674 Results

  • Analysis of a new NZ Treasury Report on soft drink tax

    … an action plan to tackle childhood obesity, but it lacks a tax on sugary drinks – a strategy for which there is good … tax price elasticities has just emerged. It has the look of a strategically published document that if and when – … to consider a more detailed analysis of the evidence (eg, building on a review of the international literature and …
    Briefing

  • Why we need an Aotearoa Centre for Disease Control (CDC)

    … managing multiple ongoing infectious disease challenges. A key responsibility would be building integrated … organisation would be more effective, and make better use of resources, if it functioned as a ‘distributed’ centre with … P PP Research on vaccine development and production (eg. collaboration with Australia on mRNA technology)* C PP …
    Briefing

  • Can pandemic threats justify border closure for island nations like NZ?

    … Countries prepare for future pandemic risks because of pandemic influenza, novel emerging infectious agents and possible synthetic bioweapons. In a study we just published in a journal, we explored the costs … and can have huge economic and personal costs. Eg, the potential economic damage from a border closure in …
    Briefing

  • Highlights of the World Conference on Tobacco or Health

    … United Arab Emirates. In this blog post we describe some of the main themes and some thoughts about how these might … in New Zealand. In summary, New Zealand can still learn a lot from other countries as we move to the adoption of a full range of state-of-the-art tobacco control policies.   We start with a …
    Briefing

  • Another Havelock North? Govt undoing protections for drinking water safety

    … North in 2016, the National-led Government established a formal inquiry into what went wrong and lessons for the … This led to policy changes to strengthen the protection of source water and improve the country’s drinking water … refers to the waterbody that drinking water is drawn from (eg, lake, river or aquifer). Following the outbreak, the …
    Briefing

  • Aotearoa New Zealand's fourth wave of Covid-19 and why we should care

    … Summary Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) is experiencing a fourth wave of Covid-19 infection. This conclusion is supported by the … pathogens 18 . This shift might mean some rationalisation eg, focusing wastewater testing on just a few selected …
    Briefing

  • The strong case for mask requirements in public transportation and border control settings in NZ’s current COVID-19 pandemic context

    … the Government provides free masks as per Hong Kong), such a policy should be given very serious consideration by health … SARS-CoV-2 is highly infectious, with a large proportion of asymptomatic (including pre-symptomatic) transmission, … transport. Costs will be lower if mass masking can be used to avoid the need for having “empty seats” between …
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  • COVID-19 and the law in Aotearoa NZ

    … Health and emergency laws have played a critical role in this country’s successful elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog … order would be made for all people, or a class of people (eg, those in public transport). CPHR Act Section 11 orders …
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  • Seven decades of severe weather events in Aotearoa New Zealand: What are the human health impacts?

    … timeframe, there were 498 severe weather events recorded, of which 185 were linked with either injuries or deaths. In … increase with climate change – but fortunately there are a range of preventive measures available that could lower the harm from these events (eg, by reducing housing on flood plains and low-lying coastal …
    Briefing

  • “Achieving Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025”: a response to critiques

    … 2025” Action Plan was launched at Parliament on 2 August. A previous blog described its key features and a rationale … the recommended measures. This blog addresses critiques of the Plan; it discusses the potential role e-cigarettes … providing complementary information on e-cigarettes (eg, relative harms of e-cigarettes vs smoked tobacco …
    Briefing

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Public Health Expert Briefing (ISSN 2816-1203)