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.
Friday, April 17th, 2015 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment
Professor Richard Edwards, Professor Robert Beaglehole and Stephanie Erick
The 16th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCToH) has just been held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In this blog post we describe some of the main themes and some thoughts about how these might relate to Smokefree 2025 in New Zealand. In summary, New Zealand can still learn a lot from other countries as we move to the adoption of a full range of state-of-the-art tobacco control policies.
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015 | Kate Sloane | 4 Comments
Associate Professor Nick Wilson, Dr Peter Gallagher
We have assembled a collection of 35 high quality movies as part of public health teaching for medical students. In this blog post we detail the movies and reflect on some of the aspects that make them both educational and entertaining.
Friday, March 6th, 2015 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Professor Tony Blakely, Dr Matt Soeberg and Associate Professor Diana Sarfati
Cancer survival estimates for 67 countries have recently been published for 10 cancer sites, in an exhaustive and thorough combined analysis (CONCORD-2). Never before has such a comparable set of survival estimates been available. And New Zealand does okay – not top of the list, but okay. We are usually worse than the country we love (or hate?) to compare ourselves with, Australia. Conversely, we are usually better than the UK – a wealthier country with presumably more healthcare resources at its disposable. This global study puts in context recent specific New Zealand-Australian comparisons – yes, New Zealand could do better but neither is it doing too badly.
Wednesday, February 18th, 2015 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Associate Professor Nick Wilson
This blog post looks at a recently published study of the lifespan of NZ soldiers who participated in the First World War. It then asks more broadly what is known about the longer term health outcomes for military personnel participating in war – and suggests that such issues need to be considered carefully by governments before participating in foreign military engagements.