Guest Author • Mar 13, 2020 •
Professor Philip Hill, University of Otago China, Taiwan and other Asian countries have shown that a massive public health response to COVID-19 works. Now is the time for New Zealand to do the same. COVID-19 presents an unprecedented challenge for New Zealand and the rest of the world. Unchecked, the coronavirus causing this disease spreads easily … Read More
Public Health Expert • Feb 05, 2020 •
Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick Wilson, Louise Delany, Prof Richard Edwards, Prof Philippa Howden-Chapman The current national measles epidemic in New Zealand is amongst the largest we have experienced in the last 40 years. It can be linked to the problems created by long-term erosion and fragmentation of national public health capacity. Fortunately, the present Health and Disability System Review … Read More
Eric Crampton • Oct 31, 2019 •
Paternalism is contentious. Arguments for state action to protect us from ourselves are fraught. I come down pretty heavily on the anti-paternalism side of the argument, but I’ve heard respectable defences of paternalism. But policy around vaccination is hardly paternalistic. There’s a clear market failure that could be pointed to in any sound Regulatory Impact Statement. In a place with … Read More
Public Health Expert • Jul 17, 2019 •
Elinor Chisholm, Nevil Pierse, Cheryl Davies, Philippa Howden-Chapman We know that poor housing conditions result in ill health for many New Zealanders, and we know which interventions are required to ensure good quality housing that supports health. Healthy Housing Initiatives intervene to improve the homes of kids who are hospitalised for illnesses that could be related to poor housing conditions. Read More
Public Health Expert • Apr 08, 2019 •
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Amanda Jones, A/Prof George Thomson Canada has a number of progressive public policies which can influence health. In this blog we briefly look at 6 potential lessons for NZ in the domains of: (i) responding to climate change; (ii) supporting cycling; (iii) tobacco control; (iv) controls on food marketing directed at children; (v) healthy food … Read More
Public Health Expert • Mar 27, 2019 •
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Frederieke Petrović-van der Deen, Dr Cristina Cleghorn, A/Prof Coral Gartner, Prof Tony Blakely Our just-published modelling study suggests that easier access to nicotine via vaping as a replacement for tobacco smoking, will improve the health of the NZ population. The estimated health gain is about the same as 10% per annum tobacco tax increases … Read More
Eric Crampton • May 11, 2018 •
Every time I think that the University of Otago’s Public Health people can’t get any worse, they go and surprise me. Today, the Initiative launched Jenesa Jeram’s excellent report on vaping and reduced-harm alternatives to smoking. It walks through the evidence on the risks of vaping, heat-not-burn products, and snus, and makes some recommendations around liberalising access so that … Read More
Guest Author • Apr 19, 2018 •
James J. Winebrake, Rochester Institute of Technology and James J Corbett, University of Delaware This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency that regulates global shipping, is writing new rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions from ships by 2050 as … Read More
Eric Crampton • Mar 08, 2018 •
For the past several years, public health lobbyists have pretended that all opposition to sugar taxes is ideologically motivated or dishonest. They have argued that the only thing stopping the government from implementing their beneficent proposals has been the actions of nefarious interest groups. And so it is interesting to read what the Ministry of Health’s officials actually thought about … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 07, 2018 •
Back in mid-February, UNICEF NZ posted a piece on the importance of vaccines. Shortly thereafter, the comments thread had been overrun by anti-vaccination pro-disease activists. (I have to say, I’m really impressed with the person who does UNICEF’s social media. Talk about grace and dignity under fire!) This seems to happen every time a story about vaccine-preventable disease hits the … Read More