It was the worst of times, it was the BeSST of times
The stirring of medical students’ sociological imagination in 2020 Teaching sociology to medical students is challenging in the best of times. Marked by the global pandemic, last year was certainly the worst of times. Yet, as members of Behavioural and... More…
Pandemics and Colonial Indifference
Seeking perspective for our misleadingly named ‘unprecedented times,’ I re-read Albert Camus’ The Plague. Themes in the storyline of complacency, escapism, resignation, fear, heroism, altruism, heightened awareness of nature and death are reflected in the novel’s mainly male characters. The... More…
Tenacious hope
With widespread lock-down measures to counteract the spread of COVID-19 infection, the possibility of the world under a radically changed order proved fascinating. Despite the suffering of the pandemic, were we getting glimpses of a better world? Unpolluted city vistas,... More…
It’s time to trust hungry people
Carl Walker and colleagues make the case for food poverty as a public health emergency and call for concerted response from govt to inequalities only made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. More…
Pick a number, any number…
In the run-up to the 2019 general election, I wrote a piece about Boris Johnsons’ strategy for dealing with awkward interview questions. This outlined comment from Johnson himself, where he sketched his dead cat strategy. When faced with an impossible... More…
The Everyday Stuff of Covid-19: new and old normals
Hibs scored. The group of young men queuing with me just ahead of half time for the obligatory pie threw their arms around each other. They bounced up and down chanting Hi-bees, Hi-bees, Hi-bees. The vortex of celebration pulled me... More…
The stop-start of collaboration in clinical settings
A post about the difficulties of applied interdisciplinary social science and healthcare collaboration in clinical settings Healthcare organisations and healthcare professionals are under a constant imperative to innovate. Social scientists, in the era of impact, are being asked to play... More…
A ‘virtual status’ in healthcare: Immigrant key workers against the UK coronavirus crisis
A ‘key worker’ is defined by NHS Business as ‘a care professional who takes a key role in coordinating the care of the patient and promoting continuity, ensuring the patient knows who to access for information and advice’. National Health Service (NHS)... More…
Why no talk of an inequality emergency?
We hear much talk now of a climate emergency. As I was revising a talk I give frequently on ‘global health in an unequal world’, I realised that there is no talk of an inequality emergency, either globally or close... More…
Predictive Genetics For All – Minister Hancock’s big idea
The future of the NHS is in prevention rather than cure. And the mass application of genetic profiling can bring that about say Health Minister Hancock and his new best friend…. There are big changes afoot in terms of the... More…
Nudging behaviour is ineffective, naïve and unethical
Interventions to ‘nudge’ people into desirable behaviours have become popular with policy-makers internationally. In the UK, the Behavioural Insights Team – established under former premier David Cameron – are prolific nudgers, designing (amongst many others) inputs to reduce meat consumption, protect... More…
Whose suffering matters to Rishi Sunak? Reduced foreign aid in a pandemic era