Reducing CO2 emissions from domestic travel: exploring the social and health impacts.

The importance and meaning of social and recreational travel for a diverse group of Auckland residents is explored in this article. Study participants identified a range of social and health benefits, including maintaining social connections with family and friends, opportunities to participate in physical activity, and reducing stress. However, many of these trips are by car. New Zealand has one of the highest rates of private car ownership internationally, low-density urban development, and a poor public transport infrastructure. Social and recreational trips make up a sizeable proportion of domestic travel and are contributing to New Zealand's increasing rate of CO2 emissions. There is an obvious need to address the negative ecological impacts of human activity. Our findings suggest that alongside strategies to reduce CO2 emissions, it also is important to introduce measures to maintain the benefits from social and recreational travel. Suggestions are made for further areas of research.

Community action--challenges and constraints--implementing evidence-based approaches within a context of reorienting services.

Community action on alcohol use-related projects face significant challenges in focusing efforts where they are most likely to be effective--on environmental strategies for optimum impact and sustainable institutional change. Reorienting and enhancing the efforts of existing services is a crucial issue for all countries with limited resources. This paper evaluates the use of a public health partnerships model to reorient resources and enhance cross sector collaboration to reduce alcohol consumption-related harm in a large New Zealand city from 2001-2004. The evaluation assessed changes in the management practices of participating health provider organisations, the reorientation of activities and the redeployment of provider resources, in light of evaluation evidence from collaborative initiatives undertaken by key stakeholder organisations. Despite the considerable challenges inherent in reorienting existing health sector resource and encouraging more evidence-based practice, this evaluation found encouraging signs of positive systemic changes, both within the health sector and with external stakeholders, in the redirection of priorities and resources. The focus on collaborative environmental strategies has also contributed to some limited, but promising structural changes to reduce harm in the licensed alcohol availability, accessibility and promotion environment.

The use of an evidence-based community action intervention to improve age verification practices for alcohol purchase.

Alcohol purchase surveys were undertaken as part of two New Zealand community action projects (one in a large metropolitan area and one in a small town) that aimed at reducing alcohol consumption-related harm for young people. Baseline surveys in both places indicated poor age verification practices. The two follow-up surveys in the metropolitan area showed a decrease in sales made without age identification between 2002 (60%) and 2003 (46%). However, an increase between 2003 (46%) and 2004 (55%) occurred. In the metropolitan area, regulatory staff in three out of seven jurisdictions increased enforcement due to the 2002 survey and follow-up work; this did not happen following the 2003 survey. In the small town, results indicated positive changes in verification practices over time. In addition, licensee meetings, host responsibility training, and a regional project all occurred following the surveys. The surveys have also had important indirect effects. Closer monitoring and enforcement activity due to the surveys has contributed to the amendment of alcohol legislation in New Zealand.

What next? Sustaining a successful small-scale alcohol consumption harm minimization project.

Engaging communities in alcohol consumption-related action projects requires the application of a range of flexible and responsive evidence-based methods. These include: establishing collaborative relationships, implementing strategies to improve age verification practices, encouraging organizational change, and raising awareness of local alcohol issues. The focus of this article is the sustainability of an alcohol harm minimization project for young people in Hawera (a small New Zealand town) that has produced some encouraging results. The Hawera Alcohol and Young People project began in 2000 along with external formative and impact evaluation components. This article will draw on the evaluation findings to date and the experience of community action projects in New Zealand to explore what makes a sustainable community action project and to examine the extent to which this has been achieved by the Hawera Alcohol and Young People project. The limitations of the study are noted.