52 weeks of public health research, part 4

Posted by Bronia Arnott, Mark Tully and Jean Adams 

From Bronia Arnott: Public health researchers seem obsessed with hot drinks. Even more worrying is: they all seem to drink coffee. I sometimes feel like the 'legal alien' that Sting mentions in Englishman in New York when I say "I don't drink coffee, I take tea my dear". I have drank coffee in the name of science however: as an undergraduate studying Psychology I once participated in an experiment on the effect of caffeine on reaction times. I found myself in the experimental group, rather than the placebo decaf control group, and had to consume the equivalent of a double espresso. I can't remember whether my reaction times were quicker or not, but I do know that they had to scrape me off the ceiling afterwards, so I am sticking with tea.

From Mark Tully: I could not count the number of times I have sent an email with no attachment (usually when pressed with deadlines). Hopefully this new feature of Outlook 2013 will save many apologetic emails and red faces.

From Jean Adams: The most recent Fuse Quarterly Research Meeting was held last Thursday at Teesside University's Darlington campus. We're trying to make the @fuse_online twitter account a bit more interactive and will be actively using twitter more before and during future QRM's. Please join in the discussion, even if you can't be there in person.

From Jean Adams: Teesside University is one of the five partner universities that together make up the academic bit of Fuse. I love the way they never miss an opportunity to remind you where you are.

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Just to remind you:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in my life, I foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on my own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send me an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and I’ll post them as soon as I can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Also, this doesn’t mean we wont also be posting words. You word-based posts are, as always, much appreciated.

Two cheap ways councils can fight health inequality

By Clare Bambra, Durham University and Danny Dorling, University of Oxford

In the UK today, there are sizeable inequalities in health – and sometimes that gap isn’t just about north versus south. In Stockton Tees in the north-east of England, for example, there’s a 15-year gap in life expectancy between the least and most deprived areas. In London, the gap between such areas is nearly 25 years; and there is a five-year gap between the 10 tube stops between Westminster and Canning Town on the Jubilee Line. Glasgow has an infamous 28-year gap in life expectancy across the city.

It’s clear that the problem isn’t just national but local. And the British Academy has just launched a collection of opinion pieces from leading social scientists with ideas on what councils could do to reduce these inequalities, based on the evidence. They come in the wake of Michael Marmot’s 2010 review into the scale of the problem in England, where people with a better education, a higher income, or a better occupation, experience better health and a longer life.

A US analysis of things that most influence health suggest our physical environment counts for about 10%, clincial care (for example hospital treatment) 20% and health behaviour such as smoking and diet accounted for 30%. But the biggest influence on our health was socioeconomic factors at 40% – these of course also influence health behaviour.

The government has suggested local authorities are best placed to influence these factors. But local authorities have limited powers and are also being subjected to large (up to 50%) budget cuts. So what can they still do?

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Claire Bambra: tackle health-related worklessness

Reducing worklessness has had a high profile, but previous policies have failed because they’ve largely ignored the root cause – ill health.

There is a strong relationship between ill health and unemployment and  one of the key drivers of health inequality is health-related worklessness. We know that being sick or disabled greatly reduces an individual’s employment prospects – the employment rates of people with a disability or chronic illness in the UK are around 40% compared to 70% for those with good health.

But being out of work also results in poorer health and health-related job loss is more likely to be experienced by those in lower social groups. There are also substantial geographical inequalities, with rates highest in the north and in the most deprived areas.

There are areas where improvements have come from looking at the issue in a different way. The County Durham Worklessness and Health programme, for example, which was commissioned by the NHS in partnership with the local authority, has been successful in addressing barriers to employment such as debt or housing among those in receipt of incapacity-related benefits by seeing health as the key issue. Over six months an evaluation showed the general and mental health of participants almost doubled and that the intervention was good value for money.

There’s clear potential for this health-first approach. And it could be an important way for clinical commissioning groups, work programme providers and local authorities to work in partnership.

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Danny Dorling: replace 30mph zones with 20mph

When asked what single policy I would suggest to improve public health, I always reply “20mph” or, if I’m being a little more verbose: “20’s plenty”.

This normally elicits some surprise. The person I’m speaking to usually expects me to suggest reducing poverty by reducing unnecessary privileges for the rich, narrowing economic inequalities, or improving health services or education; not simply slowing cars down. All these things are very laudable, but if you want to do just one thing, then the thing you can actually do, the thing that makes a difference that you can feel, see and measure straight away, is to stick a sign that says 20mph on a circular piece of plastic over the 30mph signs where you live.

Implementing 20mph speed limits (where 30mph ones have been) could be one of the cheapest and most effective methods for improving public health today. Easily enacted at the local level, this very literal slow-down would reduce the risk of pedestrian – and especially child – fatalities and bring about wider benefits such as less pollution and stronger communities.

The proportion of pedestrian road crash deaths is steadily increasing, and it tends to be in the poorer parts of cities that people are most at risk of being hurt or killed by cars.

Besides reducing death and injuries, a widespread slow-down of fast cars would reduce the indirect harm that comes from them, including that affecting ill health suffered by the family and friends of those who are victims of road crashes.

20mph speed limits have now been implemented in more than 100 local authorities already (including the City of London just last year). Success stories include Burnley in Lancashire where a pilot scheme to introduce 20mph from February 2011 to April 2012 resulted in the overall figures falling from 46 casualties a year, with six deaths and serious injuries, to 25 casualties a year with only two deaths and serious injuries.

At almost the same time in Newcastle upon Tyne it was recently reported: “The number of car-related accidents on Newcastle’s residential streets has dropped by more than half in some areas of the city following the council’s introduction of 20mph speed limits.”

Therefore, I would urge other councils to follow their example. Changing the speed limits in residential areas to help significantly improve public health.
Danny Dorling is a patron of the charity RoadPeace

Clare Bambra does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published at The Conversation.
          Read the original article.
       

52 weeks of public health research, part 3

Posted by Bronia Arnott and Martin White

From Bronia Arnott: Waiting at Central Station Newcastle to go to a meeting I thought this represented one of the projects that I am working on, Reflect, which is all about transport behaviour (change).

From Bronia Arnott: Are YOU engaging users and stakeholders in your research? This week has been full of meetings with stakeholders and finding out more about public involvement in research. This photo was taken at Newcastle Civic Centre, the venue of one of the meetings this week. 

From Martin White: I am not a coffee-holic, but I do like a decent cup and will go out of my way to get one. Once a day, mid-morning. Brown powder that transforms into a vaguely coffee tasting hot drink just won’t do (although with a lot of sugar works quite well for a hangover - not that I am alco-holic either, mind). It has to have a real coffee taste and aroma. Some might find this vaguely snobbish, but I don’t care too much about where it comes from, as long as it tastes good. What has this to do with work? Well, there comes a point, usually about 2 hours after my breakfast tea (don’t get me started on tea...) when it becomes genuinely hard to concentrate. My mind starts to drift and I start to imagine the smell and taste of that well-earned cup of morning coffee. Bear this in mind if you have a meeting with me between 10 and 12.

From Martin White: The internet has quite simply revolutionised academia. And I am big fan of open access publishing. However, there is something reassuring about the thud of a weighty package on your desk, signifying the arrival of a real, ink on paper, printed copy of your latest research output. I have been fortunate in the last couple of years to have a couple of articles accepted by Milbank Quarterly, the North American health policy journal. The published output looks and feels like a paperback book. And you receive a nice hand-signed letter from the publishing editor with your copy. All very reassuringly old fashioned.

 

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Just to remind you:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in my life, I foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on my own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send me an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and I’ll post them as soon as I can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Also, this doesn’t mean we wont also be posting words. You word-based posts are, as always, much appreciated.

Ladles of Marxism and feminism

Posted by Jenni Remnant

‘It was one of those events full of eminent (and emeritus) professors where I felt slightly out of my intellectual depth. I didn't trust myself to say much. But I tried to listen well.’ – Jean Adams in a Fuse blog post from February last year.

Deciding to write a blog on here is pretty much (for me) an echo of the above, except very out of my intellectual depth rather than slightly. That said, some posts here are about holidays and lots have pictures in, so there’s no harm in writing something. 

Sorry - feeling a tad embarrassed

So, introductions.

I just started an ESRC funded studentship at IHS, that isn’t remotely scientific or epidemiology-y, or even medical really, which kind of makes it feel like the bastard child of the bastard child twice removed of the medical faculty. Alas. The only way is up. And actually it’s a really cool project that has tonnes of really fascinating theory that maps onto current events and has an excellent match in methodology. I appreciate that this is part and parcel of academic projects, but it’s still very satisfying, and very new to me.

The focus of the project centres on work, worklessness and cancer. It fits in remarkably well with the mental health stuff I was involved with as a research assistant before heading to Newcastle to do a masters. This is perhaps due to the patterns of the illnesses involved; symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, recovery, relapse, treatment, recovery…etc – in addition to both being banner titles for a huge variety of illness experiences on a spectrum of severity.

Another similarity is the ESA50 form, and for many the following Work Capability Assessment, and then the exciting wait before finding out if you are Fit For Work (Hurrah), need to join the Work Related Activity Group, or whether you will stay in the Support Group where the ‘big bucks’ are. The really excellent news is people that may not feel that they are fit for work actually are, for example, those with terminal cancer or a severe and enduring mental health problem.

So currently the plan is to explore all this, hook it all together with ladles of Marxism and feminism and then, when something is particularly interesting, or the pathway to get there was particularly interesting (or when I have something I want to shamelessly promote) blog about it. I will attempt not to lament the hardships of a PhD (jokingly referred to in the office as a Permanent HeaDache – which we appreciate doesn’t quite work) to a load of people that already have one and somehow fit in amongst the decent blogs, despite being out of my depth.

52 weeks of public health research, part 2

Posted by Jean Adams

Thanks for all the positive feedback on 52 weeks of public health research, part 1. Here's part 2:

Ski touring in the French Alps with the most enthusiastic guide ever. When I was a teenager, outdoor adventures were considered totally legitimate transferable and leadership skills development. Should have remembered that when developing my NIHR leadership training programme ;) 

Happy non-Nestle surprise left by a nice person on my desk on the first day back at work after 3 weeks off.

Decided over the holidays (for no particular reason) not to drink quite so much coffee. Lost my resolve after 2 hours back in the office. Probably need more effective goal setting, action planning, coping planning etc.

A trip to Teesside for a Fuse Communications Group meeting.


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Just to remind you:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in my life, I foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on my own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send me an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and I’ll post them as soon as I can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Also, this doesn’t mean we wont also be posting words. You word-based posts are, as always, much appreciated.

52 weeks of public health research, part 1

Posted by Jean Adams

Sometimes research seems all about words. Grant proposal, papers, presentations, emails, blog posts. This year I thought it might be interesting to try and communicate our lives in public health research using images more than words. So, inspired by similar projects on other themes, I hereby launch the ’52 weeks of public health research’ project.

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in my life, I foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on my own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send me an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and I’ll post them as soon as I can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Also, this doesn’t mean we wont also be posting words. You word-based posts are, as always, much appreciated.

Here goes. 52 weeks of public health research, part 1:

Trying to catch up on emails during the holidays but getting a bit distracted by knitting and sending parcels.

Packing for skiing and, for the first time in my life, getting the heebie-jeebies from someone else’s story of how dangerous ‘adventurous sports’ are. Stopping to consciously talk myself through the epidemiological principles of how one celebrity ski accident does not make skiing any more or less dangerous for me, or any more or less dangerous than last year. 

Enjoying an early passage in this Christmas present about the self-serving nature of universities providing protection for those who couldn’t thrive elsewhere:

“It’s for us that the University exists, for the dispossessed of the world, not for the students, not for the selfless pursuit of knowledge, not for any of the reasons that you hear. We give out the reasons and we let a few of the ordinary ones in, those that would do in the world; but that’s just protective colouration. Like the church in the Middle Ages, which didn’t give a damn about the laity or even about god, we have our pretences in order to survive.”

Sneaky three-in-one from Martin White: having to work a rainy day of the holidays in order to spend a sunny work day tidying up one of our trees that had fallen on a neighbour's fence. 

An academic post

Posted by Liane Azevedo

When I was asked to write a story about how I managed to move from contract research to an academic post, I realized that my life did not follow this route. Having a research academic post came as a reward from an old wish I’d had since I started my studies in exercise science.

Exercise and sports has always been part of my life, I started as a swimmer and then competed as a triathlete for many years (no one could tell this now when I just manage to sprint to get the train!). Although sport has always been part of my life I decided to do my undergraduate degree in biology.

Then one day I went to a seminar in exercise science from a professor who later became my masters supervisor. That presentation really changed my life and on that day I decided what I wanted to do. I was really intrigued by how my body was responding to exercise and really wanted to learn more. So, I decided to do my undergraduate dissertation in exercise physiology for my degree in Biology and started to explore ways that I could do performance tests with the athletes.

By that time, I had a serious injury and was struggling to compete in triathlon at the level that I was used to. So I had more time and lots of friends that I could count on to be my “guinea pigs” and try the performance tests. I did some courses, started a masters degree and open a little company called “Performance Lab” where we performed tests on athletes, did exercise evaluations at gyms and provided consultancy for a shoe company.

So, I was working long hours and getting lots of practice. However, there came a point where I started to feel that I was repeating the same information to my “clients” every day and wasn’t learning anything new. Until one day I went to a conference, not as an attendee but to work in the exhibitor hall for the shoe company that I was providing consultancy to. There I saw that one of the people presenting was Professor Tim Noakes from University of Cape Town. He is a well-known scientist in our field and an amazing speaker. By coincidence I had his famous book “Lore of Running” with me that day, which I used a lot to help me with prescriptions for running shoes. I was sooo excited when I saw him that my friend asked me if I had seen Brad Pitt! I said almost…

I filled myself with courage and went to talk to Prof. Noakes and ask for an autograph on my book. He was amazingly kind and the conversation went on and he asked if I was interested in doing a PhD in South Africa! You can understand that that night I didn’t sleep and the next day I started drafting my e-mail to his department. To make the story short I was accepted for the PhD in the area of biomechanics and I lived in South Africa for an amazing 3 years.

However, jobs in South Africa are not easy to get, especially for foreigners, so I started to look for jobs across the world. I saw a post for a lecturer in the UK that I thought it would really fit well with my expertise as the university had a biomechanics lab and were providing consultancy work. So, I applied and worked as a lecturer for 3 years. I enjoyed my time there but I was mainly teaching 9am to 5pm and I really missed the research atmosphere that I had had in South Africa. So, I kept my eyes open until I saw the Fuse post at Teesside.

Without going on too much about my own experience, I think some important advice that I could give people who are completing a PhD and want to move to a academic research post is that you might not get to where you want straight away. You might need to go for a teaching post for some years first. But if an academic post is really what you want you shouldn’t loose sight of it. Look for posts that are more research orientated and more importantly try to publish, attend conferences and if possible be involved in grants - which might be able to “buy out” some of your teaching and give you more opportunity to be involved in research.

I think being involved in practice has also helped me in my career. In public health this could mean trying to do applied work with practice partners that could maybe turn into a research project so you could slowly move yourself slowly towards a research academic post.