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Ben Barr

@benjaminbarr.bsky.social

Professor in Applied Public Health Research. Head WHO collaborating centre for policy research on the determinants of health equity. https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/population-health/staff/benjamin-barr/ . Was once an anthropologist, maybe I still am.

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Alex Andreou@sturdyalex.bsky.social · 2w ago

There is a danger that by arguing the amount, we end up conceding the framing. Britain's welfare is ungenerous, the spend in total is mid-to-low table, and below past peaks. Benefits need reforming because they're unfit for purpose and trap, instead of enabling people. Not to make fantasy savings.

Chart of UK overall benefit spend, showing it lower than post-GFC or pandemic and largely in similar proportions, pensions being the largest chunk by far.Charts showing the UK is mid-table of comparative OECD countris on total social expenditure and bottom third in terms of cash benefits.Charts showing that the UK has the lowest welfare income replacement rate (ie. how far one's income drops if they lose their job) of any comparator OECD country, and third lowest, if you add housing benefit (which is more than the cash benefit element).Graph showing that the generosity of the UK's welfare spending has been declining over decades against trend.
Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · last mo.

If true, we get 3 things. None good. 1. The direct negative growth/fiscal impacts of cutting immigration. 2. A Chancellor who prioritises their own personal/ideological obsessions over the UK economy. 3. A PM who through myopia or weakness chooses 1 and 2.

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · last mo.

The Times reporting that Andy Burnham succeeded in persuading Shabana Mahmood to become Chancellor because it would give her more control over cutting immigration

Steve Senior@stevensenior.bsky.social · last mo.

Meanwhile healthy life expectancy is between 60 and 61 on average (and much lower in some populations) so increasing normal retirement ages further is likely to push some of those from unconditional pensions to conditional sickness benefits. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Healthy life expectancy, UK - Office for National Statistics

The number of years people are expected to spend in “good” general health in the UK, including subnational areas.

ons.gov.uk

Steve Senior@stevensenior.bsky.social · last mo.

Well, since life expectancy has basically flatlined in the last 15 years you'd might think there wouldn't be much case for increasing normal pension age beyond the levels set about a decade ago. ourworldindata.org/grapher/life...

Life expectancy

The period life expectancy at birth, in a given year.

ourworldindata.org

Paul Lewis@paullewismoney.bsky.social · last mo.

Pension age to rise to 68 from 2037, Treasury tells @OBR_UK under plans set by previous Conservative government bit.ly/4wAuefy Labour govt is now consulting on what state pension age should be

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · last mo.

My coauthor Jay Falk's postdoctoral fellowship was terminated by the Trump administration for documenting the hummingbird example in this paper.

FIGURE 2 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint Operational biological sex definitions applied to hummingbirds (Bleiweiss 1992; Bleiweiss 1999; Bleiweiss 2001; Diamant et al. 2021; Falk et al. 2022; Falk et al. 2021) where sex is operationally defined by binary plumage phenotypes in the field. Each row depicts a wild individual hummingbird with morphological traits (beak length, plumage coloration), behavioural traits (territoriality) and their unobserved gamete type. This example illustrates how the same individual can be operationally defined as one sex in the field (based on external phenotypes) but classified as a different sex based on their gametes (which cannot be easily observed in the field), highlighting how definitional choices shape scientific reporting of sex.
Andy Lee, PhD@andylee.bsky.social · last mo.

In our Viewpoint (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...) we synthesize the gametic definition (outlined by Janicke et al below) and other definitions of sex (e.g., multivariate definition). We contend that is NO consensus on “biological sex” (maybe a consensus isn’t actually necessary…)

Owen Davies@odavies9.bsky.social · last mo.

I'm all for #CountBinFace but with my folklorist hat on, I have to call him out on his 99 policy. No evidence for it, and other alternative histories available. See my free article on the history of ice cream vans .... www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A Folklorist Looks at Ice Cream Vans

Of all the commercial road vehicles that have toured the streets and tourist spots of Britain, Ireland, America, and Australia over nearly a century, none elicit more popular reminiscence and senti...

tandfonline.com

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 2y ago

You can always rely on CountBinFace who, this year, ran on the policy that he would bring into law that 99's (vanilla ice-cream in a cone with a chocolate flake) should cost 99p. 🍦🍦

Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · last mo.

DOGE officially ended over the weekend. One of its crowning achievements was cutting $15M from the federal government’s screwworm monitoring program. Now, the Trump administration is preparing to spend $1B to combat the screwworm outbreak. "Efficiency."

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · last mo.

Many govt ministers, advisers and half the parliamentary party have just not yet clocked that Mahmood's could see 750k people (about three-quarters of those on the 15 year route) lose their legal status by 2029. Mostly black/Asian Commonwealth migrants (eligible to vote!) bsky.app/profile/jame...

JJames Bowes@jamesbowes01.bsky.social · last mo.

It’s about 750,000 people and about 1/3 of them are care workers. About 1/6 of all care workers in the country.

Martin McKee@martinmckee.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/2 For the first time in more than a decade, the UK could be led by someone who can offer a vision of a healthier, wealthier future grounded in evidence and operational experience. @lucindahiam.bsky.social & I explain why @bmj.com www.bmj.com/content/394/...

Andy Burnham could apply lessons from Manchester to create a healthier Britain with a stronger economy

For the first time in more than a decade, the UK could be led by someone who can offer a vision of a healthier, wealthier future grounded in evidence and operational experience, write Martin McKee and...

bmj.com

Colin Angus@victimofmaths.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is really interesting work and has some important implications for anyone who cares about the impact of new treatments and interventions on health inequalities. Whether current NHS spending is reducing inequality is crucial to estimating what happens when we divert some of that to new drugs.

NIHR EEPRU@nihr-eepru.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Does NHS spending actually reduce health inequalities? 🏥📈 A new commentary compares two key studies, Anaya-Montes et al. (2025) & Martin et al. (2022), to unpack why they reach different conclusions on how funding impacts deprived vs. high-mortality areas. 🔗 Read more: bit.ly/4f0TwN4

Paul Hünermund@p-hunermund.com · 2mo ago

How often do we have to debunk this? The moment you apply RCT results beyond the study population (even at a different point in time) you need transportability assumptions again. Observational studies often have the advantage of using actual field data from the population where decisions are made.

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NIHR EEPRU@nihr-eepru.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Does NHS spending actually reduce health inequalities? 🏥📈 A new commentary compares two key studies, Anaya-Montes et al. (2025) & Martin et al. (2022), to unpack why they reach different conclusions on how funding impacts deprived vs. high-mortality areas. 🔗 Read more: bit.ly/4f0TwN4

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Scott L Greer@scottlgreer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is a finding with significant policy and business implications (should generate more research to get more specific). Presenteeism is a classic case of something that looks like efficiency (make them work!) and is actually inefficient (bad work and now everybody’s sick including customers).

Scott L Greer@scottlgreer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“Generous sick pay was associated with an 8-percentage-point lower presenteeism propensity…explaining 12.4% of the between-country variance... The association appeared more pronounced among older workers, low-income employees, routine occupations, and those in industry or public administration.”

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“You aren’t being nice enough to white Afrikaners—who we prioritized for resettlement in the US as refugees—& so, because we care more for white people’s lives than Black people’s lives, we’ll end our support to you, making a surge in new HIV infections all but inevitable, to teach you a lesson”

Lauren Ashley Davis@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Trump administration to phase out HIV funding for South Africa The State Department said the country had failed to address the president’s concerns about treatment of its white citizens. www.politico.com/news/2026/06...