The Policy Response to Indigenous Petrol Sniffing - and How to Improve It

闻汽油是一种挥发性物质滥用的形式，发生在澳大利亚的一些土著社区，以及美国、加拿大和新西兰的一些土著社区。虽然这种做法仅限于少数年轻人，但长期的嗅探会对嗅探者的健康造成严重(有时是不可逆转的)伤害。它还加剧了家庭中的代际问题，并与不安全的性行为和财产犯罪联系在一起，给社区带来了与其流行程度不相称的问题。在整个20世纪80年代和90年代，联邦和州领地政府作出了许多尝试，以制定和实施预防和处理汽油嗅觉的协调政策。尽管其中一些举措为创新项目提供了短期资金，但它们并没有产生持续的循证政策，甚至没有积累资金决策所依据的知识。项目继续以临时方式提供资金；很少有项目得到评估，也没有证据表明评估结果能为正在进行的政策决策提供信息。这个项目的主要目的是确定为什么应该这样做，并确定可以合理预期的可行的变化，这些变化可以导致积累关于有效干预的知识，并制定可持续的、基于证据的政策和方案。该项目利用政策分析方法，审查了各国政府试图对土著汽油嗅探作出反应的若干案例研究。数据将通过审查文件来源和与关键线人的访谈收集。该项目的重点是政策制定过程，而不是汽油嗅探本身。这些发现将被用来提出建议，旨在提高政府更有效应对的能力，从而减少汽油嗅探造成的危害。

Petrol sniffing is a form of volatile substance misuse that occurs in some Aboriginal communities in Australia, as well as some Indigenous communities in the US, Canada and NZ. Although the practice is restricted to small numbers of young people, chronic sniffing leads to serious (and sometimes irreversible) harm to the health of sniffers. It also exacerbates inter-generational problems in families and, through its association with unsafe sex and property offences, creates problems for communities disproportionate to its prevalence. Throughout 1980s and 1990s, commonwealth and state-territory governments made a number of attempts to formulate and implement a coordinated policy response to the prevention and treatment of petrol sniffing. Although some of these initiatives generated short term funding for innovative programs, they have not given rise to sustained evidence-based policies, or even to an accumulation of knowledge upon which funding decisions might be based. Programs continue to be funded on an ad hoc basis; few are evaluated, and there is little evidence that findings from evaluations inform ongoing policy decision-making. The primary purpose of this project is to determine why this should be so, and to identify practicable changes that could reasonably be expected to lead both to the accumulation of knowledge about effective interventions, and to the formulation of sustainable, evidence-based policies and programs. The project utilises a policy analysis methodology to examine a number of case studies of attempts by various governments to respond to Indigenous petrol sniffing. Data will be collected from examination of documentary sources and interviews with key informants. The focus of the project is on the policy-making process, rather than on petrol sniffing itself. The findings will be used to make recommendations designed to improve the capacity of governments to respond more effectively, and thereby to reduce the harm caused by petrol sniffing.