Improving health? Start local
Ideas about place based systems of care are currently fashionable in policy circles. I have previously written about initiativitis, (plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose’ or ‘here we go again’) but I am resisting the cynical temptation to...
More…
A ‘tour de force’ of obfuscation
A note on Sustainability and Transformation Plans in your brand new NHS Obfuscation is the obscuring of intended meaning in communication, making the message confusing, willfully ambiguous, or harder to understand. It may be intentional or unintentional (although the former...
More…
Lights out for health?
Across the UK, the lights are going out. As local authorities seek to cut costs, street lights are being turned off or dimmed at night – with much local media concern about what this means for safety. But is less...
More…
Parkrun
Every Saturday in countries across the world groups of amateur and less amateur runners get together to run 2 or 5 km around a park. In 2004, Paul Sinron developed Parkrun, and the first event involved 13 people running in...
More…
Domestic Violence in the Archers: Gender, Mental Health and Victim Blame
When Helen Titchener finally took a knife to abusive husband, Rob, there was a national outpouring of relief from Archers fans, who had become increasingly frustrated with the long running, apparently endless subjugation of Helen. Others had long switched off,...
More…
Sugar, poverty and taxation
As social scientists, we can bring a unique perspective to a debate dominated by politicians, ‘food campaigners’, public health and industry. I don’t know if self-appointed sugar experts Jamie Oliver (TV chef) and George Osbourne (political chancellor) have a lot...
More…
WRAGs to ‘riches’: Closing the disability employment gap
Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) recently resigned from his position as the Work and Pensions Secretary having seemingly suffered a delayed bout of morality. In his resignation letter he explained that he felt the cuts proposed in #Budget2016 were ‘a compromise...
More…
School Holiday Hunger
The cost of the school holidays makes them a crunch point for families paying the price of austerity politics. Children who benefit from free school lunches are often going hungry once their school shuts for the holidays. The cost of...
More…
The Volkswagon scandal: making air pollution visible
It is difficult to have missed the recent ‘Volkswagon scandal’. The US Environmental Protection Agency claimed that Volkswagen rigged emissions tests by fitting a device that reduced emissions of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) during testing. By law, all vehicles have to...
More…
Scientists (mis)understanding the public(s), again!
In this blog we frequently lament the fact that politicians, policy makers and health educators seem to largely ignore various insights gained from social scientists and humanities over the past several decades. To this illustrious list I now add the...
More…
The Unequal Cost of Cancer
Information released on World Cancer Day earlier this month revealed that although more people are being diagnosed with cancer, more people now are surviving the disease. Cancer Research UK tells us that 1 in 2 people born after 1960 in...
More…
Scarred for life