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, 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.
Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 | Kate Sloane | 7 Comments
Prof Alistair Woodward, Auckland University
“It is too dangerous.” This is the reason given most commonly for not riding a bike on the road in New Zealand. In this blog, I summarise a paper we have just published quantifying the risk of cycling injury. We found it to be low compared to other activites that New Zealanders commonly engage in. For example, riding a bike to a rugby game is roughly 500 times safer than playing the game. I conclude by examining why cycling is so marginalised (the bike is shunted, literally, to the side of the road), and how this might be changed.
Source: New Zealand Transport Agency
Thursday, August 25th, 2016 | Kate Sloane | 3 Comments
Dr Caroline Shaw, Dr Marie Russell
Figure 1 On-road cycle lane Wellington.
Photo credit: Jenny Ombler
Active transport is important for health and sustainability. But no one has previously looked systematically at how NZ cities support cycling and walking. Therefore, a new study has been performed and is now published online. This blog reports its main findings.