Smart Talk

In a Covid-19 era of fevered concern about health, why is health education in schools not done better? Assoc. Prof Katie Fitzpatrick considers why at Raising the Bar 2021.

In this Covid-19 era of fevered concern about health, why are we not seeing better health education in schools?

Education researcher Katie Fitzpatrick explores the reasons at Auckland University's Raising the Bar event.

Listen to Katie Fitzpatrick

From the talk:

Katie Fitzpatrick: In my work, I argue that there are two possible approaches to health in schools. One is education for health, the other is education about health. The health field is still dominated by psychological models that focus on individual behaviour change while paying lip service to the social determinants of ill health.

This is influenced by the role of health in education. It wasn't always a subject in schools. Rather, schools were targeted as the focus of health interventions, to get children to brush their teeth, drink milk, perform callisthenics and so forth. When health education did become a subject in its own right, in the 1980s and 1990s, everyone thought it was a response to health problems.

Health education gets confused in this tangle between education for health vs education about health. If health education is prioritised as education for health, then there's an assumption its purpose is to address health outcomes, solve health problems, and prevent unhealthy behaviours.

This is not education. This is an intervention.

I argue that we need education about health. A subject. A place to study health and wellbeing, in all of its complexity. Education about health engages knowledge, skills and understandings of health issues and how they intersect at the level of the personal, social, cultural and historical, not only the individual.

Education for health, which is really health promotion, tends to focus mainly on the individual and trying to change their behaviour. The problem is, campaigns to change behaviour, don't tend to work. Campaigns that aim to change behaviour such as smoking or drinking often do a really good job of raising awareness, but behaviour is much more complex, because it's a function of environments, social relationships, contexts, political possibilities, and so forth.

There's an example I often use with teachers.

If a student in their class is experiencing racism in the school environment, then thinking positively about it and using the tools of positive psychology are probably not going to help them all that much. They may be useful to the student in some ways, but understanding institutional racism, the history of colonisation, and the effects of these on health will have more impact.

About the speaker…

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Since the 1950s researchers have known psychedelic drugs could have medical applications, but what of research today? Associate Professor Suresh Muthukumaraswamy talks at Raising the Bar 2021.

Psychedelic drugs were discovered to have medical applications back in the 1950s, but what's going on with research today?

Neuropsychopharmacologist Suresh Muthukumaraswamy breaks down the current situation at Auckland University's live event series Raising the Bar.

Listen to the talk

Since the 1950s, researchers have known psychedelic drugs could have medical applications, but moral panic and the 'war on drugs' stopped this from getting any traction.

Until today, that is, when researchers are examining whether psychedelic drugs could help reduce our rates of depression, addiction and suicide.

This renaissance of research interest may offer a pathway for psychedelics to be introduced as important new medicines. However, according to Auckland University associate professor Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, many ethical and practical dilemmas are facing publicly-funded researchers as well as the for-profit drug industry. As a result, progress in this area is likely to be slow.

For a drug company to invest a billion dollars in a drug development programme, they've got to be able to make money off it, Muthukumaraswamy says.

But the fact that drugs like LSD and psilocybin have been around for decades means that getting a patent may be difficult.

So researchers are instead flipping the chemicals around and making variations to see if they could be therapeutic (while protecting the ability of the company to make money out of the finished drug once it gets onto the market).

The problem with this is that "once you flip a molecule around then you're way back at phase one of the drug development process", he says.

"And then you've got to start all the way back at the beginning. Even though we know LSD is pretty safe, we're going to have to go all the way back, do all the pre-clinical testing, and then you're looking at a ten-year pathway to create this new therapy."

Some companies are getting around this by trying to find an alternative to patenting an already-existing molecule, Muthukumaraswamy says.

They might put it in some kind of spray, or in a specific formulation that could be patented. Or maybe some kind of bespoke psychotherapy that goes alongside that drug could be patented. That way the cost of the drug development could be recouped.

"We're kind of stuck in a way ... this is how medicines are produced."…

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A brown girl is in the ring. Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath (the co-Head of the School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies) explores life as a Pasifika academic. A highlight from Raising the Bar 2021.

Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath (the co-Head of the School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies) explores life as a Pasifika academic. A highlight from Auckland University's Raising the Bar 2021.

What's it like to be in a minority and sitting at the meeting room table, one of very few female, let alone brown, faces?

Listen to Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath speak at Raising the Bar

Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath says academia can be a lonely place at the top for a brown female leader navigating power at "the intersection of hypervisibility, invisibility, colourism and gender."

Touching on real-life examples, Tiatia-Seath speaks candidly about institutional racism, sexism and feminism, as seen through her eyes. She relates how important it is to have a thick skin, and what resilience means when you're in complex and sometimes hostile environments.

Of particular issue for Tiatia-Seath is the way in which taking on a public role (as one of the very few - too few - Pasifika academic leaders) is expected, despite the cost this enacts on her ability to conduct research and write and publish academic papers.

Because this is still the conventional measure of academic quality within the Western, and New Zealand, university system, someone extremely active in their communities is at a disadvantage.

"Our service to our students, our communities, our families, our peers, our nation, can sometimes outweigh the productivity of our research," she says. "A lot of the time we're relationship-building, mentoring, we're being the Pacific voice at various tables. And we're spread so thinly. And we're pulled in multiple directions. The real kicker is the way that universities measure our impact, how brainy or successful we are, as academics, is against a Western framework that completely misses the mark. It doesn't measure our innovation, our determination, our creativity, and just our drive for transformative change."

About the speaker

Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath is the Co-Head of School, Te Wānanga o Waipapa, School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies, University of Auckland. She is of Samoan heritage and has a public/population health background.

She was one of six panellists on the New Zealand Government's 2018 Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry and currently a Commissioner for the inaugural Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission…

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How safe is vaping as an alternative to smoking? The bioengineer Dr Kelly Burrowes talks about what current research shows in this highlight from the Auckland University's Raising the Bar 2021.

How safe is vaping as an alternative to smoking?

Bioengineer Dr Kelly Burrowes talks about what scientists know so far.

Listen to Dr Kelly Burrowes on vaping

Smoking is still responsible for one in ten deaths worldwide. In the wake of this statistic, electronic cigarettes or vapes have become popular as a tool to help people stop smoking. If the trends continue, vapes will exceed cigarette sales by about 2023.

But is vaping safe? Using computational modelling, medical imaging and experimental measurements, researchers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) are developing new methods to measure and understand lung function.

This informative talk at the 2021 Raising the Bar night was by Auckland University's Dr Kelly Burrowes. She explores research on of the long-term impacts of vaping on our lungs and our bodies as a whole.

About the speaker

Dr Kelly Burrowes is a Senior Researcher in Bioengineering at the University of Auckland.

Her work focuses on developing new methods for measuring, predicting and understanding lung function, including computational modelling and the use of various imaging tools. She then brings these measurements together to understand the lungs and changes that occur due to disease, treatments, and exposure to e-cigarettes.

After completing her PhD, Kelly spent ten years at the University of Oxford with the Computational Biology Group before returning to Auckland.

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Raising the Bar was recorded in association with the University of Auckland

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The astrophysicist Dr Nicholas Rattenbury talks about how alien life might be discovered on alien worlds in this highlight from the 2021 season of Auckland University's popular Raising the Bar event.

Astrophysicist Dr Nicholas Rattenbury talks about how alien life might be discovered in this highlight from the 2021 season of Auckland University's popular Raising the Bar event.

Listen to Dr Nicholas Rattenbury on the search for alien life in the night sky

We now know that our solar system is not unique. There are millions of other worlds in our galaxy and we are making new discoveries every year that bring us closer to finding a planet like our own.

In this talk, Dr Nicholas Rattenbury takes the listener on a mission, first to explore the special environments that have made the emergence of life possible here on Earth, then to relate these to our neighbours in the solar system.

"We have discovered worlds which have environments very different to what we experience on Earth," he says, "but some of these are now considered places where there could be life."

Nicholas looks at how astronomers and astrophysicists discover alien worlds, and future proposed missions such as Europa Lander, a NASA spacecraft that will land on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, to seek evidence for liquid water and life.

About the speaker

Nicholas Rattenbury is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland. Having completed his PhD in Physics at that institution, he shortly thereafter left to do post-doctoral research at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, The University of Manchester. After nearly five years of research, he worked for several years as a trainee patent attorney before returning to academia at Manchester Metropolitan University. As an Royal Society of New Zealand Rutherford Discovery Fellow, he returned to New Zealand to continue research in astrophysics.

He is the immediate past president of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, the International Astronomical Union National Organising Committee Chair for New Zealand, the Science Lead for the Auckland Programme for Space Systems and a member of Te Punaha Atea Auckland Space Institute. He is also an executive member of Te Ao Mārama - Centre for Fundamental Inquiry at the University of Auckland whose current research is on the detection of alien worlds and the development of spacecraft missions.

Raising the Bar was recorded in association with the University of Auckland

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Associate Law Professor Scott Optican on the legality of court evidence obtained by different undercover policing techniques in New Zealand. A highlight of Auckland University's Raising the Bar 2021.

Listen to Assoc. Law Professor Scott Optican on the legality of different undercover policing techniques in New Zealand.

Covert policing techniques from the USA you see in the movies or on tv don't necessarily translate to this country. Take the example of a detective getting hold of a glass from a bar which has been used by someone who has finished a drink. The DNA traces its contains - perhaps from fingerprints or traces of saliva - can be used in court in the USA, according to Assoc. Prof. Scott Optican.

"In the United States, courts have squarely held that there is absolutely no problem with this kind of surreptitious police collection of DNA evidence. American judges have stated that once a subject has abandoned his DNA on a bar glass, discarded tissue or the like, they have no further privacy or possessory interest in it, and so no rights to protect. Hence its collection is just fair game for the police or anyone else."

In fact, based on this very abandonment theory, Optican adds, "Just last month, detectives in Colorado recently reinvigorated a 35-year-old murder cold case. They did this by getting on the same aeroplane as the suspect, sitting a few rows behind him, and intercepting a discarded water bottle that he drank from before the flight attendant at Spirit Airlines could throw it in the bin. DNA evidence obtained from that bottle matched DNA evidence taken from a ski mask worn by the killer and preserved all these years later in a police lab. "

That suspect is now facing prosecution for the 1985 murder as a result of that very simple sting.

"So, he asks, "What about the propriety of the bar glass scenario in New Zealand? Its status is currently unsettled in New Zealand law. It's never been tested through a New Zealand court. And that's probably because it hasn't been used by the police as a way of obtaining a criminal suspect's DNA. In fact, there is no specific body of New Zealand law that governs the legality or not of DNA evidence obtained by police in this manner."

About the speaker…

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Celebrating 50 years of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, five writer read their letters to New Zealand's most famous author. A highlight of Word Christchurch 2020.

To celebrate 50 years of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, five New Zealand writers read their letters to our most famous author.

Listen to Bill Manhire, Carl Nixon, Fiona Farrell, Vincent O'Sullivan and Paula Morris deliver their letters to Katherine Mansfield

Now administered by the Arts Foundation, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship has just celebrated fifty years' existence.

Set up to provide a haven for New Zealand writers in the grounds of the Villa Isola Bella, the house in Menton on the French Riviera where Mansfield lived during her final years, the fellowship has attracted many big names in our literary scene over the decades.

One of those names was the historian Michael King, and his daughter Rachel (the director of Word Christchurch) is also in the chair for this session which was the climax of the 2020 Word Christchurch Writers Spring Festival.

Five letters to Katherine Mansfield are read aloud by their authors. The letters are as varied as the writers - some funny, some reflective, some about the experience of the Côte d'Azur, some about the business of writing - and all found an appreciative audience in Christchurch.

The first author to read is Bill Manhire, who recalled his months in Menton in 2004:

Dear Katherine,

It was a remarkable time for me. The first time I'd worked as a proper full-time writer. I wrote most of the poems in a collection called Lifted. Work that benefited from memory. I'd thought of course that I'd produce Mediterranean sunshine and olive trees, but I wrote work full of New Zealand.

Which is something that you might find familiar.

I'm going to read you the first poem I wrote, and it's in the memory of Michael King the historian. When my wife and I were flying up to Auckland to make our connection to Europe, we were puzzled for a moment by the number of people on the plane who we knew.

Then we quickly realised they were all heading north for a memorial service for Michael, who had died very suddenly. The poem I write is called Opoutere, and Opoutere in the Coromandel is where Michael and his partner Maria lived.

And where Michael always seemed to me most contented and relaxed.

But he and Maria died in a most terrible car crash. Anyway, what I wanted to do is give Michael a more gentle and peaceful departure.

Opoutere (abridged here)

This is the place of posts.

A man in a boat is checking his lines.

...While behind him the estuary fills

with its acres of shine.

...January nineteen-ninety-something,…

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Pip Adam discusses her novel Nothing to See - one of the most talked-about books of 2020 - with Carl Shuker in this highlight of the 2020 Word Christchurch Spring Festival.

Writer Pip Adam discusses her novel Nothing to See - one of the most talked-about books of 2020 - in this highlight of the 2020 Word Christchurch Spring Festival.

Listen to Pip Adam talk about her work and her unique world view with fellow novelist Carl Shuker.

Pip Adam has written one of the most-talked-about novels of 2020, Nothing to See, which follows mysterious doppelgängers Peggy and Greta.

Philip Matthews describes it as 'a novel about shame, loneliness, about wanting to do good and hoping for second chances', 'a real achievement' that is 'deeply affecting' and ' the traditional limits of fiction.'

Adam's previous book, The New Animals, won the 2018 Acorn Foundation Prize, and the judges called it 'the book with the most blood on the page.'

This is a writer who is, by her own admission, obsessed with structure.

"I really love structure, and I think it comes from hairdressing. When you're cutting hair, you're often thinking about shorter pieces supporting longer pieces, and where the pieces disconnect. So when I think about a book, I'm often thinking about it like it's a shape in space."

Finding the confidence to believe in her decisions, though, has not always been easy.

Working on what would turn out to be the draft of The New Animals, Adam felt rather lonely and scared, so sought the reassurance of a writers' group. Their response was not what she had anticipated."They said this isn't working, this isn't working."

She laughs as she recalls thinking "Right. I don't think I'm going to show them again. I'm taking my toys and I'm going home." But her response confirmed to her that she really needed some space to find out who she was as a writer.

"So I went home, where I had very little time, and I complained a lot about it."

Her friend Laurence Fearnley said to her, 'Are you going to write it or not?' And I said, "Well, no one will fund me. I don't have time.'

Fearnley's response: "What are you doing from 8:15 to 8:30?"

"I'm complaining about how no one will fund me!"

So that's how the novel came to life - in clusters of 500 words a day.

"Not 500 good words. But I think that was the thing. Keeping it moving kept it in my mind. It kept me wanting it. So I kept nibbling it during the day when my subconscious was working on it."

About the speakers

Pip Adam…

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In 'Breath of the Birds' Dame Gillian Whitehead discusses the origin of taonga puoro, their revival, and how she has used traditional Māori musical instruments in her compositions.

Eminent New Zealand composer Dame Gillian Whitehead celebrates her 80th birthday on 23 April 2021. In this 2019 Lilburn Lecture she explores the renaissance of taonga puoro (traditional Māori musical instruments), and how she brings their extraordinary sounds into her own compositions.

Listen to 'Breath of the Birds' by Dame Gillian Whitehead

In this lecture, Dame Gillian Whitehead, DMus, DNZM, MNZM (Ngāi te Rangi) speaks on the origins of ngā taonga puoro, their revival, and how she has used these traditional Māori musical instruments in her work.

The lecture concludes with a performance of her work Hineraukatauri by NZSO principal flautist, Bridget Douglas and taonga puoro performer and researcher, Alistair Fraser.

Three-time winner of the SOUNZ Contemporary Award and the 2018 recipient of the Arts Foundation Arts Icon Award, Gillian's work has been recognised internationally for several decades. Often working collaboratively with artists from various disciplines, Gillian has also frequently incorporated taonga puoro and Māori themes into her work.

Scroll down for a transcript of the lecture

The Lilburn Lecture 2019 was recorded on 1 November 2019 at National Library of New Zealand by RNZ

(Producer: Adrienne Baron /  Engineer: Marc Chesterman)

Hosted by the Lilburn Trust and the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Related:

Previous Lilburn Lectures

More about Gillian Whitehead

More about taonga puoro

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Eileen Merriman and Carl Shuker discuss their novels A Mistake and The Silence of Snow, which take medical mishaps as a starting point. A highlight of the 2020 Word Christchurch Spring Festival.

Writers Eileen Merriman and Carl Shuker discuss their novels A Mistake and The Silence of Snow which both use medical mishaps as a starting point.

And when it comes to medicine, both of these writers know their stuff: Shuker is a former editor at the British Medical Journal and Merriman is a consultant haematologist at North Shore Hospital.

Their conversation with writer, doctor and podcast host Emma Espiner was a highlight of the 2020 Word Christchurch Spring Festival.

Listen here

In Carl Shuker's A Mistake, surgeon Elizabeth Taylor, a 'gifted, driven woman excelling in a male-dominated culture,' deals with the fallout from an operation that goes gravely wrong.

In The Silence of Snow, Eileen Merriman explores the pressurised lives of Anaesthetic Fellow Rory McBride and first-year doctor Jodi Waterstone.

An extract from the conversation:

Emma Espiner:

There's a point in A Mistake where the family of this young woman that's died as the result of a mistake goes to the media and tells the story. And all the clinicians are gathering round the surgeon and saying, "Oh, no. It's not true, it didn't happen that way. You did everything right." But she says, "This is their truth." And it felt to me like a validation that people - patients - have their experience. That you need to validate that. It's not just us deciding what goes on.

Carl Shuker:

This is the weird thing about reporting on what happens at the end of a surgery or a procedure. The actual person who decides is the patient, right? And yet, I can feel your brains going - "However!" This UK cardiac surgeon talks about these two surgeons. One's called HODAD: Hands of Death and Destruction. And he's a lovely guy. People love him. After a cascading series of terrible things he does, patients  want photos of him and selfies with his arm around them. Beloved.

The other guy's called the Raptor. And the Raptor is technically brilliant. He does amazing work, produces the best outcome for that patient, but they hate him. He's terrifying. So who is the arbiter?

Eileen Merriman:

Things go wrong sometimes. But it's not always the doctor's fault. And that's where the grey area is. Sometimes something is just going to go wrong. I remember a patient had died last year in our service. They were young and it was terrible. I looked through what had gone on and thought, "this death was not preventable." The disease killed the patient.

About the speakers…

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