Public Health Expert

Professor Alistair Woodward* This is a sensible move to make the city safer and more attractive for carbon-sparing, health-promoting bicycling, according to some. Unnecessary and disruptive and not wanted by most people, argue others. The debate over the Island Bay cycleway is important because the way we build our streets shapes how we live, and consequently determines the health and … Read More

1

Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Caroline Shaw, Dr Nhung Nghiem, Prof Tony Blakely, A/Prof Ralph Chapman Tax policies have major impacts on society and designing such policies is complex. But if the perspective is around gaining health and saving costs for the public health system, then certain tax reforms may be favoured more than others. In this blog we take … Read More

Dr Andrea McDonald, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Tony Blakely Last month the British Medical Journal published a study on the highly anticipated purchasing data examining the impact of taxing sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) in Mexico (1). This study reported that the 10% tax on SSBs was associated with an overall 12% reduction in purchases and a … Read More

4 1

Louise Delany, Senior Lecturer, Assoc Prof George Thomson* In this blog we ask what the tobacco ‘carve out’ from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Treaty means for public health. Despite the partial exemption of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), the TPP agreement as a whole applies to tobacco, and breaches of the TPP might, in principle, be alleged in relation … Read More

Prof Michael Baker & Prof Nick Wilson NZ has a long-running Campylobacter infection epidemic with contaminated fresh poultry the major source. Added to this problem is the recent rapid emergence of antibiotic resistance in these Campylobacter infections acquired from locally produced poultry. In this blog we briefly detail these problems and explore potential solutions: (i) build on the past … Read More

1

Associate Professor George Thomson, Professor Richard Edwards There is growing frustration with lack of robust action and progress at the national level with the Smokefree 2025 goal. However, it is not all bad news. A major avenue of hope for a smokefree Aotearoa comes from the enthusiastic efforts by local coalitions of local government, NGOs and iwi. Here we … Read More

Professor Tony Blakely Keytruda, or Pembrolizumab, is a new immune inhibitor drug that appears to have pronounced effectiveness in slowing – even reversing – disease progression in patients with advanced melanoma. It has received much media attention in recent months, and even calls from politicians to over-rule the PHARMAC process (currently PHARMAC do not recommend funding). In this blog … Read More

Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Nick Wilson In this blog we comment for a second time this week on the consultation draft of the NZ Health Strategy, focusing this time on preventive interventions that actually would make a meaningful difference to health in Aotearoa NZ. The draft Strategy has many strong aspects, but by having a ‘people centred’ approach it … Read More

Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Richard Edwards, Prof Tony Blakely The new draft NZ Health Strategy is strong on strengthening the health care system and has some strong population health aspects, at least rhetorically. It includes phrases like a system moving “from treatment to prevention”. But how does it fare when considering the science around burden of disease and interventions … Read More

1

Dr Giorgi Kvizhinadze, Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Nick Wilson This blog aims to discuss a study we recently published on NZ health system cost estimates by sex, age and proximity to death. Such work is only possible due to extraordinary richness of routine NZ data. We highlight four findings. First, costs – not surprisingly – vary markedly by age, and … Read More