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Postal questionnaires are increasingly being used to gather health and research information. Various techniques have been shown to increase the response rate. This study used several of these techniques and also benefited from close working with general practitioners and their practices. Cross‐checking address and age against practice records reduced the number of wasted invitations to participants. The GP signature on the letter personally inviting patients to participate contributed to a response rate of 83%. Researchers carrying out postal questionnaire studies will benefit from engaging with primary care.

Various achievements of Australia in the field of applied ethics from the 1980s to 2016 are outlined. The review covers academic scholarship, research and teaching; the ethics of business and actions to build ethics into the structures of enterprises. This follows the 3-fold categorization developed by De George (2012). A brief account of the formation and history of the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics is included, as is a selection of scandals involving Australian organisations. Australia is shown to have made a significant contribution to the academic discipline of applied ethics and to have been aware of its position, distant from the English-speaking West and in the midst of nations of the global south.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the role of community participation in reducing anxiety and trauma in communities during two New Zealand earthquakes: the 1987 Edgecumbe and 2003 Te Anau events and explore the effectiveness of various approaches in providing information, reducing stress, and facilitating a recovery process.

The principle methods of data collection were semi‐structured interviews were undertaken between October 2006 and March 2007 with key agencies and individuals involved in the response and comprehensive analysis of papers, reports and articles in newspapers. The research was undertaken prior to the 4 September 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, and therefore community recovery from these events are not discussed in this paper.

Effective survival and recovery from disasters depends not just on people's abilities to cope with the physical impacts of the event, but also on how the societal environment complements and supports the complex and protracted processes of community recovery. Central to recovery is how society organises, mobilises and coordinates the diverse range of organizational and professional resources that can be called upon to assist recovery.

The paper offers insight into the effectiveness and benefit of incorporating of community participation in reducing anxiety and trauma in communities during earthquakes.