Microbes, Science and Society
We face a post-antibiotic future. To manage infectious disease, we will need new ways of thinking about living with microbes – ones that draw on knowledge across biological research, clinical care and lay health practices. The antibiotic age has been...
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We Might Regret This: disability on TV
We Might Regret This is a British sitcom, about the realities of dating as a disabled person. It was first shown on BBC Two on 19 August 2024 (with all episodes available to stream on BBC iPlayer at that time)....
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Are we paying attention?
This blog represents an attempt to pull together contemporary issues that I feel are related to each other, but I haven’t been able to make sense of. It relates specifically to our attention span, the products, tools and resources we...
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Why is work bad for you?
Work forms a major part of our lives. It provides so much and simultaneously so little. It pays the bills, provides some form of structure to the day or night depending on the type of work, and can form a...
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Britain’s abortion laws are still in the Victorian era, and women are the collateral damage
A vote on ending prosecutions for abortion appears to have been delayed again. MPs have been expecting to vote on this issue via an amendment to the criminal justice bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament. The change...
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“Mental health culture” has not gone far enough – long term failures in mental health policy
A long-standing notion in UK policy has been that increased public awareness can improve national mental health. Notable campaigns include the Mental Health Foundation Mental Health Awareness Week launched in 2001; England’s Time to Change campaign (2007-2021); and Heads Together...
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We’ve researched transgender inclusion for nearly a decade – how we do our work has changed
We’ve researched the experiences of transgender and non-binary people, particularly in the workplace, for much of the last ten years. Our original motivations remain: generate robust evidence. However, the environment is unrecognisable from when we started. Politicised media stories and...
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Cutting their teeth in government- why the Labour Party will fail on tooth decay
Whilst it may be some way from being the most glamorous debate in political economy, the issue of tooth decay is instructive of a larger systemic problem in the relationship between pre-general election party policy and the future of the...
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Mental Health Culture
“Mental health culture has gone too far, says Mel Stride”. This was the title of an article published in The Telegraph towards the end of March, that certainly generated a fair amount of attention on my Twitter feed, at least....
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Will a controversial new data platform change how the NHS “thinks”?
It was announced last year that the controversial tech firm Palantir had won a huge new contract with the NHS to provide a digital platform for the management of health data. The company will provide the NHS with a new...
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Psychiatric health services in trouble: a pregnant psychotic patient
Since the pandemic, I’ve had plenty of contact with psychiatric services as my child has struggled with unstable mental health. So, I went to a new exhibition by a former psychiatric patient with personal as well as academic interest. Entitled...
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Lived experience and social welfare policy