Partnerships between public health agencies and industries which trade in potentially harmful products or activities – such as the recently announced and much criticised partnership between Public Health England (PHE) and the alcohol industry-funded body, Drinkaware – risk delaying or preventing effective policies to improve population health, say public health scientists Mark Petticrew, Martin McKee […]
Archives for September 2018
What should doctors say to men asking for a PSA test?
The evidence behind prostate cancer screening – including the latest large trial of prostate cancer screening with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test – shows no difference in prostate cancer mortality after 10 years, according to a review published in the BMJ last week. Neither the US Preventive Services Task Force nor Public Health England recommend population […]
Removal of GP incentives associated with decline in quality of care
The removal of financial incentives for doctors working in primary care is associated with a decline in performance on quality measures, according to new findings by researchers from the Universities of Dundee and Cambridge, and staff from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Researchers said the decline in performance measures may be […]
How do regular drinkers perceive wines and beers labelled as lower in strength?
There is growing interest from policy makers and producers to extend the range of lower strength alcohol products above the current cap of 1.2% alcohol by volume (ABV) set out in national legislation, in order to reduce overall alcohol consumption. However, there is a lack of evidence on how the general population perceives alcohol products […]
EuroDEM 2018
CanTest Research Associate Marije Van Melle looks back on a European conference dedicated to diagnostic error… At the end of August a delegation of CanTest’s Senior and Junior Faculty attended EuroDEM – a conference entirely dedicated to diagnostic error in medicine – in the beautiful, medieval Swiss capital Bern (land of cuckoo clocks, heraldic beasts […]
Drink it straight: people take longer to consume sugary soft drinks served in straight-sided glasses
People drink soft drinks more slowly from glasses which have straight sides, when compared to those that slope outwards. That is the central conclusion of PhD research by Tess Langfield from the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, which is being presented at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology […]