What could we do, and what should we not do, to improve public health? This Blog has postings from public health experts on issues such as efficiency, equity, interventions, politics, cost effectiveness and much more.
Tuesday, November 25th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Professor Alistair Woodward, Associate Professor Nick Wilson
What does Victoria University have in common with Stanford, the Australian National University and the British Medical Association? They have all decided in the last few months to sell off their interests in fossil fuel companies. In this blog post we briefly explore the arguments around such disinvestment from a public health perspective.
Thursday, November 20th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | 3 Comments
Associate Professor Nick Wilson, Professor Richard Edwards, Associate Professor George Thomson, Frederieke S van der Deen, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, Professor Tony Blakely
Previously published NZ-based modelling work has explored business-as-usual trends in smoking prevalence, and the potential roles of interventions such as higher regular tobacco tax increases in achieving the NZ Government’s Smokefree Nation 2025 Goal. As best we can model, 10% per annum increases in tobacco tax alone will not be able to achieve the 2025 Goal. In this blog post we outline our favoured package to achieve the 2025 Goal which is ongoing increases in tobacco taxes, intensification of existing evidence-based tobacco control activities and implementation of a major new ‘endgame’ strategy (such as denicotinisation). This package, especially a new endgame strategy, faces political and implementation hurdles that need research, policy analysis and advocacy to overcome.
Friday, November 14th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | 3 Comments
Associate Professor Nick Wilson, Professor Tony Blakely, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, Dr Nisha Nair
We recently did a blog post on dietary salt and health, particularly with regard to a new large prospective study (the PURE Study). This facilitated useful feedback from others, along with input from colleagues in a journal club we ran. Based on these discussions, we now have stronger concerns about remaining reverse causation in the PURE Study (and persisting concerns regarding other aspects). Here we update some of our thinking and conclude that the totality of the available evidence is sufficient for health authorities to continue taking a range of evidence-based actions to reduce the hazard of high salt intakes. Again however we invite critical comment on our assessment and suggestions on where to from here.
Monday, November 10th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment
Professor Janet Hoek and Emeritus Professor Philip Gendall
Given plain packaging of tobacco products will likely increase the tension many smokers experience, simple measures that enhance smokers’ access to cessation support, and affirm their decision to try and quit, could increase the number and success of quit attempts. This blog post details a just published study on this topic. It also suggests that New Zealand policy makers should ensure plain packaging regulations improve the current presentation of Quitline information and provide smokers with support to manage the dissonance plain packaging is likely to elicit.
Thursday, November 6th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment
Sally Mackay (Researcher and PhD Candidate, Auckland University)
There is a perception that healthy food costs more – but does it really? It all depends on how you measure the cost. This blog post looks at some of the different metrics and suggests that we need to consider several of them to get a better understanding of this important issue.