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.
Wednesday, May 12th, 2021 | tedla55p | 1 Comment
Dr Leah Grout, Ameera Katar, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Nick Wilson (*Author details)
Aotearoa NZ and Australian states have successfully eliminated community transmission of COVID-19, albeit with occasional outbreaks from imported cases. Both countries have primarily used hotel-based quarantine for returning travellers, but still do not have optimal border control. In this blog we consider potential lessons from Australia’s 17 quarantine systems failures for NZ.
Monday, May 10th, 2021 | carra86p | No Comments
Lindsay Robertson, Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, George Thomson, Louise Marsh (*Author details)
The NZ Government’s Discussion Document outlines an Action Plan for the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal and proposes substantially reducing the number of retailers selling tobacco. In this blog, we examine arguments that interest groups have advanced to oppose these proposals and review the evidence relating to those claims. We find that predictions of dire economic consequences for small retailers are not consistent with independent research evidence and may serve to advance tobacco companies’ interests.
Thursday, May 6th, 2021 | carra86p | No Comments
Lindsay Robertson, Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, Frederieke Petrović-van der Deen, George Thomson, Louise Marsh (*Author details)
The NZ Government has published a Discussion Document outlining an Action Plan for the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal. This blog is one of a series examining key aspects of the plan to help inform the debate and submissions. Here we examine the proposals to reduce the retail availability of tobacco products and find these have a good evidence base. Along with additional measures outlined in the proposals, reducing tobacco retail availability could allow NZ to realise the large health gains, cost-savings, and health equity-benefits of reaching the Smokefree goal. In a separate blog that will be published soon, we examine arguments opposing proposals to reduce tobacco availability, and review the evidence on which these arguments draw.
Monday, May 3rd, 2021 | tedla55p | 2 Comments
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Jennifer Summers, Dr Leah Grout, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig
The high quality communication by the NZ Government for much of the COVID-19 pandemic has been remarked on. But given that the pandemic situation is very far from over, in this blog we consider five areas in which potential improvements could be made. Potentially the most important of these would be to further depoliticise the COVID-19 response.