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, November 15th, 2013 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment
Assoc Prof Nick Wilson and Dr Nisha Nair
NZ compares favourably with other OECD countries in many ways – according to the just released results of the OECD’s “Better Life Index”. This blog considers some of the details and also various ways we could make further improvements in health, safety and the environment.
Monday, October 21st, 2013 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment
Associate Professor Nick Wilson
New Zealand still has a problem with the use of mobile phones while driving, even though a recent law may have helped somewhat. This blog discusses recent research and suggest ways to make further progress on reducing this persisting hazard.
Monday, October 14th, 2013 | Kate Sloane | 2 Comments
Dr Ben Gray, General Practitioner, Primary Health Care & General Practice Department, University of Otago, Wellington
Dr Ben Gray
Advance Care Planning (or ACP) is the process of thinking about, talking about and planning for future health care and end of life care. In its delivery, this seems a very clinically focussed, individual health care process, so what relevance has it got for Public Health?
Actually a lot. We know that we spend around seven times more in the last year of life than the average spent in all other years of a patient’s life (2). This problem will be exacerbated as the baby boomers die.
Friday, October 4th, 2013 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Associate Professors Nick Wilson & George Thomson
A just released Judicial Review has opened up the question of how “open areas” of buildings (where smoking is permitted in New Zealand) are determined in practice. In this blog post we consider the implications of this ruling and why it heightens the need for an expanded national law on smokefree areas.
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013 | Kate Sloane | No Comments
Stefanie Vandevijvere, PhD and Boyd Swinburn, MD
University of Auckland, School of Population Health
In keeping with the issues covered in this week’s new book “Appetite for Destruction“, we are calling for some smart food policies to create an ‘appetite for health’. In this blog, we discuss what a new network of university researchers and NGOs are developing to get us on the road to implementation of smart food policies in New Zealand and internationally.