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.
Thursday, August 22nd, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments
Prof John Potter**
Achieving healthier diets that are also sustainable is increasingly in the news. In this blog, I look at the case for reducing the amount of meat in hospital meals and gently remind our dietitian colleagues not to let their dietary advice get out of date.
Wednesday, July 17th, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments
Elinor Chisholm, Nevil Pierse, Cheryl Davies, Philippa Howden-Chapman
We know that poor housing conditions result in ill health for many New Zealanders, and we know which interventions are required to ensure good quality housing that supports health. Healthy Housing Initiatives intervene to improve the homes of kids who are hospitalised for illnesses that could be related to poor housing conditions. In this blog post, we draw on recently published research to gain insights about housing and health, and explore views about the effectiveness of these Ministry of Health-funded programmes.
Friday, June 14th, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments
Professor Janet Hoek and Emeritus Professor Philip Gendall
Annual consumption of cigarettes now exceeds five trillion, with around four trillion butts littered every year. These cigarette butts cause major environmental damage and impose significant clean-up costs on local authorities. Although tobacco companies have framed smokers as responsible for butt litter, recent debate has focused on the tobacco industry’s role in creating tobacco product waste (TPW) and its responsibility for managing this problem. We recently examined public perceptions of TPW in New Zealand and allocation of responsibility for creating and managing it.
Monday, April 8th, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Amanda Jones, A/Prof George Thomson
Canada has a number of progressive public policies which can influence health. In this blog we briefly look at 6 potential lessons for NZ in the domains of: (i) responding to climate change; (ii) supporting cycling; (iii) tobacco control; (iv) controls on food marketing directed at children; (v) healthy food guidelines; and (vi) cannabis law reform.
Monday, April 1st, 2019 | tedla55p | No Comments
Dr Cristina Cleghorn, Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Helen Eyles
There is a lot of focus on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) internationally, due to their role in tooth decay, obesity and diabetes [1-3], their lack of beneficial nutrients, and potential acceptability as an intervention target [4]. Our just published study has shown that an intervention to reduce the size of all single serve SSBs would probably be cost-effective in NZ [5]. In this Blog we elaborate on the issues and consider this intervention in the context of other interventions for addressing NZ’s obesogenic environment.