Marina's Magellan Projects

Today I spoke with a Project Officer from the Australian Council on Smoking & Health (ACOSH) named Dora Oliva. ACOSH works closely with the Heart Foundation, as Maurice Swanson, the CEO of the Heart Foundation, is also the President of ACOSH. Dora spent about an hour and a half with me explaining what ACOSH does, as well as showing me a good bit of resources that they have developed and advertised. Their goal is to "Significantly reduce the impact of the health consequences of smoking." They just developed 7 actions for the government to follow to ensure that tobacco control remains a priority for the WA state government in order to achieve a Tobacco free Western Australia by 2025. As my Magellan is based on tobacco control, a main focus of mine is second-hand smoke and smoke-free environments and campuses, Dora gave me multiple resources on how University smoke-free policies are developed. They make it very easy for the average person to understand, which i...

Well, after my 4 hour plane trip turned into a 6 hour plane trip from Sydney to Perth last night, I have made it to the other side of the country. I will be spending this week at the Heart Foundation of Australia at the Perth branch, and today was my first day. Originally, I made an enquiry to the Australian Ministry for Health about who I could talk to about tobacco control in Australia. They put me in contact with Dr. Freeman as well as Mr. Maurice Swanson who is the Chief Executive here at the Heart Foundation. He has bent over backwards to make sure my stay in Perth is the most beneficial it possibly can be. My only request from him was an hour of his time for an interview, but instead, he set me up with an entire desk and computer to work from for the whole week, as well as having each one of his staff members who deal with tobacco control talk to me about what they do for multiple hours each day. He even greeted me at the front desk with a Flat White and escorted me to my desk! T...

On my last day in Sydney, before I head to Perth & Cairns, there is a marathon which starts in Sydney CBD and ends at Bondi beach, which closed a lot of main roads. What I thought was funny is that at the same time, there is a Chocolate festival occurring in Circular Quay and the Rocks, which are located very close to the CBD of Sydney and all of the marathon runners. I, clearly, did not participate in the marathon, but I did take part in the Chocolate festival as a willing participant. There must have been well over 100 booths, all with a different dessert or food option. I have never seen anything like it. It was an amazing way to end my stay in Sydney, sitting across the Quay from the Opera House drinking a "Freakshake" and eating chocolate dipped mangoes. One thing I have noticed about Sydney & its suburbs, is that if there is any kind of a large public event going on, nobody smokes anywhere near it, even if it is outside. This is just really great to see mainly b...

The other beach area in the Sydney area is called Manly Beach, and it can be easily accessed by a 30 min ferry ride across the Harbour. I decided to go here to see the similarities between Bondi Beach and Manly, as Bondi is a smoke-free suburb. I was really pleased to not see one smoker all day here in Manly, which could really just be lucky for me, but I am choosing to believe it is because of the environment of the town. "The Corso" which was the main street from Manly Wharf down to the beach, was packed with all of the popular surf shops, souvenir shops, and cafes. Not one tobacconist or convenience store in sight. It is definitely a healthier area, the beaches and ocean are perfect for swimming and surfing, there are many hikes in the area, and I also saw a lot of people riding their biked along the beach as well. So usually, if it is a healthier area, there is less smoking occurring because those two just don't exist together. Unfortunately, I did find a few empty pa...

Today, August 8th, I had my meeting with one of New South Wales' leading tobacco control researchers. Her name is Dr. Becky Freeman, and I am extremely grateful that I had the chance to speak with her about her research, as it is very prevalent in this day and age. Her PhD focused on how Facebook and YouTube affect tobacco control, as it was stated when social media was just starting to take off. She is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney at the School of Public Health, which is where I met her. The building she is located in was called the "Charles Perkins Centre for Eating and Dieting Disorders," which is fairly new, and the research labs located here were state of the art. There is a picture of the building under the "Photos" tab. I am also going to attach the Interview Q&A under the "Interviews" page, because the responses she had for my questions are far too long and important to be summed up in a blog post. What she really...

My laptop hasn't been able to connect to wifi since Wednesday, which is why I posted 5 days of blogs all together at once. I have it all figured out now, and posts should be daily from here!

Saturday and Sunday I spent venturing outside of Central Sydney to Glebe, Mosman, and Olympic Park, which was recognized as a suburb of Sydney after the Games were over in 2000. It was nice to get out of the highly concentrated tourist areas, because you really don't get the chance to speak to many Australians. Glebe, to me, was a typical "hippie-type" town. They had an outdoor market, and they call the main road "eat street" because it is packed with really trendy and cool small bars, cafes and restaurants. It is right in the middle of two universities, meaning the area caters to a much younger crowd. Maybe this is why I saw less smoking, or maybe I just came on a good day, but I am hoping it is because University-aged students are smarter about what they put into their bodies. Sydney Olympic Park, honestly, has nothing to do with my Magellan, but I could not pass up the opportunity to see it. The Sydney 2000 Games, 17 years ago, were called by many people ...