Food taxes and subsidies will probably protect health & reduce inequalities – but the devil is in the detail

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 2 Comments

Professors Tony Blakely, Cliona Ni Mhurchu and Nick Wilson

Professor Cliona Ni Mhurchu

Research teams we lead have published two papers in the last few weeks on food taxes and subsidies – both of which depend on what are called price elasticities.  Timely, in light of the launch last week of Appetite for Destruction that is focusing public attention on our food environment, including taxes and subsidies on food. Continue reading

Why don’t we live as long and healthily as we could: social values and decision making

Friday, July 12th, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | No Comments

Welcome to this Public Health Expert Blog. This blog is going to consider what we could do, and what we probably should not do, to improve public health.  We will traverse the range from birth to end of life care and death, efficiency versus equity, learning from our history to future gazing, opportunity costs, climate change and aging populations, genetics to social determinants, and much more.  Myself and academic colleagues will blog about issues of the day, and issues that should be issues of the day.  We undertake to make this blog informative, relevant, and as evidence-based as possible. Continue reading