The COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health measuresgenerated substantial and ongoing challenges for the mental health and wellbeing of Australian communities. Australian Government funded initiatives were rapidly instituted between different levels of government and with community mental health organisations. These policy actions aimed to provide agile responses to promote community resilience and strengthen services for vulnerable groups, including older people, those with existing mental health conditions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and health and essential service providers.

The Closing the Gap policy framework has made little impact in addressing Aboriginal health disparities. However, Aboriginal Elders are quietly leading the way in community healing; represented by a suite of therapeutic practices and the promotion of cultural values to strengthen Aboriginal identity, community cohesion and connections to Country. Elders provide stakeholders with a culturally embedded framework to advance the health and well-being of Aboriginal people.

Research had a bad name in the Torres Strait. People felt exploited by outside researchers over decades with few benefits for the people. A consultative group of elders and senior health providers developed a research agenda focused on local cultural and health needs, based on a learn-by-doing approach. Participants created their research proposals during four workshops. The program was interrupted by COVID-19 restrictions but should resume in 2022. The model may apply to other Australian rural and remote communities.

In Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ), discussions on the use of interpreters in healthcare for women who are refugees are long overdue in the published literature. The findings of this study highlight various barriers relating to interpreters experienced by refugee women and demonstrate that there are both ethical and practical risks to how interpreters are used in healthcare in NZ. A step to achieving equitable healthcare for refugee women entails putting in place accessible and robust communicative infrastructure in NZ healthcare settings.

This study provides a greater understanding for researchers and PHN decision-makers of the key features of PHN community-based pain programs, their alignment with expert-agreed key elements and implementation enablers, target-population gaps, and the types of program adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study explores nurses’ and educators’ experiences of implementing an integrated model of school-based primary health care in a local school network. We found that defining the role and working across systems were challenges to program implementation, whereas a collaborative culture, relationship building and flexibility in work processes facilitated the integration of the nurses into the school teams. This study will be of interest to those involved in school-based health care.

Consumer-directed and person-centred care is crucial in appropriately servicing all older adults, given each older adult has a diverse background, which impacts their aged care experiences. This paper reports on the development of web pages designed to support the knowledge and information needs of the aged care workforce. There is a need for such resources within this sector to inform culturally appropriate and safe care.

Autistic adults often experience barriers to accessing health care and have negative healthcare experiences. We wanted to know if an online healthcare toolkit developed with autistic adults to improve healthcare interactions between them and their primary care providers in the US, could be used in Australia. We interviewed six Australian autistic adults about using the toolkit, with positive feedback. An Australian-adapted healthcare toolkit may potentially improve the healthcare experiences of autistic adults living in Australia.

Approximately half of all type 1 diabetes (T1D) diagnoses occur in adulthood, yet scarce attention has been paid to adult-onset T1D in academic literature. Evidence suggests that adults with T1D may experience poorer long-term physical and mental health outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences of individuals living with adult-onset T1D, with particular focus on their diagnosis experience, access to healthcare, and post-diagnostic wellbeing.