Promoting physical activity through the prescription of smartphone apps in primary care: Likely to produce health gains and cost-savings

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022 | carra86p | No Comments

Dr Leah Grout, Kendra Telfer, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak*

Over 40% of NZ adults are insufficiently physically active. In this blog we summarise our recently published modelling work that suggests that the prescription of smartphone apps for physical activity promotion in primary care could benefit health and save millions in health sector costs for NZ. Nevertheless, this type of intervention should ideally occur in conjunction with societal-wide shifts that support more walking and cycling, as these are likely to generate much larger health gains and cost-savings.

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What public health lessons can NZ still learn from the United States?

Monday, January 29th, 2018 | dayhi34p | 1 Comment

Prof Nick Wilson, A/Prof George Thomson

The United States has many major health problems – including declining life expectancy and an exorbitantly expensive health care system. However, the large number of state and local governments provide a wealth of potential lessons that NZ could learn from. In this blog we briefly consider some of these, particularly in the domains of support for nutrition and physical activity, tobacco and alcohol control, and pollution control.

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Walking and cycling for transport is good for physical activity levels in Kiwis!

Tuesday, October 31st, 2017 | dayhi34p | 1 Comment

Dr Caroline Shaw

Physical activity is good for health. Higher levels of physical activity are associated with reduced rates of breast and colon cancer, better mental health, lower obesity rates, lower heart disease, stroke (the list goes on). This blog looks at a new study we just published that found that New Zealanders who walk or cycle to their main activity each day have a 76% higher chance of achieving the Ministry of Health physical activity guidelines than those who drive cars.

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Transport, carbon emission reduction and health- the possibility of a virtuous circle?

Monday, June 9th, 2014 | Kate Sloane | 2 Comments

Dr Caroline Shaw and Associate Professor Simon Hales

Editor note: In this Blog, Caroline Shaw and Simon Hales reflect on the weak evidence on health co-benefits for some ‘big’ environmental policies, but also highlight that there are many ‘no-brainer’ actions that can be taken now with likely health and environmental co-benefit. They have recently published a systematic review “Health Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation Policies in the Transport Sector”.

The transport sector globally generates about 23% of carbon emissions (about 16% of gross emissions in New Zealand). This is largely dominated by the use of light vehicles (see the pie chart below- note: energy use is a good proxy for carbon emissions in the transport sector). Transport emissions continue to grow rapidly, particularly in emerging economies, and by one account transport could represent half of all global emissions by 2050. Continue reading

Physical activity or nutrition interventions: which can improve population health the most and save the most health dollars?

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment

Professor Tony Blakely and Associate Professor Nick Wilson

We gave a presentation to Members of Parliament last week on taxes and subsidies on food, the pros and cons (slides here). In this blogpost we go into some extra detail on how such nutritional interventions compare to physical activity ones – in terms of health gain and potential for cost savings to the health system. Continue reading