Tag: Public health

A teaspoon of salt away from high blood pressure

This Salt Awareness Week, Dr Queenie Chan puts the salt intake guidelines to the test and looks at the reality of curbing salt intake for better heart health. 

Salt and sodium are often used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Sodium is a mineral that occurs naturally in foods or is added during manufacturing or both. Table salt is a combination of sodium and chloride, which was one of the most valuable modes of currency in ancient times. It has been used to preserve food for thousands of years and it is most commonly associated as a form of food seasoning. Salt also plays a role in food processing, providing texture and enhancing colour. (more…)

Fighting the next epidemic with the Typo Challenge

Dr Anne Cori and Dr Marc Baguelin explain why they need the public’s help to help make data on epidemics like Ebola and Zika more accurate.

Controlling epidemics relies on key decisions, like how many hospital beds are needed and who should be vaccinated or treated first. These decisions rely on data about people who are infected, but mistakes can be made when entering information, which can lead to incorrect decisions being made.

What is the Typo Challenge?

The Typo Challenge is a fun challenge where you are asked to type dates into an app on your computer, laptop, tablet or phone, which helps us collect information about what kind of mistakes people make when they enter dates electronically. With this information we want to create software for researchers trying to better understand how epidemics spread so when they receive data about epidemics in the future they will be able to automatically check the results for accuracy by using the software. (more…)

(I am not a) Vessel: the importance of women’s reproductive rights

(I am not a) Vessel: The importance of women’s reproductive rights
Rebecca Blaylock is a student on the Master of Public Health programme at Imperial and here makes the case for increased access to reproductive healthcare.

Students from Imperial’s Master of Public Health programme recently organised a screening of the award-winning film “Vessel”. Vessel chronicles the story of Dr Rebecca Gomperts – a former doctor on a Greenpeace ship – who had an innovative idea to provide women with vital reproductive health services. During her time travelling the world with Greenpeace, Gomperts witnessed the unbearable suffering caused by unsafe abortions. She saw women haemorrhage to death, die from sepsis and sustain life-long disabilities, and refused to “stand there and just let that happen”. Around 25 million unsafe abortions take place every year, accounting for between 4.7 and 13.2% of global maternal deaths.

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The truth about HTLV-1: unravelling 30 years of misconceptions

HTLV-1

As the human T-cell leukaemia virus is discussed on the world stage, Professor Graham Taylor addresses the misconceptions surrounding HTLV-1.

Based on the number of articles published in mainstream media, and the number of interview requests I have received in the last week, it seems that everyone wants to know about HTLV-1, the human T-cell leukaemia virus, after 30 years of turning a blind eye. Why the sudden interest in a virus that few outside my field of human retrovirology have heard of? (more…)

Universal Health Coverage in the United Kingdom: past, present and future

NHS staff with a patient at Charing Cross Hospital
NHS staff with a patient at Charing Cross Hospital

On World Health Day, Professor Azeem Majeed takes a look at the past, present and future of the NHS.

In 2018, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) celebrates its 70th anniversary. With the creation of the NHS in 1948, universal health coverage was finally implemented in the United Kingdom, with the NHS replacing the previous patchy health coverage schemes that had left many people with limited access to health services. All residents of the United Kingdom were given the right to register with a general practitioner, who was responsible for both providing primary care services and organizing referrals for specialist care. (more…)

The Asbestos Story: a tale of public health and politics

The Asbestos Story: a tale of public health and politicsAn eye-opening account by Professor Sir Tony Newman Taylor on how asbestos has gone from ‘magic mineral’ to deadly dust that can cause mesothelioma.

Public awareness of the hazards of asbestos can be dated to the period immediately following the death of Nellie Kershaw aged 33 in 1924.  She had worked during the previous seven years in a textile factory spinning asbestos fibre into yarn. She died of severe fibrosis of the lungs. The pathologist, William Cooke, who found retained asbestos fibres in the lungs, called the cause of death asbestosis.  Nellie Kershaw was not the first case to be reported of lung fibrosis caused by asbestos. Montague Murray in 1899 had reported the case of a 33-year-old man who had worked for 14 years in an asbestos textile factory. He had died of fibrosis of the lungs which Montague Murray, also finding asbestos in the lungs, had attributed to inhaled asbestos fibres.  The patient had told Murray he was the only survivor from ten others who had worked in his workshop. (more…)

Give HIV the Finger – National HIV Testing Week 2017

HIV testing week

In this post, GP Dr Richard Ma, provides a lowdown on HIV testing and how increasing testing rates is the answer to ending the HIV epidemic. 

It is the time of year again for HIV Testing Week!

Coordinated by HIV Prevention England (HPE) since 2012, National HIV Testing week has focused on three main aims:

  • improving awareness of HIV testing, particularly among communities at high-risk
  • increasing opportunities to take the test in clinics and other community settings
  • reducing the number of people diagnosed with HIV at a late stage

This year’s theme is ‘Give HIV the Finger’ – a cheeky reference to the free finger-prick test that people can receive by post, to provide a blood sample for testing without attending a clinic. (more…)