Royal Society for Public Health

NHS England commit to tackling health inequalities in three ways; influencing multi-agency action to address social determinants of health, leveraging the NHS's role as a significant economic actor and tackling inequalities in healthcare provision. This article outlines the learning from the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's Health Inequalities Programme Board for other hospitals, in the UK and beyond, who look to develop their own approach to inequalities.

Niamh McDade from the Royal Society of Public Health asks how we can maximise the positive effects while mitigating the risks of social media for the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people

In 2018, the Institute of Health Visiting collaborated with the National Institute for Health Research to appoint Health Visitor Research Champions. This article describes the role of Research Champions and highlights their successes to date

In an era of global environmental deterioration and income inequity, public health faces many challenges, including the growing number of individuals, especially older people, with chronic diseases. Dementia is increasingly being seen not just as a biomedical problem to solve but as a public and community challenge to address more broadly. Concepts like prevention, brain health, and quality of life/well-being are receiving more attention. The engagement of community in addressing these challenges is being seen as critical to successful social adaptation. Arts programs are reinvigorating cultural responses to the growing number of older people with cognitive challenges. The humanities offer ways of understanding the power of words and stories in public discourse and a critical lens though which to view political and economic influences. In this paper, we report on a panel held in London on the occasion of the conference at the Royal Society for Public Health in March, 2017, in which the authors presented. Key issues discussed included problem framing, the nature of evidence, the politics of power and influence, and the development of effective interventions. In this paper, we review the rejection of two policies, one on dementia and one on the arts and humanities in public health, by the American Public Health Association; the emergence of policies in the UK; and some of the state of the art practices, particularly in training, again focusing on the UK.

This commentary, in response to the paper by Boas et al [IJPHR December 2016], considers some of the wider ethical, cultural and practical factors that may influence the official response of a polio-free nation following the identification of introduced wild virus within its borders. It looks at factors influencing vaccine uptake internationally, using examples of nations striving to improve childhood vaccine uptake, the relevance of mandatory versus voluntary immunisation and the role of public education and misinformation.

The prime minister’s commitment to “fighting against the burning injustice that if you’re born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others”1 is welcome and achievable. As her government has acknowledged,2 half of this difference in life expectancy is due to the higher rates of smoking among the least affluent, so major improvements can …