The social disadvantage of the Australian Aboriginal population, evidenced in measures of health, education, employment, and income, is the target of a current national policy of Close the Gap. Policy makers attuned to addressing the needs of the Aboriginal population writ large can be blind to a complex communal patterning of vulnerability within this larger category. This report details recent research into addressing the mistreatment of older Aboriginal people in Western Australia. Interviews with 37 (29 Aboriginal) front line practitioners with older Aboriginal people established that issues surrounding the mistreatment of older Aboriginal people are dissimilar to the pattern prevailing in the total Australian population. It is suggested that surviving as an 'us' against 'them' in a lived experience of discrimination and oppression has left some older Aboriginal people with an excess of bonding capital within their family and community and a deficit of bridging capital to wider forms of social support. This report details how Aboriginal practitioners and others focused on the importance of working with the intangibles of community at the local level to address the issue.

This article is the first of a four-part series in which the authors provide analyses on the composition and characteristics of health service managers in Australia of relevance to policy and decision-making in dealing with these issues. This first article provides analyses on the specific characteristics of service, geographical and category distribution in both the public and private sectors. It gives an estimated number of managers in health services and aged care residential services in relation to the population they serve, as well as their relationship to people employed. It compares these ratios to those for all industries in Australia. The analyses also document and review managers by category and specialisation and compare their composition to the average for all industries. Substantial differences in composition between hospital, medical and other services, aged care residential services and the average for all industries arise from the analyses. Disparities in ratios to population and composition were also found among the various states and territories. The article also discusses the wide range of ratios of health service managers to population in some countries and their lack of consistency. The discussion of findings includes an agenda for future research.

This article is the second in a four-part series in which the authors provide analyses on the composition and characteristics of health service managers in Australia of relevance to policy and decision-making in dealing with the future of health service labour force in general and health service management in particular. The first article presented analyses on the specific characteristics of service, geographical and category distribution. This second article provides analyses on age and sex characteristics of health service managers in Australia. Findings confirm that the health services labour force was older than the labour force at large at the time of the 2006 Census of Population and that health service managers were also older than those in all industries. The age distribution of managers in health services showed skewness towards younger ages. As expected, those in senior positions tended to be older. Managers in aged care residential services were even older on average, following the older average age of the labour force in these services. In general, female managers tended to be younger than male managers. There was not much difference in the average age of health service managers among the states and territories. The same was the experience in aged care residential services. In a labour force where females were predominant, the majority of managers in health services and aged care residential services were also females. However, their proportion of managers was lower than their proportion in the labour force of these two services. Further, the gap between the proportion of females in the labour force and the proportion of managers was larger in health services and especially aged care residential services than that in all industries. The gap became larger when the positions of chief executive officer and general manager were considered. The article also discusses a number of related policy issues and suggests an agenda for future research.

This article is the third by the authors in a four-part series. They deal with the composition and characteristics of health service managers in Australia of relevance to policy and decision-making for the health service labour force in general and health service managers in particular. The first article provided analyses on the specific characteristics of service, geographical and category distribution of health service managers, while the second imparted factual perspectives on age and sex characteristics. The analyses in this third article involve the fields of study, levels of education and income of health service managers in Australia, at the time of 2006 Census of Population. Findings show that health service managers tended to have a higher degree of concentration in health and management/ commerce fields of study than the average for all industries. This also applied to managers in aged care residential services. The majority of females in the health labour force was reflected in most fields of study, with notable exceptions such as engineering and architecture/building. Health service managers had higher levels of education than the average for all industries. This was especially so in the case of hospital managers but also applied to other health services and to a lesser degree in aged care residential services. A larger proportion of female managers in health services had qualifications at bachelor and postgraduate levels than male managers, particularly in hospitals. The same applied to aged care residential services. Following their higher level of academic qualifications, the average income of managers in health services was higher than the average for all industries. There were substantial gaps between the average income of male and female managers in health services and aged care residential services. Some factors that contributed to this difference could be attributed to the higher proportion of female managers working less than full time but other factors must also have been responsible for this difference. The article raises policy and training questions and suggests a related agenda for research.

This fourth article adds to the findings of the three previous articles in a four-part series. These articles are concerned with the composition and characteristics of health service managers in Australia. The data and analyses present factual bases with a bearing on policy formulation and planning of the health labour force in Australia and the training of managers. The first article provided analyses on the specific characteristics of service, geographical and category distributions of health service managers, the second on age and sex, and the third on fields of study, level of education and income characteristics of health service managers. This fourth article investigates hours worked, marital status, country of birth and Indigenous status of health service managers in Australia. Findings confirm that a large proportion of health service managers worked part time and female managers more so than males. Partly as a result of this difference, male managers worked on average longer hours than females, but even full-time female managers worked on average shorter hours than males. The average hours worked was lower than the average for managers in all industries in Australia. When adjusted for differences in age from the average for all industries, a larger proportion of health service managers than average had never married and were divorced or widowed. Conversely, a lower proportion than average were married. More than the average proportion of managers in hospitals were born in Australia, while the inverse was the situation in medical and other health services. The share of Australian-born was about average in aged care residential services. Indigenous health service managers constituted a larger percentage of managers than the average in all industries. Their participation in hospitals was lower than in medical and health services; and about the average for all industries in aged care residential services. In all cases, their participation in the management of health services was lower than their proportion in the adult population. The article presents challenges in policy formulation regarding working conditions and the participation of varied segments of society in the management of health services. It also points to a related research agenda.

Contact with family and friends, in the form of visiting, is very important to the quality of the lives of rural nursing home residents. However, there has been little recent research that examines the frequency and determinants of visits to rural nursing homes and none in the rural Australian context. This study aimed to address this gap in the literature. A telephone survey with a close family member (N=257) of each participating resident in the rural New England area of New South Wales, Australia gathered data about 3,738 people who formed the potential social networks of these residents. This study found that the wider, potential, social networks of rural nursing home residents comprised approximately 17 people and involved a wide range of family and friends. However, their actual social networks consisted of approximately two females, daughters and friends, who had high-quality relationships with the resident and who visited at least once per month. In contrast to previous assertions that nursing home residents have robust support from their family and friends, the actual social networks of these residents have dwindled considerably over recent years, which may place them at risk of social isolation. This study has implications for nursing home policy and practice and recommendations for addressing the risk of social isolation that rural nursing home residents face are made.

The number of Chinese immigrants in Australia has increased significantly over the past two decades, and their ageing issues have gradually become the focus of concern. This study aims to fill the literature gap by investigating older Chinese immigrants' experiences and perceptions of growing older in rural Australia in order to gain an understanding of their health-related help-seeking behaviours in this context. This study is situated in a qualitative interpretive paradigm. It uses a transcultural perspective to inform a case study methodology, and it adopts the Theory of Planned Behaviour as an interpretive framework to guide the study. A combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling strategies was used in recruitment, and six Chinese immigrants aged 60–85 years who resided in rural Australia were invited to participate in the study. Individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to gather data, and thematic analysis was applied to analyse the interview data. This study found that the older Chinese immigrants were living in two cultures, and this forced them to reconstruct their cultural beliefs, especially in relation to filial expectations and maintaining harmony in the family. Further, because of a lack of English proficiency, they had greater difficulties dealing with ageing, especially in accessing health care services in rural Australia. These findings have implications for policy and practice related to migrant health care and rural community health practice.