scholarly journals The use of mechanical restraint in Pacific Rim countries: an international epidemiological study

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Newton-Howes ◽  
M. K. Savage ◽  
R. Arnold ◽  
T. Hasegawa ◽  
V. Staggs ◽  
...  

Abstract Aims The use of mechanical restraint is a challenging area for psychiatry. Although mechanical restraint remains accepted as standard practice in some regions, there are ethical, legal and medical reasons to minimise or abolish its use. These concerns have intensified following the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Despite national policies to reduce use, the reporting of mechanical restraint has been poor, hampering a reasonable understanding of the epidemiology of restraint. This paper aims to develop a consistent measure of mechanical restraint and compare the measure within and across countries in the Pacific Rim. Methods We used the publicly available data from four Pacific Rim countries (Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States) to compare and contrast the reported rates of mechanical restraint. Summary measures were computed so as to enable international comparisons. Variation within each jurisdiction was also analysed. Results International rates of mechanical restraint in 2017 varied from 0.03 (New Zealand) to 98.9 (Japan) restraint events per million population per day, a variation greater than 3000-fold. Restraint in Australia (0.17 events per million) and the United States (0.37 events per million) fell between these two extremes. Variation as measured by restraint events per 1000 bed-days was less extreme but still substantial. Within all four countries there was also significant variation in restraint across districts. Variation across time did not show a steady reduction in restraint in any country during the period for which data were available (starting from 2003 at the earliest). Conclusions Policies to reduce or abolish mechanical restraint do not appear to be effecting change. It is improbable that the variation in restraint within the four examined Pacific Rim countries is accountable for by psychopathology. Greater efforts at reporting, monitoring and carrying out interventions to achieve the stated aim of reducing restraint are urgently needed.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Wallis ◽  
Anna Powles

Abstract One of President Joseph Biden's foreign policy priorities is to ‘renew’ and ‘strengthen’ the United States' alliances, as they were perceived to have been ‘undermined’ during the Trump administration, which regularly expressed concern that allies were free-riding on the United States' military capability. Yet the broad range of threats states face in the contemporary context suggests that security assistance from allies no longer only—or even primarily—comes in the form of military capability. We consider whether there is a need to rethink understandings of how alliance relationships are managed, particularly how the goals—or strategic burdens—of alliances are understood, how allies contribute to those burdens, and how influence is exercised within alliances. We do this by analysing how the United States–Australia and Australia–New Zealand alliances operate in the Pacific islands. Our focus on the Pacific islands reflects the United States' perception that the region plays a ‘critical’ role in helping to ‘preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific region’. We conclude that these understandings need to be rethought, particularly in the Pacific islands, where meeting non-traditional security challenges such as economic, social and environmental issues, is important to advancing the United States, Australia and New Zealand's shared strategic goal of remaining the region's primary security partners and ensuring that no power hostile to their interests establishes a strategic foothold.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Sinn

This chapter takes a broad look at the Pacific Ocean in relation to Chinese migration. As trade, consumption and capital flows followed migrants, powerful networks were woven and sustained; in time, the networks fanned across the Pacific from British Columbia along the West Coast of the United States to New Zealand and Australia. The overlapping personal, family, financial and commercial interests of Chinese in California and those in Hong Kong, which provide the focus of this study, energized the connections and kept the Pacific busy and dynamic while shaping the development of regions far beyond its shores. The ocean turned into a highway for Chinese seeking Gold Mountain, marking a new era in the history of South China, California, and the Pacific Ocean itself.


1954 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-613

On September 8, 1954, representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, France, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand signed the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, a protocol designating the areas to which the treaty was to apply, and the Pacific Charter, a declaration setting forth the aims of the eight countries in southeast Asia and the southwest Pacific. Negotiations leading up to the actual signature of the treaty had been underway throughout the summer of 1954 and had culminated in an eight-power conference in Manila which opened on September 6.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-370
Author(s):  
Precious McKenzie Stearns

Nineteenth-century male European travel writers sometimes romanticize their destinations and dream they have arrived in untouched lands. The Hawaii Isabella Bird visited, however, was not an idyllic land, forgotten by time. Early in the nineteenth century, steamships crossed the Pacific, carrying goods and people from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Japan. The trade in sandalwood and fur brought many foreign steamships into Hawaii (Kuykendall 15). It was not uncommon for American missionaries to arrive in Hawaii via whaling ships that stopped in Hawaii (Kuykendall 16, 41). Hawaii, with its position between mainland America and Asia, was a valuable and strategic piece of property. Isabella Bird Bishop's 1875 travel memoir The Hawaiian Archipelago: Six months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands comments on the political situation the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) faced in the nineteenth century.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Paton

AbstractFrom the perspective of studying natural hazards, the peace and tranquillity that might be expected from a literal translation of its name does not always capture the reality of life for communities on the Pacific Rim. This reality is more readily discerned in its alter ego: the Ring of Fire. The latter leaves one in less doubt as to the hazardous circumstances likely to prevail in this region. In addition to the hazards posed by the numerous volcanoes that resulted in the ‘Ring of Fire’ appellation, communities situated around the Pacific Rim also have to contend with earthquakes, tsunami, storms, cyclones/typhoons, flood and bushfire. To this list of acute events can be added hazards of a chronic nature such as salinity, environmental degradation and sea-level rise that represent growing threats to many Pacific Rim countries. The region also faces increased risk from health-related hazards. Sydney, for example, has been identified as a pandemic hotspot as a result of it being a hub linking the airways of Asia and the United States.


1954 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-400

The ANZUS Council held its second meeting in Washington, D.C., on September 9 and 10, 1953. While the first meeting of the Council had been devoted largely to organizational matters, the second meeting provided an opportunity for the foreign ministers of Australia, New Zealand and the United States to review the developments of the past year and to discuss common problems in the Pacific area. Prior to the opening of the meeting, there had been speculation in the press about the possibility of providing some form of associate membership in ANZUS for other countries — particularly the United Kingdom – and other international organizations. The United Kingdom was reportedly dissatisfied with its exclusion from the organization; Prime Minister Churchill had been quoted as telling the House of Commons on June 17 that he “did not like the Anzus Pact at all” and that he hoped that “perhaps larger and wider arrangements could be made which would be more satisfactory than those now in force”. According to the communique issued at the close of the meeting, however, the ministers “unanimously concluded … that to attempt to enlarge its membership would not contribute directly and materially” to the strengthening and defense of the ANZUS area. The communique pointed out that ANZUS was one of a number of arrangements for the furtherance of the security of the nations of the area; specifically the communique mentioned the mutual security pacts between the United States and the Philippines and Japan, United States defense understandings with the government of China on Formosa and the relationship of Australia and New Zealand with the other Commonwealth nations. Together, the communique noted, these arrangements ‘constitute … a solemn warning to any potential aggressor and represent the growing foundation for lasting peace in the Pacific”.


1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 641-643
Author(s):  
Jeffrey R. James

ABSTRACT Mobil's oil spill capability assessment program is used to determine improvements needed in oil spill prevention and response in Mobil's worldwide terminals, blend plants, and offshore facilities. The rationale for this program and its development, including the protocol and methodology used during the assessments, are presented here. The assessment process includes two to five days to conduct the survey, depending on the size of the facility, and three to five days of preparation and follow-up work. A detailed checklist, personnel interviews, records review, and walk-around surveys of the facility and its equipment and local cooperatives are used in conducting an assessment. To date, 163 assessments have been completed—the majority outside the United States, with most, 85, conducted in Asia and the Pacific Rim. The process of conducting an assessment and the general types of findings and recommendations is discussed. Recommendations are divided into five categories: facility, equipment, procedures, training, and other (including issues, such as local cooperatives and contractors, environmental sensitivity, and national contingency plans).


2019 ◽  
pp. 103-112
Author(s):  
David O. McKay

McKay and Cannon’s unanticipated repose in the United States was bittersweet; the surprise of seeing loved ones momentarily alleviated their homesickness, yet both knew more than eight months would pass before they would reunite with their families. After returning to San Francisco, they resumed their journey to the South Pacific. They arrived in Papeete, French Polynesia, on April 9, 1921, for their tour of the Tahitian Mission, which included several islands across the Pacific. McKay and Cannon’s stay in Tahiti was brief; they spent only three days traveling through Papeete and Rarotonga before heading onward to New Zealand. The archipelago had a profound impact on McKay, who observed firsthand the challenges of missionary work, costly transportation, and the severity of the weather.


1997 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 242-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Lee McKay

The scope of this paper is limited to an overview of mutilingualism in the U.S. from 1980 to the present. During this period, discussions of language diversity in the U.S. have been largely dominated by an effort to exert the hegemony of English. This effort has been brought on by changes in the demographic makeup of the U.S. population and supported by a commonly held belief that the economic strength of the U.S. in the international sphere is declining. A dramatic increase in the number of immigrants from Central and South America and the Pacific Rim, coupled with increasing economic competition from industrialized European and Asian nations, has resulted in widespread support for the exclusive use of English in the U.S. This emphasis on English is seen as a way to minimize the threat of the “foreign” influences that are believed to be undermining both the internal unity of the U.S., and its economic world dominance. Whereas nativism is nothing new in the U.S., its current intensity has been fueled by global aspects of migration and economic trade.


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