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.
Thursday, August 25th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | 3 Comments
Dr Caroline Shaw, Dr Marie Russell
Figure 1 On-road cycle lane Wellington.
Photo credit: Jenny Ombler
Active transport is important for health and sustainability. But no one has previously looked systematically at how NZ cities support cycling and walking. Therefore, a new study has been performed and is now published online. This blog reports its main findings.
Monday, August 22nd, 2016 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment
Professor Richard Edwards
The hardening hypothesis suggests that as smoking prevalence declines, the remaining smokers will be the more addicted ones who are less likely to quit. But does the NZ evidence support this? This blog considers these issues and explores the potential implications for achieving NZ’s Smokefree 2025 goal.
Monday, July 18th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Professor Nick Wilson
The Government deserves congratulations for coming up with a Health Research Strategy. But the current Discussion Document needs a firmer strategic outlook with greater coherence. In this Perspective Blog a simple SWOT analysis is conducted and an alternative Vision Statement is proposed.
Monday, July 4th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | 7 Comments
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Coral Gartner, Prof Richard Edwards
This blog considers recent studies in which the biomarker levels in e-cigarette users (vapers) are compared to those from tobacco smokers. The results are highly variable but all suggest lower levels of risk to vapers relative to tobacco smokers. Yet as the situation with vaping is very dynamic (new products, changing ways people vape) and there is no evidence yet about long-term effects of e-cigarette use on health outcomes, a lot more future research will be needed to get a reasonable understanding of the relative harms.
Monday, June 13th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Giorgi Kvizhinadze, Dr Eamonn Deverall, Prof Tony Blakely
A just published modelling study by the BODE3 Team has reported that “home safety assessment and modification” (e.g., adding hand rails and removing tripping hazards in homes) appears to be a very cost-effective health sector intervention. But even more cost-effective was targeting this intervention to older people with previous injurious falls. In this blog we take a closer look at this intervention and consider what policy-makers, NGOs and citizens might wish to consider doing in response to the evidence.