Want to stack the nutrition odds in your favour? The key is good food so here are five things to never let into your shopping trolley: lollies, biscuits, sugar-sweetened drinks, potato crisps and processed…
With a high fatality rate and a terminal phase that causes bleeding and haemorrhagic fever, the Ebola virus has always attracted grisly fascination, yet funding and action against it have never been particularly…
It is three weeks since the current Israeli offensive against Gaza began on July 8. But it is now eight years since Israel began its blockade of Gaza. Since then unemployment has risen, public infrastructure…
Chronic disease and injury caused by alcohol has significantly increased over a decade, causing 15 deaths and 430 hospitalisations each day in Australia, according to a new report. The VicHealth and Foundation…
Richard Stabler, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Chinese authorities have lifted a nine-day quarantine on a town in the country’s northwest that saw a resident die of the plague. The victim is thought to have caught the disease from a dead marmot, which…
In their bids for greater market share, Australia’s two largest supermarket chains sometimes portray themselves as healthy places to shop. But Woolworths’ latest “Jamie’s Garden” sticker campaign might…
Assistant health minister Fiona Nash has announced that Australian and New Zealand ministers responsible for food policy and regulation have signed off on the health star rating system for front-of-pack…
Australians have one the longest life expectancies in the world but are living with growing levels of lifestyle-induced chronic illness, according to the latest national health report card. The Australian…
The ancient Greeks had a term for self-destructive behaviour. It was called akrasia – the tendency to indulge in behaviour which goes against our better judgement or received wisdom – and there is plenty…
Despite government claims that the budget would be fair and all Australians would contribute to the “budget rescue job”, reality has not supported these claims. And this is bad news for health and social…
The Abbott government has announced a A$20 billion medical research “future fund”, to help discover what Treasurer Joe Hockey calls the “cures of the future”, paid for with money generated as a result…
The situation for children is getting worse: for the first time in more than 17 years, child poverty in the UK has increased in absolute terms. While the poorest areas are being hit hardest by current…
In 1980 just 10% of Australian adults were obese; by 2012 this figure had risen to 25%, among the highest in the world. The food industry lobby and their friends in government would have us believe this…
Earlier pub closing times have a large impact on curbing alcohol-fuelled violence, according to research my colleagues and I have published today in the international peer-reviewed journal Drug & Alcohol…
One of the most perplexing risks to public health is human nature. No matter how diligently public health campaigns lay out the facts, we continue to make seemingly illogical decisions. Just look at the…
There has been much written in the media over the last year about the legacy of Thatcherism and the ways in which it reshaped the British political landscape. However, in new empirical research published…
E-cigarettes are increasingly popular in a number of countries including the UK, while in others such as Norway and Brazil they are banned altogether. So amid all these differences in policy, what do we…
When Jamie’s School Dinners first aired in early 2005, it launched Britain’s secondary schools as a key battle ground for politicians, professionals and campaigners keen to improve young people’s diet…
Lack of exposure to a particular influenza strain means you won’t have had a chance to build up complete immunity. And if the strain spreads easily between people and there is little immunity in communities…
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand