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Media release: Poor ventilation on buses and trains – a fixable risk to health
… research measured carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels in air as a marker for poor ventilation. When more than half of the … show that passengers in these buses and trains are doing a lot of re-breathing of other people’s exhaled air. There was also a clear pattern of increasingly poor ventilation as seats got …
News
Nitrate contamination in drinking water and adverse birth outcomes: emerging evidence is concerning for NZ
… is growing evidence that nitrates in drinking water are a risk factor for bowel cancer, there is also emerging … birth outcomes such as prematurity. This blog takes a brief look at this new evidence and puts it into a NZ … deficits, poor respiratory outcomes, impaired motor and cognitive ability, and psychiatric disorders. One US study …
Briefing
Aotearoa’s first case of highly pathogenic avian influenza: Heightened awareness and surveillance essential for early detection
… case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus infection on a free-range egg farm in December 2024. The subtype, H7N6, is … This highly pathogenic subtype likely evolved locally from a low-pathogenic H7 subtype found naturally in wild aquatic …
Briefing
Do people who smoke make truly informed choices?
… do no more than ensure people are aware of the dangers—a goal some argue has already been achieved. But what does … know the dangers of smoking. Tobacco companies have often promoted this argument, 1 despite spending decades … on future risks. Any later reflections are undermined by cognitive heuristics and few, if any, make anything like a …
Briefing
What will it take to get to under 5% smoking prevalence 2025? Lots of cessation.
… Professor Tony Blakely The New Zealand Government has a goal of a Smokefree Nation by 2025, often interpreted as a smoking prevalence of less than 5% by … or increases the marginal quit rate from 10% to (say) 11% after six months, this is only going to be a small part of …
Briefing
Google Street View – A Useful Research Tool?
… Google Street View can be amusing – as with the image of a cow with its face blurred out by Google’s algorithm for … ). But this tool can help with research – as we report in a just published review in the journal “Tobacco Control”. In … shade provision in childrens’ playgrounds. But GSV is often only able to show features of parks and playgrounds …
Briefing
A 100 years ago today – the likely first NZ death from the 1918 influenza pandemic
… died from pandemic influenza was Robert Gordon Torrance, a 25-year-old soldier located in France. He officially “died … this study for deaths in the preceding year [4]. Shortly after signs of the pandemic were appearing in Western Europe, … rates, possibly related to immunological impacts from infection in a preceding 1889-92 influenza pandemic [11]. The …
Briefing
Fighting cold, damp housing – a big tick for Warmer Kiwi programme
… households improve when they their homes are insulated and a heat pump installed. The study’s results relate to: … inefficient heaters with heat pumps on people’s lives: After a heat pump was installed, living areas of study houses … to hospital for respiratory illness over two times more often than people from the wealthiest areas. 6 Because Māori …
Briefing
The Government’s transport plans work against our health
… The policies outlined in the draft GPS 2024 are, as a package, likely to worsen the already high levels of … health harms in the short and long term. Transport is a major determinant of health in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) … physical activity is associated with reductions in cognitive decline (40% reduction), risk for type 2 diabetes …
Briefing
Ireland leads New Zealand in the battle against obesity
… the Irish Government is planning on obesity and food – a far cry from the state of play in New Zealand. Which has … 2 nd test match in 2012 where the ABs narrowly won with a drop kick minutes before the end, and the second was late last year in Dublin when the ABs won by a margin of just 2 points. Optimistic Irish rugby fans are …
Briefing

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