Let’s start at the end
Let’s tell the story of health. And let us start at the end, because that – for reasons that will become apparent in the remainder of my argument – is how we do things in academia. ‘How we do things in academia’ is unspoken and intrinsic to curriculum design and implementation (and the tools we maintain to keep things as they are – rather than shake them up) and funding our research.
Recently I have started work with CHETRE – the Centre for Health…
A long history of cities and health
The connection between health and urbanisation has been inescapable since early human settlement, or rather, when paleo-epidemiologists and archaeologists determined an evolution from hamlet and villages to cities. This first happened by the end of the Neolithic, some 10,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia and the Levant, a few thousand years later followed by great fortified cities in the Indus Valley. A next wave of urbanisation happened some 3000 years ago on the rim of the Mediterranean and Black Sea (Greek city states and Persian urban development). These early, often fairly isolated…
In a recent blog, Michael Moore, eminent and astute CEO of PHAA and vice-President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations( WFPHA), explains how one overseas catastrophe can yield more domestic political capital than another.
Going to war, he observes, has always been a sly political strategy. But a war should be fought on a different front, too.
Moore calls on our government to do more in the face of the unfolding Ebola drama: we should deploy our military potential to its fullest…
Globally, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) constitute the main causes of morbidity, mortality and disability. This has been recognised by the United Nations as a major international crisis. The international community has started to coordinate its efforts to deal with the crisis. This is a complex affair with wide-ranging consequences spanning communities, local governments, NGOs, industry and global agencies. They all recognise the ‘wicked’ nature of the problem…
In a recent opinion piece in The Canberra Times Nicholas Stuart assessed the failings of the Abbott government (Stuart, 2014). It was an entertaining read, particularly – as so many political commentators do in the tabloid press – as the personal character and idiosyncrasies of Abbott’s ministry are called into question. This ‘argumentum ad hominem’ (attacking the person) has superior power over, and is considerably easier than constructing the ‘argumentum ad rem’ (playing the ball) in cunning ways.
Personally I think that it is a defining characteristic of a mature democracy when we can discuss the substance rather than attack its…
