Scott Alen Hanson‐Easey

• PhD Psychology
• Research Associate at The University of Adelaide

Background To explore the impacts of contextual issues encompassing social, cultural, political and institutional elements, on the operation of public health surveillance systems in Nepal concerning the monitoring of infectious diseases in the face of a changing climate. Methods Semi-structured interviews (n = 16) were conducted amongst key inform...

The changing dynamics of infectious disease transmission under the influence of global environmental change, urbanization, population growth and increasing trends of travel and migration are challenging the conventional approach of disease surveillance, highlighting a need for inter-sectoral participation and interdisciplinary collaboration. A qual...

Introduction This study aimed to investigate the effects of temperature variability on rotavirus infections among children under 5 years of age in Kathmandu, Nepal. Findings may inform infection control planning, especially in relation to the role of environmental factors in the transmission of rotavirus infection. Methods Generalized linear Poiss...

Introduction: Hot weather poses occupational health and safety concerns for people working in hot environments. It is known that work-related injuries increase during hot weather, yet there is an incomplete understanding of the underlying factors. Methods: A national online survey was conducted in Australia among health and safety representative...

Introduction: Hot workplace environments can lead to adverse health effects and contribute to a range of injuries. However, there is limited contextual understanding of heat-related injury occurrence. Gaining the perspectives of occupational health and safety professionals (HSPs) may elucidate the issue and inform targeted interventions. Methods:...

Epidemiological evidence has shown an association between exposure to high temperatures and occupational injuries, an issue gaining importance with environmental change. The aim of this study was to better understand contributing risk factors and preventive actions based on personal experiences. Interviews were conducted with 21 workers from five A...

Although Nepal has been identified as a country highly vulnerable to adverse health and socioeconomic impacts arising from climate change, extant research on climate sensitive infectious diseases has yet to develop the evidence base to adequately address these threats. In this opinion paper we identify and characterise basic requirements that are h...

Heatwaves have potential health and safety implications for many workers, and heatwaves are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity with climate change. There is currently a lack of comparative evidence for the effects of heatwaves on workers’ health and safety in different climates (sub-tropical and temperate). This study examined the rel...

Background: The thermal working environment can have direct and in-direct effects on health and safety. Ambient temperatures have been associated with an increased risk of occupational injuries but it is unknown how the relationship can vary by weather, location and climate. Objectives: To examine the relationship between ambient temperatures an...

Introduction: This study was undertaken to assess the effect of climate variability on diarrhoeal disease burden among children under 5 years of age living in Kathmandu, Nepal. The researchers sought to predict future risk of childhood diarrhoea under different climate change scenarios to advance the evidence base available to public health decisi...

Objective The objective of the current study was to gain insight into the ways in which parents who had arrived in Australia with refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds understand their young children's experiences of wellbeing and psychological distress during resettlement. Method Eight parents (three male and five female) who had arrived in Austra...

Background: China's capacity to control and prevent emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases is critical to the nation's population health. This study aimed to explore the capacity of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs) in China to deal with infectious diseases now and in the future. Methods: A survey was conducted in 2015 amon...

Considering the potential challenges that heatwave communicators face in effectively disseminating messages and influencing behaviour, we undertook three independent but interrelated studies: a survey with the South Australian public (n=416), lay public focus groups and interviews (n=63), and a critical national TV-news analyses (n=22). The studies...

Purpose Heatwaves, or extended periods of extreme heat, are predicted to increase in frequency, intensity and duration with climate change, but their impact on occupational injury has not been extensively studied. We examined the relationship between heatwaves of varying severity and work-related injuries and illnesses. We used a newly proposed met...

Background: The thermal environment can directly affect workers' occupational health and safety, and act as a contributing factor to injury or illness. However, the literature addressing risks posed by varying temperatures on work-related injuries and illnesses is limited. Objectives: To examine the occupational injury and illness risk profiles...

Background: Dengue is a significant climate-sensitive disease. Public health professionals play an important role in prevention and control of the disease. This study aimed to explore dengue control and prevention in the context of climate change in China. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 630 public health professionals in 2015...

Despite the strong influence our significant others have on health behaviors such as alcohol consumption, little is known about when they are willing to provide support for changing such behaviors. We conducted interviews with 13 Australian adults who had a partner, friend, or family member who stopped or significantly reduced their alcohol consump...

Heatwaves are an increasing environmental hazard and an important public health issue in Australia. Heat-health warnings are being adopted widely to promote protective behaviours, but there has been limited evaluation of public responses. This study used a household telephone survey to examine public attitudes and responses to heat-health warnings...

This study aims to investigate the associations between meteorological factors and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in 19 cities selected from HFRS high risk areas across different climate zones in three Provinces of China. De-identified daily reports of HFRS in Anhui, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning Provinces for 2005-2014 were obtained fro...

Australia’s unique and diverse natural environment is a key drawcard attracting millions of tourists to this country every year. Images of clean beaches, untainted wilderness areas, wide open spaces, and exotic and (mostly) friendly wildlife have regularly featured in tourism marketing and the mass media for decades. The nation’s climate is represe...

In early 2018, the Karen community of Nhill, Country Fire Authority (CFA), Nhill Learning Centre (NLC) and The University of Adelaide collaborated on a project to conceive and develop a fire prevention film, titled, Fire Safety: Prevention is better than cure. The film refashions current CFA Fire Danger Period (FDP) and Total Fire Ban (TFB) informa...

Objectives: Infectious diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in China. The capacity of hospitals to deal with the challenge from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases due to climate change is of great importance to population health. This study aimed to explore the capacity of hospitals in China to deal with such challenges....

Background: In Australia, recent years have seen a rise in the popularity of temporary abstinence campaigns, in which people pledge to abstain from alcohol for a month while raising funds for charity. In addition to their fundraising aims, such initiatives have been viewed as tools for broader behavioural and cultural change around alcohol, encour...

Heat exposure can be a health hazard for many Australian workers in both outdoor and indoor situations. With many heat-related incidents left unreported, it is often difficult to determine the underlying causal factors. This study aims to provide insights into perceptions of potentially unsafe or uncomfortably hot working conditions that can affect...

This study examines the role of social connectedness, or ‘social capital’, in mediating the dissemination and interpretation of natural hazards risk information for new migrant communities in South Australia, who have English as a second language. Using a focus-group methodology, analysis shows that intra-group networking, or so called ‘bonding’ so...

This study aims to investigate the climate–malaria associations in nine cities selected from malaria high-risk areas in China. Daily reports of malaria cases in Anhui, Henan, and Yunnan Provinces for 2005–2012 were obtained from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Generalized estimating equation models were used to quantify the c...

Climate-related health indicators are potentially useful for tracking and predicting the adverse public health effects of climate change, identifying vulnerable populations, and monitoring interventions. However, there is a need to understand stakeholders’ perspectives on the identification, development, and utility of such indicators. A qualitativ...

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is a serious public health problem in China. Although the incidence of HFRS sharply reduced towards the end of the twentieth century, there has been a re-emergence of the disease after 2008 in some parts of China. The aim of this study was to gauge the perceptions of health professionals in China concern...

Background Though there was the significant decrease in the incidence of malaria in central and southwest China during the 1980s and 1990s, there has been a re-emergence of malaria since 2000. MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst the staff of eleven Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in China to gauge their perception...

Objective: Limiting alcohol consumption is beneficial for health, but can be challenging given the role alcohol plays in the rituals of many social occasions. We examined how people who stopped or reduced their alcohol consumption incorporated this change within their social rituals. Design: We conducted 16 semi-structured one-on-one interviews wit...

This study aims to (1) investigate the associations between climatic factors and dengue; and (2) identify the susceptible subgroups. De-identified daily dengue cases in Guangzhou for 2005–2014 were obtained from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Weather data were downloaded from the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service Sys...

Exposure to extreme heat is a familiar seasonal experience for many rural communities across Australia, which is projected to increase in frequency and intensity with climate change. This has wide-ranging implications for community health and well-being, livelihoods, recreation, and the natural and built environments. In this study, we have examine...

Zoonotic diseases transmitted by arthropods and rodents are a major public health concern in China. However, interventions in recent decades have helped lower the incidence of several diseases despite the country's large, frequently mobile population and socio-economic challenges. Increasing globalization, rapid urbanization and a warming climate n...

The remote township and outstations of Maningrida, on the coast of central Arnhem Land, support both customary and commercial industries for the predominantly Indigenous residents. The coastal and estuarine location of Maningrida means it is likely to be vulnerable to sea-level rise, increased storm surge and saltwater intrusion, and more intense c...

Australia’s population largely lives in coastal regions, and climate change–induced inundation, attributable to sea-level rise and storm surges, will significantly jeopardise the health, livelihoods and socioeconomic basis of many coastal communities. Other hazards such as heatwaves, storms and drought will also engender serious risk, especially fo...

Excessive workplace heat exposures are presenting an increasing challenge in terms of occupational injuries and heat-related illnesses. Although heat safety guidelines exist in many industries, the extent to which heat exposure is perceived to impact on workers is yet to be fully explored. In this case study, a qualitative approach was used to inve...

China is one of the largest countries in the world with nearly 20% of the world's population. There have been significant improvements in economy, education and technology over the last three decades. Due to substantial investments from all levels of government, the public health system in China has been improved since the 2003 severe acute OPEN AC...

The psychological and ideological processes of social categorization, differentiation and identification that adhere to how social groups negotiate and acquire identities for themselves, and those defined as different or ‘Other’, have been central to research in the social representations tradition (Augoustinos and Riggs, 2007; Chryssochoou, 2004;...

The Toolkit is informed by research involving over 120 CALD members and stakeholders from a spectrum of cultural, national and linguistic backgrounds. Principle findings from this research and their implications for risk communication planning are encapsulated in the Toolkit. The Toolkit underscores the importance of anchoring risk and crisis commu...

By the end of the century, global temperatures are likely to have risen by at least 2°C compared with pre-industrial times. No nation will be immune to the resulting changes in the world’s weather patterns and as international negotiations aimed at reducing future carbon emissions continue to have limited success, it would be rash for any country t...

Representations of climate change have been a recurrent motif in media and political domains spanning over 20 years. However, relatively scant scholarly work has addressed how laypeople make sense of this phenomenon in talk. The current study, employing a discursive approach, demonstrates how the salience of climate change, as a social issue, is ac...

The theory of psychological essentialism provides an account of how and why some social groups are represented as if they possessed an inhering, immutable and group-defining ‘essence’. Whilst much of the empirical and theoretical work on essentialism has attended to characterising its cognitive components through the utilisation of survey measures,...

This essay engages in an analysis of a selection of books from the 2011 South Australia Premier’s Reading Challenge, which centres upon a recommended reading book list from which children must select titles in order to complete the challenge. As our findings suggest, nowhere in the subsection of the list explicitly named as “ families and relations...

This essay engages in an analysis of a selection of books from the 2011 South Australia Premier’s Reading Challenge, which centres upon a recommended reading book list from which children must select titles in order to complete the challenge. As our findings suggest, nowhere in the subsection of the list explicitly named as “ families and relations...

South Australia is challenged with one of the driest and hottest climates in Australia, and the impacts of anthropogenic climate change are expected to seriously exacerbate existing risks from heat waves, water shortages, and inundation. Adaptation to these climate change risks are now broadly accepted as necessary and unavoidable, and although a b...

This paper examines how speakers deploy narrative devices in talking about Sudanese refugees. Particularly, we show how narrative constructions form an important basis for the advancement of accounts about integration problems into the local polity. We analyse talkback ‘phone-in’ calls to a local Adelaide radio station that provide callers an oppor...

Complaining about humanitarian refugees is rarely an unequivocal activity for society members. Their talk appears dilemmatic: ‘sympathy talk’, comprising rhetorical displays of ‘care’, tolerance and aesthetic evaluations, is woven together with more pejorative messages. In this article we investigate how ‘sympathy talk’ functions as a discursive re...

The words of political elites have the potential to play a significant role in the constitution and proliferation of racist discourse, especially when this discourse has the nuanced linguistic characteristics of ‘new racism’. This article examines the political rhetoric deployed in the articulation and defence of contentious government policy on Su...

This study investigated social understandings of refugees from Africa in a regional town in NSW, Australia. Drawing from Social Representations Theory (Moscovici, 1984), the study investigated whether place of origin (Africa) mediated understandings held about refugees. Two studies were conducted. In the first study, a between-subjects manipulation...