Scotland’s Drug Death Crisis
The newly published figures of annual drug-related deaths (DRD) in Scotland are appalling. The National Records of Scotland figure of 867 represents the highest annual total recorded – a 23% increase on the previous year, and a 100% increase since 421 Scottish...
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Why we keep playing the Generation Blame Game … and why we need to stop
Successive generations’ healthy disregard of the previous generation’s tastes, habits and customs is a necessary ingredient of human progress. But there is something about the current carving up of the population into ever smaller generational slices of entitlement and opprobrium...
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UK policy turns people with learning disabilities into commodities, study reveals
There are well over a million people with learning disabilities in England. Like anyone, people with learning disabilities or autistic people can experience times of crisis and heightened distress, particularly when they and their families have not had the support they need....
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Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100
Climate change is set to increase the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particle pollution we breathe, which leads to lung disease, heart conditions, and stroke. Less rain and more heat means this pollution will stay in the air for...
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To The Bone
Not many films come with a health warning. But the recent Netflix film To The Bone, which tells the story of 20-year-old Ellen – played by Lily Collins – and her journey through treatment for anorexia, has received just that. The...
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Forensic Architecture and Violence
Thresholds of Detectability and Investigative Aesthetics The state, via the police and criminal justice system, is normally responsible for the investigating the crimes of individuals. But what happens when the state is the alleged criminal and those seeking to uncover...
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The ADHD chronicles: Squeezing through the bars of the iron cage
My first two attempts to get evaluated for ADHD only resulted in promises that the psychologist would call me back. This never happened, and the only official indication that I was ever in contact with him/her was the invoices I...
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Digital Healthcare: On the ethics and politics of data
A two-day symposium on ‘Digital Healthcare’ was held last month at the University of Nottingham, focusing on the social logics, ethics and politics of data and technology provision. Speakers and delegates from a range of disciplines came together to discuss and...
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Not in the club? It’s par for the course
Golf is a game where individual players hit a small plastic and rubber ball (a descendant of the ‘hairy ball’ it is believed), with a largely metal club. It is widely understood to have originated in Fife, on the east...
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Falling out of love with the car?
Have we reached ‘peak car’? Many pointers in the UK and internationally suggest we have. There’s been a slow down, even a reverse, in our love affair with the private car. On average, those of us in high income countries...
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Governing in the heat
As I write it’s baking hot, and seems to have been for days. The usual risks apply to writing about it though. By the time this is published the thunder storms we have been promised may have brought cooler wetter...
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Placebo, participation and surgery