Tax Inspectors Without Borders may prevent next Ebola outbreak

While much of the focus has been on the public health and medical response to the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, in terms of prevention we need to think beyond medical interventions such as new vaccines.  If we think about the broader determinants of health in society it may be that the work of Tax Inspectors Without Borders will lead the prevention of  Ebola outbreaks in the future - my article published in The Conversation today explores this idea.

Evidence of the fragmentation of public health perpsectives?

Plotinus, a "neoplatonist" believed that the ultimate good was a return to the "one" - the experience of the world in its holistic coherence, without fragmentation into silos and fragments defined by narrow human interests and perspectives.  I was reminded of this when I read two articles in the March, 2012 issue of the American Journal of Public Health - first

Project-Based Housing First for Chronically Homeless Individuals With Alcohol Problems: Within-Subjects Analyses of 2-Year Alcohol Trajectories by Susan E. Collins et al describing how providing housing to people with alcohol addiction problems, without requiring them to be abstinent of alcohol (as many welfare programs require) resulted in decreased alcohol use.  This was an example of ensuring the addiction did not stigmatise the user and further lower their living standards and reinforce their alcohol use.  

In the same issue, Michael Ong et al publish Estimates of Smoking-Related Property Costs in California Multiunit Housing in which they attempt (with a 22% response rate) to estimate the impact of smoking renters on property costs.  They calculate that "implementing statewide complete smoke-free policies may save multiunit housing property owners $18 094 254 annually."