This chapter will discuss the process of positive ageing, the life course, and the changing cultural norms of older people within contemporary society. The chapter will assist nurses to consider and understand how ageism and subsequent stigma and discrimination can impact on the well-being of the older person and their family/loved ones. The multiple losses and associated mental health problems will also be presented. The specific approaches to nursing care required to support human connectedness with older people will also be discussed. Common mental health problems, associated risk factors and considerations for treatment embedded within a recovery approach are explained. The chapter concludes with future issues for this area of specialty nursing practice.

This chapter introduces the intersections between mental health care and drug and alcohol care. It addresses the implications for holistic health care needs related to dual drug and alcohol use, and concurrent mental health conditions. It tells the contemporary, real-life story of a person who developed an episode of psychosis following consumption of premixed alcohol and caffeine drinks. The chapter also describes change models applied to substance use and recovery, such as motivational interviewing and stages of change readiness. Both common and less common drugs and their misuse affect the physical, social, cognitive and mental health dimensions of people with mental health conditions. Reflective exercises guide readers to consider how they will be able to promote mental health and well-being and minimise drug-related harm to individuals and communities in a practice context.

In this chapter a brief synopsis is provided of the terminology of learning disability (LD), intellectual (ID) and developmental disability (DD). Determinants of physical and mental well-being and associated comorbidities for people living with IDD are explained. Students are enabled to recognise, facilitate and optimise an individual’s rights, identity, autonomy, and self-determination in any community or mental health setting.Deinstitutionalisation was informed by philosophical approaches including normalisation (Wolfensberger, 1972; Nirje, 1969), social role valorisation (Wolfensberger, 1983) and the social model of disability (Oliver, 2013; Race et al., 2005). These approaches inform mental health assessment and responsiveness through reasonable adjustments or accommodations (Heslop et al., 2019). Within Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, these philosophies are exemplified through the principles embedded within EGL (Enabling Good Lives) and the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) respectively and are linked to responsibilities under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006) when working with those in mental distress.

Carbonate chemistry is a central component of the chemical perspective of oceanography, primarily because it controls the acidity of seawater and governs the global carbon cycle. Within the mix of acids and bases in the Earth-surface environment, the carbonate system is the primary buffer for the acidity of seawater, which means that the carbonate system prevents seawater acidity from changing rapidly or by large amounts. Ocean acidity in turn determines the reactivity of chemical compounds and solids. The dissolution of the most prevalent authigenic mineral in the environment, CaCO3, is a major source for dissolved carbon to the ocean over long timescales (Chapter 2), and its formation is a major sink. And finally, the carbonate system of the ocean exerts a dominant control over the pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and determines the rate at which the ocean absorbs anthropogenic CO2, both of which play a primary role in regulating the temperature of the planet.

There are many ways of being Māori. Ethnicity in New Zealand has now moved to a more contemporary approach of self-identification that assumes ethnicity is not static and predetermined. This means that any combination of physical features, cultural beliefs and ways of living can be found in people who self-identify as Māori. For Māori, health and culture are intricately linked, so there are vital aspects of te ao Māori (the Māori worldview) that must be understood in relation to their mental health experiences in order to provide safe and effective care. In this chapter we discuss how practitioners from all cultural backgrounds can engage with tangata whaiora and whānau in mental health and addiction settings. It will be helpful for people practising in the New Zealand context, as well as those who encounter people of Māori descent in Australia or elsewhere. It will assist practitioners to consider how institutional racism might influence their ability to care for Māori, and will encourage the exploration of personal cultural beliefs to transcend this.

While the health systems in Australia, New Zealand and other developed countries are regarded as some of the finest in the world, there is an ever-present need to ensure flexibility regarding cultural competence and responsiveness and cultural inclusivity across a range of practice settings. If current rates of immigration to Australia continue to grow, it is estimated that by 2050 approximately one-third of Australia’s population will be overseas-born (Cully and Pejozki, 2012).This chapter examines the mental health needs of people from refugee and immigrant backgrounds, with emphasis given to asylum seekers. Mental health issues that may affect these populations are explored, as is engagement between people of refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds and mainstream mental health services. This chapter seeks to deepen and broaden readers’ understanding of the effects of trauma among people of refugee background, and links this to strategies that might be used by mainstream mental health practitioners and services in response.

This chapter outlines a developmental orientation to understanding the mental health of children and young people. It examines the implications for mental health in children and young people in relation to the environment, nature and nurture, and brain development in the context of vulnerability or risk, and resilience or protection. The chapter explores mental health promotion for young people, drawing from two real stories about bullying and altered eating patterns, including anorexia nervosa and bulimia, which include experiences of depression, anxiety and psychosis. Emphasis is given to prevention, awareness and early intervention for mental illness, including social media and e-mental health interventions for young people in relation to non-suicidal self-injury or suicide crisis, and popular public health initiatives to reduce suicide, such as R U OK? Day, headspace and other online services.

Suicide is a significant national and international public health issue. Each year an estimated 3300 Australians and approximately 650 New Zealanders die by suicide. While suicide is a behaviour not an illness, it can occur in the absence of mental illness. The determinants and precipitants of mental illness and suicide are interrelated and frequently associated with one another. The aim of this chapter is to discuss and describe demographic characteristics of suicide, key definitions and drivers of suicide, suicide risk factors, plus lived experience of suicide and suicide related harms through first person accounts. As with other forms of mental distress, people in suicide and self-harm crisis can be helped through compassionate and person-centred approaches.

This book describes a chemical perspective on the science of oceanography. The goal is to understand the mechanisms that control the distributions of chemical compounds in the sea. The “chemical perspective” uses measured chemical distributions to infer oceanic biological, physical, chemical, and geological processes. This method has enormous information potential because of the variety of chemical compounds and the diversity of their chemical behaviors and distributions. It is complicated by the requirement that one must understand something about the reactions and timescales that control chemical distributions. Chemical concentrations in the sea “remember” the mechanisms that shape them over their whole oceanic lifetime. The timescales of important mechanisms range from seconds or less for very rapid photochemical reactions to more than 100 million years for the mineral forming reactions that control relatively unreactive elements in seawater. The great range in timescales is associated with an equally large range in space scales: from chemical fluxes associated with individual microorganisms to globally distributed processes like river inflow and hydrothermal circulation.

Biological, physical, and geological processes all impact the distribution of isotopes within the ocean environment, making analyses of isotopic compositions a mainstay of the chemical perspective of oceanography. Interpretating these isotopic distributions has helped make chemical oceanography a strongly interdisciplinary science. Small contrasts in stable isotope compositions carry information for discriminating sources of an element, such as the fraction of atmospheric CO2 that has originated from fossil fuel combustion, and evaluating the rates of processes like photosynthesis and respiration. Stable isotope signatures can persist over geologic time, even through severe changes in temperature and chemical composition, allowing isotopic distributions within fossils to provide information about the temperatures and partitioning of elements among different reservoirs in ancient environments.

Suicide is a significant national and international public health issue. Each year an estimated 3300 Australians and approximately 650 New Zealanders die by suicide. While suicide is a behaviour not an illness, it can occur in the absence of mental illness. The determinants and precipitants of mental illness and suicide are interrelated and frequently associated with one another. The aim of this chapter is to discuss and describe demographic characteristics of suicide, key definitions and drivers of suicide, suicide risk factors, plus lived experience of suicide and suicide related harms through first person accounts. As with other forms of mental distress, people in suicide and self-harm crisis can be helped through compassionate and person-centred approaches.

Regardless of the setting of mental health care, an interprofessional or multidisciplinary approach is a sound response to the multifaceted problems faced by people with mental health problems. Through collaboration with consumers, the needs of the person experiencing mental health problems can be comprehensively met.An interprofessional workforce involves a range of professions and other staff with different educational backgrounds. These are broadening, increasingly, from the traditional professions employed in mental health services – medical, nursing, social work, psychology and occupational therapy – to embrace other workers with skills to contribute. Some of these groups are subject to regulation through their professional bodies and national regulatory authorities. Other groups working with the mental health workforce are not subject to such authority or regulation. This has supported the development of standards for the mental health workforce in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, in order to provide uniform and consistent guidelines to govern everyone working with people experiencing mental health problems.