for large families. This paper explores refugee and asylum seeker experiences of discrimination in the private rental market through in-depth semi-structured interviews with refugees and asylum seekers from large families (N = 22), service provid…
Support for tenure mix by residents local to the Carlton Housing Estate, Melbourne, Australia
In this paper, we report on the level of support for tenure mix policies of residents living proximate to the Carlton Housing Estate mixed tenure redevelopment in Melbourne Australia. In a telephone survey of 200 residents living in the area surrounding the estate, the majority of respondents were supportive of tenure mix. Those who were financially comfortable or only spoke English were significantly more supportive than those reporting more dif…
Commissioning and equity in primary care in Australia
This paper reports findings from 55 stakeholder interviews undertaken in six Primary Health Networks (PHNs) in Australia as part of a study of the impact of population health planning in regional primary health organisations on service access and equity. Primary healthcare planning is currently undertaken by PHNs which were established in 2015 as commissioning organisations. This was a departure from the role of Medicare Locals, the previous regi…
Australian Aboriginal Urban Residents’ Satisfaction with Living in Their Neighbourhood
This paper draws on survey data from 143 Aboriginal participants living in Adelaide, South Australia, to examine factors associated with Australian Aboriginal urban residents’ satisfaction with living in their neighbourhoods. Associations were examined between neighbourhood satisfaction, individual socio-demographic measures and perceptions of the neighbourhood socio-cultural environment (including experiences of racism in the neighbourhood, perc…
Decolonising solidarity in higher education
Decolonising solidarity in higher education: navigating barriers and enablers in advocacy with people from displaced backgrounds
Challenging the Stigma of Public Housing
Many poor suburbs in Australia with higher than average numbers of public housing tenants do not simply suffer material disadvantage but also suffer from poor reputations that are reinforced though stigmatising assumptions that portray their residents negatively. Preliminary findings from qualitative research undertaken in Adelaide, South Australia paint a somewhat different picture of some residents in public housing which counters such stereoty…
Involvement in civil society groups
Study objective: To determine the involvement in civil society groups (CSGs) and the impact of this on health. Design: Case study, cross sectional, self completion questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. Setting: Residents in two suburbs in Adelaide, South Australia. Participants: Every household (1038) received a questionnaire asking the adult with the next birthday to complete it. A total of 530 questionnaires were returned. Sixteen ques…
Neighbourhood life and social capital
Health implications of access to social capital
Neighbourhood Life, Social Capital and Perceptions of Safety in the Western Suburbs of Adelaide
In this paper we report on a South Australian study of perceptions of safety and aspects of neighbourhood life including social capital which involved the analysis of 2400 self‐completed questionnaires. A path analysis found that perceptions of safety were directly associated with gender, age, perceptions of neighbourhood pollution and neighbourhood trust, and indirectly associated with age, neighbourhood pollution and neighbourhood connections. …
Negative consequences of community group participation for women's mental health and well‐being
Participation in community groups is argued to be an important way to create health‐promoting social capital. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which gender affects the health promotion potential of participation. This paper reports on a qualitative study of women's experiences of participation in a diverse range of community groups, and considers how such involvement can potentially have a negative impact upon men…
Who participates? Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Women's Participation in Voluntary Groups
Participation in voluntary groups is potentially an important way to create health promoting social capital. This paper investigates women's participation in voluntary groups, utilising data from a postal survey of 968 female respondents and in‐depth interviews with 30 women. Logistic regression was conducted to examine factors associated with frequency of women's group involvement. Not working full time, living in a married relationship, and hav…
Social capital and health in rural and urban communities in South Australia
Do perceived neighbourhood cohesion and safety contribute to neighbourhood differences in health
From causes to solutions - insights from lay knowledge about health inequalities
Despite the explicit emphasis on social/structural issues expressed in the study focus and framing of the research questions, participants did not display a high level of knowledge about the nature and causes of place-based health inequalities. By extending the scope of lay theorizing to include a focus on solutions, this study offers additional insights for public health. Specifically it suggests that a popular constituency for action on the soc…
Positive and negative impacts of job loss on family life
This article contributes to research on the impact of job loss on families. It is based on survey responses from 371 workers and in‐depth interviews with 39 of them about the family impacts of their job loss from the Mitsubishi car factory in Adelaide in 2004–2005. A majority of workers said family life had been affected by their job loss. Quantitative analysis identified four variables significantly associated with family impacts: marital status…
Life after work
Little is known about the experience of those in the baby boom cohort who are outside the labour market. Understanding their experience has the potential to inform policy strategies to support older people to remain longer in the workforce. Using in‐depth interview data from 26 participants, this paper examines the reasons people aged between 50 and 64 years give for being not‐employed, how they perceive it affects their health, how socioeconomic…
Racism, social resources and mental health for Aboriginal people living in Adelaide
Responding to racism
Australian Aboriginal Urban Residents’ Satisfaction with Living in Their Neighbourhood
This paper draws on survey data from 143 Aboriginal participants living in Adelaide, South Australia, to examine factors associated with Australian Aboriginal urban residents’ satisfaction with living in their neighbourhoods. Associations were examined between neighbourhood satisfaction, individual socio-demographic measures and perceptions of the neighbourhood socio-cultural environment (including experiences of racism in the neighbourhood, perc…
A qualitative study of the interactions among the psychosocial work environment and family, community and services for workers with low mental health
Examining domain interactions provides greater explanatory capacity for understanding how people with low mental health manage their lives than restricting the research to the separate impacts of the psychosocial work environment or work-family conflict. The extent to which people can change the conditions under which they engage in paid work and participate in family and social life is significantly affected by the extent to which their employme…
The interplay between structure and agency in shaping the mental health consequences of job loss
Respondents' accounts support the literature on the moderating effects of economic resources such as redundancy packages. The results suggest the need for policies to put more focus on social, emotional and financial investment to mediate the structural constraints of job loss. Our study also suggests that human agency must be understood within an individual's whole of life circumstances, including structural and material constraints, and the per…
Enabling pathways to health equity
Attention to the practical application of social capital theory shows that community projects require structural support in their efforts to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequities. Sound community development techniques are essential but do not operate independently from frameworks and policies at the highest levels of government. Recognition of the interdependence of policy and practice will enable government to achieve these …
Policy environments and job loss
Job loss has negative consequences for health and evidence shows that the agency of workers experiencing job loss is affected by labour market and welfare policy. The policy environment into which workers emerge after losing their jobs strongly influences the way job loss and its aftermath is experienced. This article draws on findings from two waves of in-depth semi-structured interviews with 33 retrenched South Australian automotive workers. It…
Aboriginal Australians' experience of social capital and its relevance to health and wellbeing in urban settings
Faking til you make it
Exploring Social Capital
Over the past twenty years interest has grown in the concept of social capital in international and Australian public policy. We explore how social capital is understood as a concept and used in practice for guiding policy development and program delivery in South Australian public health programs. The empirical research compared policy makers’ and practitioners’ understandings of social capital and how theories about social capital and health in…
Social mix and the role of design
What is the Meaning of ‘Social Mix’? Shifting perspectives in planning and implementing public housing estate redevelopment
This paper unravels a variety of perspectives about the concept of social mix, drawing on a case study of the implementation of a redevelopment project in Melbourne. The first part provides a theoretical overview of two internationally predominant academic debates around policy interpretations of this concept, namely social mix as a means for promotion of social inclusion; and as a state-led form of gentrification. These two arguments are usually…
Inequalities in social capital and health between people with and without disabilities
Sociology (48 works) · Political science (44 works) · Medicine (41 works) · Psychology (30 works) · Economic growth (28 works) · Economics (26 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (22 works) · Psychiatry (22 works) · Social science (21 works) · Mental health (20 works)