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, August 13th, 2021 | Nick Wilson | 2 Comments
Dr Leah Grout, Dr Jennifer Summers, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick Wilson*
Australia has generally succeeded in eliminating community transmission of the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2, but the Greater Sydney region is currently facing a large COVID-19 outbreak, driven by the Delta variant. The New South Wales Government is struggling to control the outbreak and the grim situation holds a number of lessons for NZ.
Thursday, August 12th, 2021 | carra86p | No Comments
Richard Edwards, Louise Marsh, Lindsay Robertson, Frederieke Petrović-van der Deen, Nick Wilson, Janet Hoek*
In this blog we discuss the arguments for and against one of the proposals included in the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan Discussion Document that the sale of smoked tobacco products could be restricted solely to community pharmacies after the number of retail outlets selling these products are greatly reduced, and sales are no longer allowed in dairies, convenience stores, petrol stations and supermarkets.
Tuesday, August 10th, 2021 | tedla55p | No Comments
Janet Hoek, Nick Wilson, Richard Edwards, Andrew Waa*
From tomorrow (11 August 2021), Aotearoa New Zealand’s Smoke-free Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Act 2020 will restrict the e-liquid flavours available at generic retail outlets, such as convenience stores. This measure responded to sustained concerns about the rising prevalence of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) use among young people, many of whom find e-liquid flavours very appealing. At the same time, some argue that allowing all retail outlets to sell diverse flavours could foster switching from smoking to ENDS use and accelerate progress towards the Smokefree 2025 goal. In this blog, we discuss flavour restrictions and their potential impact on people who smoke and those who neither smoke nor use vaping products.
Friday, July 30th, 2021 | carra86p | No Comments
Dr Leah Grout, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael Baker *
The 2020 Olympic Games were originally postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The delayed event has now opened, with the opening ceremonies held on 23 July 2021 and competitions scheduled to take place through 9 August 2021. In this blog we look at the situation in Japan, as compared to NZ, and discuss lessons for nations considering hosting large events with international attendees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friday, July 23rd, 2021 | carra86p | 2 Comments
Dr Matt Boyd, Syndicated from Adapt Research
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, everybody now knows that:
The fact that all these warnings were known, yet action was scant, remains difficult to comprehend. Although somewhat perversely, we even knew we would ignore the warnings. Psychological research has shown that these kinds of rare but devastating events are exactly the ones humans tend to overlook. As if to drive this point home, I noted in the news today that a resident of Westport (a New Zealand town flooded by a ‘1 in 100 year event’) even stated that he knew the area had flooded, but thought “the last one was it”.