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Author Archives: TONY BLAKELY

About TONY BLAKELY

I am an epidemiologist and public health researcher. My research activities span mortality studies, health inequalities, healthy eating, tobacco and cancer control. I teach advanced epidemiology methods. I currently direct the Burden of Disease Epidemiology, Equity and Cost effectiveness programme (BODE3) where we are modelling the health impact, cost and cost effectiveness of preventive and cancer control interventions.

Market deregulation → ↑ fast food consumption → ↑ obesity. Clever international study that includes NZ data

Wednesday, February 5th, 2014 | TONY BLAKELY | No Comments

Professor Tony Blakely.

A clever study just published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization has analyzed how changes in fast food transactions per capita within 25 high-income countries was associated with changes in body mass index (BMI).  The change-change analysis is important, as it addresses confounding bias that plagues many studies.  The study found that an increase of 10 fast food purchases per person per year is associated with increases in BMI by 0.33 units (or 1 kg for an average height person).  Of note, the increase of 10 fast food purchases per person per year was exactly that observed for NZ during the 1999 to 2008 period covered by this study. Continue reading →

Thoughts on NZ Adopting an Aussie Community Health Programme … and Forthcoming Nutrition Policy Events

Tuesday, February 4th, 2014 | TONY BLAKELY | 2 Comments

Professor Tony Blakely and Associate Professor Nick Wilson

Late last year Health Minister Tony Ryall visited Victoria, Australia, to examine their “Healthy Together Victoria” programme. This week, the Prime Minister announced that NZ will adopt this programme, and it will be known as “Healthy Families New Zealand”. This blog post gives a high level overview of this initiative and anticipates a series of four forthcoming blog posts here at Public Health Expert.

The Australian programme has healthy nutrition as a large focus, but it also extends to include alcohol, physical activity and smoking. Actually, large chunks of it sound like the old Health Eating – Healthy Action programme.

“The Healthy Together Victoria” programme looks a bit like old “Healthy Eating – Healthy Action” programme in New Zealand.

“The Healthy Together Victoria” programme looks a bit like old “Healthy Eating – Healthy Action” programme in New Zealand.

HEHA

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading →

A fat week – debates about saturated fat that will not go away

Tuesday, October 29th, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 7 Comments

Professor Tony Blakely

I was in Brisbane this week, teaching epidemiological methods to improve the quality and causal inference of our research – more of that below.  During the week, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) broadcast a documentary supposedly debunking the science on the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease.

One of the criticisms leveled on the programme went right back to original research by Ancel Keys in the Seven Countries studies post World War II showing a strong correlation between the rates of cardiovascular death in countries with saturated fat intake.  The criticism?  When you put more than just the seven studies on a graph, the correlation looks weaker.  Fair enough, as such ‘ecologic’ studies are prone to error – but of course they are also prone to missing important associations as well, such as the association of saturated fat with heart disease.  Continue reading →

What will it take to get to under 5% smoking prevalence 2025? Lots of cessation.

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 3 Comments

Professor Tony Blakely

Professor Tony Blakely and Assoc Professor Nick Wilson

The New Zealand Government has a goal of a Smokefree Nation by 2025, often interpreted as a smoking prevalence of less than 5% by 2025.    This should be a major focus of the New Zealand contingent at the Smokefree Oceania Conference in Auckland next week.  But what would it take in the way of reductions in uptake (or initiation), and/or increases in cessation rates, to achieve this goal?

We try to answer this question in a paper just published in the international journal Tobacco Control, led by Tak Ikeda and a presentation that he will also give at the conference next week.  The answer differs by ethnicity.  Essentially, 10% of non-Māori smokers need to quit each year to achieve 5% smoking prevalence by 2025 for non-Māori.  And 20% for Māori.  We concluded that changes in initiation rates are not as important as changes in cessation rates to achieve the 2025 goal.

Continue reading →

Food taxes and subsidies will probably protect health & reduce inequalities – but the devil is in the detail

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 2 Comments

Professors Tony Blakely, Cliona Ni Mhurchu and Nick Wilson

Professor Cliona Ni Mhurchu

Research teams we lead have published two papers in the last few weeks on food taxes and subsidies – both of which depend on what are called price elasticities.  Timely, in light of the launch last week of Appetite for Destruction that is focusing public attention on our food environment, including taxes and subsidies on food. Continue reading →