Does it matter who funds public health?
Public health researchers and practitioners are divided on the ethics of taking money from ‘harmful commodity’ industries. Ethical debates about collusion with specific industries are important, but they risk ignoring the wider consequences of the increasing privatisation of public health.... More…
Hygiene for all?
The Guardian this week reported on new kinds of outreach work for homeless people, with mobile laundries and shower units, reported in Australia, New Zealand and Greece as well as my own city of Brighton, England. A Christian charity in... More…
Constant anxiety of benefit sanctions is toxic for mental health of disabled people
As the UK government continues to roll out its flagship new benefit system, Universal Credit, it has been beset with difficulties and delays. Now, documents leaked to the BBC show that its full rollout is not expected to be complete... More…
The interpretive difficulties of self-harm in “Sharp Objects”
Intense, languid, and darkly atmospheric: HBO’s Sharp Objects has been the show of the summer. Adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel, the show follows Camille (Amy Adams, extraordinary as always), a journalist who returns to the sleepy Southern town of her childhood... More…
22 July
On 22 July 2011, A right-wing neo-Nazi terrorist carried out two sequential atrocities, planting a bomb in central Oslo before travelling to a Workers’ Youth League summer camp on the island of Utøya with the intention of killing as many... More…
From Period Poverty to Menstrual Cups
(via the tampon tax and a brief trip to the Amex stadium) Way back in the 1980’s I wrote to my then local MP Sir Archie Hamilton to ask why tampons were taxed as a luxury item when it was... More…
Fear & Pride in Kiev
I have been to some harrowing places. I have worked in conflict zones, and worked with both refugees and those who preyed on them. But it was at a Pride Parade that I was truly afraid. The setting: Kiev, the... More…
Matt Hancock- another victim of Perpetual NHS Shock Syndrome (PNSS)
This week, Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, called for radical change in the NHS workforce in order to support doctors and nurses who experience trauma in their daily work. Indeed Mr Hancock went so... More…
Chubby Boozers with Ageing Hearts
What will the person in the street make of recent public health scare tactics? As the politics of austerity continues to bite into NHS and other public budgets, Britain’s top health promotion brains have decided that precious future health resources... More…
Public Health and the (New) Media
On industry, audiences and health messages Public health campaigners are increasingly focussing on models of media engagement due to the considerable and growing amount of evidence that media campaigns can change population health behaviours. New forms of media (that is... More…
Is there Justice for Trauma Survivors?
Society has an uneasy relationship with trauma. It is easier to look away. Austerity has placed our most vulnerable citizens and those who work with them, in precarious positions, which masks suffering. Currently, mental health budgets are inadequate to meet... More…
Barriers to impact? On research in the ‘real world’