air pollution – Public Health Expert, University of Otago, New Zealand

Air pollution in Aotearoa NZ: Five key ways to reduce the massive health and social costs

Thursday, July 21st, 2022 | cooju60p | 1 Comment

Dr John Kerr, Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Simon Hales*

Kerr J, Wilson N, Hales S. Air pollution in Aotearoa NZ: Five key ways to reduce the massive health and social costs. Public Health Expert Blog. 21 July 2022. https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/pubhealthexpert/air-pollution-in-aotearoa-nz-five-key-ways-to-reduce-the-massive-health-and-social-costs/

A new study has estimated the surprisingly high level of harm from air pollution. This annual harm includes the premature deaths of more than 3300 adult New Zealanders and more than 13,100 hospital admissions for respiratory illness and heart disease. The annual social costs resulting from this pollution was estimated at $15.6 billion. Fortunately there are many ways to reduce air pollution and we discuss five key ones in this blog. These range from free public transport to reform of the electricity market to lower costs to citizens. Continue reading →

Divesting from fossil fuels – is this good for public health?

Tuesday, November 25th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | No Comments

Professor Alistair Woodward, Associate Professor Nick Wilson

What does Victoria University have in common with Stanford, the Australian National University and the British Medical Association? They have all decided in the last few months to sell off their interests in fossil fuel companies. In this blog post we briefly explore the arguments around such disinvestment from a public health perspective.

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NZ compares well with other OECD countries in health & other areas: But scope for improvements

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.

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Notes about PHE blog:

· Peer review process: Where a blog post has a single author, then the content is always peer-reviewed by at least one senior academic in public health. This is to help ensure that statements have a reasonable basis in terms of scientific plausibility and to ensure that uncertainty is appropriately acknowledged where statements have speculative aspects. For multi-authored blogs there can also be additional peer-review. Of note is that the PHE blog posts are often well-referenced so that readers can readily check the background science and arguments.

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Air pollution in Aotearoa NZ: Five key ways to reduce the massive health and social costs

Divesting from fossil fuels – is this good for public health?

NZ compares well with other OECD countries in health & other areas: But scope for improvements

Having trouble posting comments?

Notes about PHE blog: