Search Results (4)

Background: Endometriosis costs Australia $9.7 billion AUD annually, with absenteeism and lost productivity mostly contributing to this cost burden. Previous research has shown how the absence of workplace support(s) for endometriosis symptom management can exacerbate negative effects. Despite this knowledge, the role of employers and workplace policies in supporting employees with endometriosis remains unexamined. Background/Objectives: As part of the Endo@Work project (co-designed endometriosis workplace guidelines), this study examines the perceptions and experiences of managers, HR, and senior leaders to understand how the Endo@Work guidelines can be successfully implemented. Methods: Seven focus groups with 24 Australian employers were undertaken. Using reflexive thematic analysis, data were interpreted through a post-structural feminist lens with focus group discussions revealing how employers recognise the importance of workplace guidance/policies. Results/Conclusions: Problematically, existing policies and practices were often tokenistic and inconsistently implemented. This study identifies how leadership buy-in, flexible work arrangements, and the thoughtful integration of workplace education initiatives contribute to supporting employees managing endometriosis symptoms at work. This study’s findings emphasise how consistent policy enactment alongside ongoing education/training foster inclusive workplaces and gender equity outcomes. Full article

The World Health Organization’s Healthy Cities movement recommends action on the determinants of health and health equity. While economic and ecological circumstances have been studied with respect to health outcomes, research shows that the relationship between these broad determinants and population health is not always clear. Municipal governments, whose relative proximity to individuals means that they are optimally situated to address local health concerns, can demonstrate political will for healthy communities by developing health community policies. Therefore, the aim of this study is to interrogate how the idea of a ‘healthy community’ has been conceptualized by municipal governments in order to inform the future uptake of the concept. This study uses a post-structural policy analysis to examine government discourse on healthy communities in a medium-sized census metropolitan area (CMA) in Ontario, Canada. The findings highlight economic growth and ecological sustainability as priorities for fostering a healthy community. With emphasis on long-standing issues linking health outcomes to broader societal conditions, this study calls on municipal governments to explicitly consider the health impacts of healthy community strategies and adoption of a Health-in-All-Policies (HiAP) approach. Full article

The present article focuses on how ‘sexual orientation’ is represented and produced in a Swedish preschool policy document regarding discrimination and equal treatment. ‘Poststuctural policy analysis’ is employed, in line with Foucault) and Bacchi. The results show that ‘sexual orientation’ is represented as a matter for families, but for parents rather than children. In the plans for equal treatment, visualizing different families stands out as the goal of working preventively against discrimination based on ‘sexual orientation’ in preschool, and the active measures planned for are reading books and spontaneous conversations. The article argues that the discrimination perspective represented in the documents, together with discourses on childhood innocence, establish certain conditions for how ‘sexual orientation’ is produced in preschool. Full article

Forests and carbon sequestration have become fundamental themes in climate change mitigation. The idea of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) has generated significant interest in forest governance from United Nations (UN) climate strategies over the past decade. REDD+ was initially hailed as a smart and cost-effective way to mitigate climate change. As it is rolling out, ambiguities and controversies are increasingly surfacing to the stakeholders at different levels. Examining the forest governance of Nepal in detail, this research examines how relationships between national and local forest actors have changed, and how REDD+ discourses have evolved among them at the interface between global interests in carbon commodification on one hand, and local realities of community forestry on the other hand. To better understand these competing positions, the study uses a post-structural political ecology perspective with elements of discourse analysis. Using data from interviews with policy actors and members of three local community forest user groups, focus group discussions, policy event observations, and document reviews, this paper highlights how global forest carbon commodification has been affecting community forestry governance. It also illustrates different storylines that actors employ to influence policy discourse and REDD+ debates, indicating a considerable range of problem definitions and policy solutions of climate change among the actors. The analysis highlights the connection between power relationships and the evolution of discourses surrounding REDD+, and how an external discourse can reinforce or challenge local governance and the centralization of forest authority. As such, the research also offers a new application of discursive storylines to climate change discourse analysis across national and local scales. The findings emphasize the importance of a more open and transparent dialogue across Nepal’s forest governance and management levels to ensure actual benefits for healthy forests, strong communities, and effective climate change mitigation. Nepal's findings also suggest highly relevant lessons to other developing countries with significant community forest governance, and a strong planned focus on REDD+. Full article