Old wine in new bottles? On the new NICE Guidelines for Depression
Before NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) finalised and published its first depression guidance in 2004, it made a draft publicly available for comment. NICE will make a draft of a new version of this guidance available...
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The dynamics of health inequalities
Since the publication of the Black Report, through numerous subsequent policy documents and much policy activity the health differences between the rich and poor in Britain remain a reality which blights the lives of millions. Inequalities in health bring earlier...
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The Politics of Evidence
Last year, my colleague Clare Bambra and I described the consequences of recent economic and social policy in the United States and the United Kingdom as ‘neoliberal epidemics’. In doing so, we actually combined three categories: a health outcome of...
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NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans
Local NHS areas have til June to try and submit convincing plans to dramatically improve healthcare whilst saving large sums of cash. But the decision making is secretive and dysfunctional. Predictions that the NHS is facing disaster have been issued...
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How many Zikas will it take?
Gradually the Public Health gaze is turning towards the minor acute events that trigger serious long term illnesses and chronic conditions. “About time too”, say many campaigners. For social scientists, it is very interesting to observe major changes in medical...
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Manufacturing fictions: Gothic morality tales
I am not the first person to point out the Gothic nature of capitalism, nor is it a particularly recent observation. The full extent of just how gothic it is dawned on me during my time at Shades City Centre...
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Declining health outcomes, rising health inequality and extreme economic inequality
Evidence is beginning to surface of the possible health effects of the rapid social polarisation that is taking place in the UK. This evidence is often hidden, or at the very least hard to find, but it will soon emerge...
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Becoming a scientific society: making the living laboratory work for public services in Wales
Government departments and their frontline staff are constantly experimenting with new policies and different methods of delivering public services to try to discover better ways of doing things. For example, it’s thought that some health boards in Wales are now...
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Public Health and Behaviour Change: from naïve sociology to naïve psychology
One of the age-old problems for ‘public health’ has always been how to get people to adopt more healthy behaviour change. How can citizens be persuaded to vaccinate themselves, eat healthier food or avoid obvious harms such as smoking? Of...
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Shame & the illegitimacy of dependency
Connecting toxic discourses to the health inequalities debate One of the many toxic features of neoliberalism is the way in which it divides the population into those considered deserving or undeserving. This was recently seen through the ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’...
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Whose quality of life?
I was 10 years old when I made a return visit to the neonatal intensive care unit where I was treated after my premature birth. I stared at the tiny occupants in the incubators, seemingly unaware of their sterile, plastic,...
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We are all Dr Strangelove now
It could be argued that there is no greater threat to our health than the possibility that we may be wiped out as a species. The 1964 Kubrick movie ‘Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love...
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