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.
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.
Friday, April 30th, 2021 | tedla55p | 4 Comments
Richard Edwards, Janet Hoek, Nick Wilson, Chris Bullen *
The NZ Government has published a discussion document outlining an Action Plan for the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal and has invited submissions on its proposals. This blog is one of a series examining key aspects of the plan to help inform the debate and submissions. Here we examine the proposal to reduce the nicotine in smoked tobacco products to very low levels. We conclude this strategy is likely to have a profound impact on smoking prevalence and, if implemented as part of a comprehensive plan, gives a realistic prospect of achieving a Smokefree Aotearoa.
Friday, April 16th, 2021 | tedla55p | 1 Comment
Richard Edwards, Janet Hoek, Anaru Waa, George Thomson, Nick Wilson (author details*)
We congratulate the NZ Government on its proposed Action Plan for the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal. Here we examine the evidence for three key ideas outlined in the plan: permitting tobacco products to be sold in only a small number of stores; reducing the nicotine in tobacco products to very low levels; and restricting the legal sale of tobacco products to people born before a certain fixed year (the “smokefree generation” idea).
Thursday, April 8th, 2021 | tedla55p | 3 Comments
By Professor Tony Blakely, Dr Tim Wilson, Luke Thorburn and Professor Nathan Grills, University of Melbourne
A new web tool, COVID-19 Pandemic Trade-offs, allows people to weigh the costs and benefits of different policy responses as Australia rolls out vaccines and considers opening borders.
See here for an associated explanatory video. Article reproduced with permission from Pursuit
Thursday, March 18th, 2021 | tedla55p | No Comments
Nick Wilson, Matt Boyd, Osman D Mansoor, Louise Delany, Michael G Baker
With effective vaccines for COVID-19 comes the potential for disease eradication (elimination at the global level). Here we consider the advantages and the challenges, but ultimately suggest consideration of progressive expansion of “green zones” towards a target of COVID-19 eradication. Even if eradication is not achieved, establishing and maintaining “green zones” with no local spread will have many medium term benefits by liberalising travel between “green zone” countries (eg, between NZ and Australia).