- Article
- Article
Guerrilla public health
From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.
- Article
- Article
Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability
By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.
- Article
- Article
Between sickness and health
In early 2020, the subject Will Rees was studying – imaginary illnesses – took on a new relevance as everyone anxiously scanned themselves for Covid symptoms each day. But this kind of self-scrutiny is nothing new, as he reveals.
- Article
- Article
Two health centres, two ideologies
Two futuristic, light-filled buildings aimed to bring forward-looking healthcare to city dwellers. But the principles behind each were very different.
- Article
- Article
The birth of Britain's National Health Service
Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.
- Article
- Article
Six personal health zines that might change your life
Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.
- Article
- Article
Thomas Sankara and the stomachs that made themselves heard
Thomas Sankara’s vision to transform farming and health in Burkina Faso turned to dust with his assassination. Perry Blankson highlights the considerable achievements of Sankara’s brief span in power.
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- Article
The family food of a kebab van man
Melek Erdal celebrates the physical and mental resilience of her father Yusuf, forged by isolation and dislocation, and reinforced by the distinctive cuisine of his home country, Turkey.
- Article
- Article
What Black women do when the NHS fails them
Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.
- Article
- Article
When everyday environments become anxious spaces
Social anxiety disorder isolates those who experience it. Part of the solution is to design public spaces with mental health in mind.
- In pictures
- In pictures
AIDS awareness posters from the 1980s onwards
The AIDS public health poster campaign chose print even in the internet age and dealt with issues of identity and behaviour like never before.
- Interview
- Interview
How to design an HIV awareness campaign
Using carefully crafted, colourful graphics is one public health team’s creative approach.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The serious side of historical games
Some games carry a weighty message, from the earliest form of snakes and ladders that led to either heaven or hell, to chess pieces representing the dangerous manoeuvres of unsafe sex in the 80s.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Artists, activism and AIDS
Posters by artists who turned their art into activism to support their communities and raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Article
- Article
Why the truth is better than a happy ending
Caroline Butterwick often uses lived experience to inform her journalism, but she’s discovered a tension between the truth and stories that will sell.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Superstition, contagion and medical rumour
The great generator of confusion, rumours have not spared human health from their chaos. Find out how whispers, gossip and rumours have caused medical mishaps through the ages.
- Article
- Article
The boundaries that shape my writing
While writing about her life can be enormously helpful, Caroline Butterwick needs to regularly reassess her boundaries. Here she explores the line between what’s public and what’s private, and how porous that can be.
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- Article
Life lessons across the digital divide
What could 86-year-old Tony teach 20-something Adele as she showed him how to use his smartphone? Rather a lot about digital exclusion, it turns out.
- In pictures
- In pictures
The post-war adverts that tried to cure lonely women
Isolated housewives, lonely female office workers: while the 1950s saw the birth of a general concern about them, manufacturers also spotted an opportunity. Find out how advertising promised that products could salve solitude.
- Article
- Article
The significance of safe spaces as refuges from racism
Beer writer David Jesudason discusses the impact racism has had on his mental health, and the consolation offered by pubs that feel truly safe.
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- Article
The cook who became a pariah
New York, 1907. Mary Mallon spreads infection, unaware that her name will one day become synonymous with typhoid.
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- Article
Audrey in the world
As the collection is fully catalogued, the archive is opened up to the public. A feature film about Audrey premieres, and Audrey gets her own Wikipedia page, so people can learn about her. For archivist Elena, it’s time to step back.
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- Article
NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare
The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.
- Article
- Article
The enduring myth of the mad genius
There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.
- Article
- Article
Shame and the online free-for-all
Lucia Osborne-Crowley looks at how shame manifests online, where public humiliation is common and second chances all too rare.