The demand for healthcare is growing and the NHS is facing the challenge of treating patients with multiple long-term conditions in high-cost settings, with limited resource set aside for prevention.  To have any hope of reversing this trend, hospitals need to embed prevention into their strategies to address the growing demand for health services driven by a population growth, ageing and health inequalities.  Doctors have an important role in addressing health inequalities, by advocating for change in healthcare.  An ageing population with multiple long-term conditions highligh ..read more

The Faculty of Public Health is a champion for the very people who form the backbone of our nation’s health and wellbeing – our public health professionals. Yet, we are concerned about the risk of a slowly emerging yet persistent challenge – the widening of pay inequities for public health specialists working within the UK public health system. This is not simply a matter of numbers and spreadsheets. It is a moral failing, an injustice that undermines the very foundation of equity we strive to create in public health. It’s about recognising the worth of every individual, regardless of their d ..read more

From pandemics to climate change, the complexities of our world demand a new breed of leader – one who thrives in the face of uncertainty and orchestrates collective action amidst chaos. Let’s explore what this might mean for those of us in public health. As I travel around the country meeting fellow public health colleagues, I am consistently struck by one consistent message: We are indeed living in interesting and complex times. Whether working within the context of rising pressures on health services, rising tides of infectious and chronic diseases, widening health inequalities, growing po ..read more

The escalating crisis of poverty and deepening financial insecurity in the UK represents a significant obstacle to public health and perpetuates health inequalities. Poverty detrimentally affects health across the lifespan, particularly impacting children, and diminishes life expectancy and healthy life years. These health ramifications reverberate across the NHS, public services, the labour market, the economy, and society as a whole. To safeguard the well-being of our communities and combat widening health disparities, prioritising the prevention and alleviation of poverty and its health imp ..read more

Monday 5th February marks the start of National HIV testing week, where people across the country are encouraged to get a test for HIV. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the event, and the last decade (and indeed previous ones) has wrought significant change in HIV care. In view of this change, is it time for us to change the way we think and talk about testing for HIV? Whilst it is more widely known now that HIV is not a death sentence, and people living with HIV can live long and healthy lives, it can sometimes seem that attitudes around HIV testing have not all moved on to reflect thi ..read more

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Global Violence Prevention (GVP) SIG published an article on this blog laying out the devasting public health impacts on this war[1]. This sparked a discussion between the GVP SIG and the Film SIG about how we could collaborate to raise awareness of the public health impacts of violence through the medium of film. This idea followed a successful collaboration between the GVP and Film SIGs in 2018, when they created an award-winning animation with Médecins Sans Frontières to mark to centenary of the 1918 pandemic and the end of the WWI[2][3]. To ta ..read more

As I reach the halfway point of my Presidency, I find myself reflecting on both the significant strides we’ve made as a Faculty and the complex challenges that lie ahead in 2024. We face a landscape shaped by domestic and international elections, a persistent cost-of-living crisis, international conflict, and the ongoing threat of communicable diseases like MMR. Our public health teams, already stretched thin, face difficult conversations about prioritisation and the reality of ‘doing less with less’ as demand continues to outstrip our limited resource. Yet, amid these complexities, the Facul ..read more

“Try being nice first, but accept you may need to escalate.” “Our best guess is that the average person needs to see and hear about climate at least 80 times a month — potentially even more — to become an active supporter of significant climate action.” “People believe they will be protected from harm – they think if things were really that bad [with climate emergency], they wouldn’t be allowed to continue.” These three pearls of wisdom were shared in FPH’s recent series of webinars on advocacy for climate and health, organised by us as members of the Sustainable Development Special Interest G ..read more

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) prioritises tackling health inequalities and promoting anti-racism to address racial and ethnic health disparities. Anti-racism has been a focus for the FPH since 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the renewed sense of injustice, combined with the racial disparities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As FPH President, I am committed to addressing the persistent racial and ethnic health disparities that plague our society. These disparities manifest in higher rates of chronic diseases, maternal mortality, and lower life expectancy among minority et ..read more

The crisis of overcrowding in our prisons has led to some drastic and potentially unsafe changes to sentencing practices. So far there has been less attention to preventing people being in prison when they shouldn’t be there. There is extreme unfairness, injustice, and indeed cruelty in our system of punishment, with prisons full of inadequate, vulnerable, mentally ill and addicted people, largely from poorer social backgrounds. These incarcerations need to be prevented, and alternative methods of support, and fair punishment, needs to be found.  The gross inequalities in sentencing sugge ..read more