Ally Brown
@allybrown.bsky.social
Research Associate in Social Policy @ Strathclyde Uni. Food policy for THRIVING Food Futures. Also policy approaches to health inequalities, and to mental health.
THREAD: How do the dynamics of devolution and the politics of health inequality interact? My new paper in @cphjournal.bsky.social explores the differentiation function of area-health comparisons. 🚨Contains Andy Burnham content!🚨 journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jc... 1/9
Framing health inequalities to tell political stories: Devolution makes the difference | Journal of Critical Public Health
journalhosting.ucalgary.ca
What most of these trite "did we get the balance wrong" takes miss is they're delivered a safe distance from the prospect of taking responsibility for the thousands of extra deaths that would have happened if we'd struck a different balance.
When patients repeatedly miss medical appointments, health systems often penalise them or drop them from care A new study in @BMCMedicine advocates for a "missingness lens": shifting from punitive rules to trauma-informed, proactive support for vulnerable patients link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Policy Press publish some mighty fine books. Just saying.
Policy Press@policypress.bsky.social · last wk.50% off all books in our Summer Sale! 📚☀️ Don't miss your chance to save on your next read, the sale ends soon! 🛒Use code BUP07 at the checkout until the end of July! #SummerSale #50Off #BookSale https://ow.ly/6YBq50ZtrHP
This article estimated global APC spend in 2023 to be around $2.5 billion, which was THREE TIMES the amount just four years earlier in 2019, at around $910 million.
Estimating global article processing charges paid to six publishers for open access between 2019 and 2023
This study presents estimates of the global expenditure on article processing charges (APCs) paid to six publishers for open access between 2019 and 2023. APCs are fees charged for publishing in some ...
arxiv.org
It's funny how no-one ever asks where the money is coming from when you announce a cut in immigration.
Ok, talking about class in vox pops is now banned until it starts making any sense.
Sobering: initial trials with huge effect, large follow-up trial showing no evidence for an effect. But practice is already locked in and criticism is defused by pointing to random effects meta-analyses which are necessarily dominated by the initial trials. polypharmacy.substack.com/p/we-should-...
We should stop running clinical trials that cannot change practice
The case of prazosin for PTSD nightmares and the PACT trial
polypharmacy.substack.com
It’s hard to overstate how frightening far right protests and online lies are for real people on the ground. I was in the Gorbals the other day and met people who were really shaken. www.thetimes.com/article/8ca6...
How a viral far-right video shattered a Glasgow community’s peace
After a false paedophile claim was amplified to millions online, Scottish Asians tell how they no longer feel safe in a community they have long called home
thetimes.com
David Leask@leaskyd.bsky.social · 3w agoI am not sure that we appreciate how much hostility there is from the far right to the learning and speaking of languages. 1/2 www.thetimes.com/article/9a33...
Absolutely love the idea here of a "v successful aristocratic family" coming under attack from, "the establishment".
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 4w agoRichard Tice, 61, says he has a family relationship going back half a century with the Cottrells, who he describes as part of a "very successful aristocratic family" trying to support "disruptive" party politics.
Scotland’s experience with minimum unit pricing shows the impact bold public health action can have on reducing harm and tackling inequalities. Read more in our latest guest blog from Paul Johnston, Chief Executive at Public Health Scotland. 👉 Read the guest blog: https://bit.ly/4h3jsdf
absolutely insane story, and yeah, just looking at this chart... with the exception of maybe two people, this entire class was cheating like motherfuckers
Jacob T. Levy@jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4w ago
On the pros and cons of the concept of ‘mental illness’: a response to Richard Gipps Summary: Many modern philosophers see the logical incoherence of the medical model that underpins psychiatry, but fail to draw the obvious and radical conclusions. For several years I have been aware that many…
On the pros and cons of the concept of ‘mental illness’: a response to Richard Gipps
Summary: Many modern philosophers see the logical incoherence of the medical model that underpins psychiatry, but fail to draw the obvious and radical conclusions. For several years I have been aware that many contemporary philosophers of psychiatry, whilst critical of the medical model of mental illness or disorder, are nevertheless reluctant to acknowledge the negative consequences of this model, such as the massive medicalisation of human distress, or to criticise the current practice of psychiatry.
joannamoncrieff.wordpress.com
This is bad “More than half of adult smokers in the UK wrongly believe that vaping is as harmful or more harmful than cigarettes, making them less likely to switch to vapes and quit the deadly habit…some people have even tried to quit vaping by switching to cigarettes.”
Majority of UK smokers wrongly believe vaping is as harmful as cigarettes, experts find
Analysis shows public understanding about vaping, which is far less harmful than smoking, has plummeted in past decade
theguardian.com
Ooh this is fun. I got 9/15. I mistook 2 bots for human and 4 humans for bots (sorry, humans)
SomersetWhovian 💙 🇺🇦@clairecopperman.bsky.social · last mo.This is fascinating. Can you spot which of these hotel reviews were written by humans and which by AI? Apparently most people get about 60% right ... I got 10/15 first time and 9/15 second (on different reviews!) How about you? lancasteruni.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
🎉 New paper out! Our study on UK media coverage of food tax debates (2017–2023) uncovers a consistent “media playbook” shaping pro- and anti-tax arguments across food products 📰📊 Great team effort! Congrats all! 👏 🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2026.100798 #FoodPolicy #PublicHealth #Media
Redirecting
doi.org
Democratic politics can't be sustained with this level of disinformation and misinformation. Action needs to be taken.
Michael Savage@michaelsavage.bsky.social · last mo.The story of social media’s problem with news, in two posts (these are from X)
This feels like a case study of something bigger: it's almost always safe for policymakers to individualise issues. I suspect this hits transport too: nobody ever got fired for building a housing estate and simply running a road to it and assuming everyone will drive individual cars
Prof. Ian Walker@ianwalker.bsky.social · last mo.Can't help thinking that closing schools because it's hot shifts the problem from cooling one building to cooling a thousand homes
THREAD: How do the dynamics of devolution and the politics of health inequality interact? My new paper in @cphjournal.bsky.social explores the differentiation function of area-health comparisons. 🚨Contains Andy Burnham content!🚨 journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jc... 1/9
Framing health inequalities to tell political stories: Devolution makes the difference | Journal of Critical Public Health
journalhosting.ucalgary.ca
"It's not your fault, it's a disease" very handily functions to obscure "it's not your fault, it's systematic/political". Disease-blaming keeps the focus downstream on the individual, enabling pharma to capitalise on their new products (see also Prozac and the "chemical imbalance" claim).
Amy Hall@amyh4ll97.bsky.social · 2mo agoAs someone who works in pharmaceuticals and studies history of science, I could write a series on the new Eli Lilly advert ‘Obesity is a disease’ Now a product is available, the narrative around obesity has entirely shifted, to the much more biological ‘it’s not your fault’ ‘it’s a disease’ trope
As someone who works in pharmaceuticals and studies history of science, I could write a series on the new Eli Lilly advert ‘Obesity is a disease’ Now a product is available, the narrative around obesity has entirely shifted, to the much more biological ‘it’s not your fault’ ‘it’s a disease’ trope
New paper from @allybrown.bsky.social, based on his PhD research, in the Journal of Critical Public Health. Really interesting analysis of how health inequalities can be framed (strategically) as part of broader, devolution agendas. Congratulations, Ally! journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jc...
Framing health inequalities to tell political stories: Devolution makes the difference | Journal of Critical Public Health
journalhosting.ucalgary.ca
Ban social media for others, they are gullible and have terrible opinions. But not for me, I am sensible and have great opinions.
I can't but help think that to some extent we are witnessing a moral panic that isn't really actually about children at all. It's about adults' fear of what social media is doing to them, to politics, to their friends. But rather than grapple with that, fear is projected onto children.
That’s the thing. It’s really hard methodologically to determine the causal effect of ultraprocessing in isolation of poor nutritional content. It’s not helpful to put people off *affordable* foods that provide healthy nutritional content because some might contain more than 5 ingredients.
thing.xn--its-so0a
Pete Scarborough@petescarbs.bsky.social · 2mo ago"Collectively, available randomized controlled trials provide weak support for an ultraprocessing-specific effect of UPFs on body weight regulation and cardiometabolic function that is independent of established nutritional determinants." New piece in Science from Magkos, Forde and Robinson.
It's just intrinsically funny to be doing this from an OpEd in the Telegraph - like the question is answered by the mode of its being posed, and answered in a way that negates the need to ask the question in the first place!
Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 2mo agoImagine having a megaphone that large and pretending you’re silenced.
