Ending the blame game: The case for a new approach to public health and prevention

Article

Too many people in the UK are suffering from preventable ill-health with progress on prevention stalling in recent years.

Over half of the disease burden in England is deemed preventable, with one in five deaths attributed to causes that could have been avoided. The UK has made significant progress on this agenda in the past but we appear to have ‘hit a wall’ with limited progress since 2010.

Action on prevention will not only improve health but also lead to increases in economic growth, make the NHS more sustainable and help to deliver social justice. The government’s prevention green paper must deliver a paradigm shift in policy from interventions that ‘blame and punish’ to those that ‘empathise and assist’.

Related items

  1. A car park with a series of electric vehicle charging point parking spaces

    Powering up public support for electric vehicles

    Tackling greenhouse gas emissions will only work if public support for action remains strong. That means ensuring tangible improvements in people’s lives and heading off any brewing backlash.

  2. Assessing the economy

    Over the past few days and weeks, there has been lots of rather histrionic commentary about the UK’s economic situation as if the budget has created an economic disaster from which we’ll never recover.
  3. Cargo ship with shipping containers docked at Felixstowe

    Towards a UK trade strategy

    The UK is facing a precarious and volatile period for global trade.