- Article
- Article
Chemical highs and psychedelic research
Could recreational drugs make you happy? Kate Wilkinson explores why keen clubber Simon believes taking psychedelics has helped him develop as a person.
- 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
Picturing mental health
Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?
- Article
- Article
Designing better mental health wards
Bringing colour and natural light to tired, grubby mental health wards has a measurably positive effect on patients. A few groundbreaking projects are showing the way.
- 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
How the mental health system fails Black people
Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.
- Article
- Article
Soil health and dairy farming in the UK
Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.
- Article
- Article
How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction
Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.
- Article
- Article
Children in burns prevention campaigns
Whose responsibility is it to prevent accidental burns and scalds in the home? Shane Ewen’s research shows that it’s everyone’s concern.
- 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.
- Article
- Article
The complex longing for home
It could be mild, an almost poetic longing. Or it could be visceral, deep, an overwhelming feeling that eats into your everyday life. Come with Gail Tolley as she introduces a deep dive into homesickness.
- Article
- Article
Belonging and why we long for it
Tanya Perdikou’s upbringing emphasised conventional respectability, but other influential family members embraced the bohemian life. Caught between two sets of values, she questions where, if anywhere, she fits in.
- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
- 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.
- Article
- Article
Social isolation and the search for sanctuary
Threatened with deportation, Furaha Asani turned to her church for support. Met with silence and disinterest, she walked away, but argues that churches should do much more for migrants.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The 200-year search for normal people
Sarah Chaney poses the question we’ve likely all asked at some point in our lives: 'Am I normal?’, and explores whether normality even exists.
- Article
- Article
How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory
A 19th-century collaboration that failed to prove how facial features could indicate the diseases people were most likely to suffer from became a significant stepping stone in the new ‘science’ of eugenics.
- Article
- Article
Befriending heavy breathers
Read the fascinating story behind the rare manual that helped volunteers on one of Britain’s first free telephone helplines to deal with masturbating callers.
- Article
- Article
The island of unclaimed bodies
In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.
- Interview
- Interview
How to design an HIV awareness campaign
Using carefully crafted, colourful graphics is one public health team’s creative approach.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Why we need to decolonise healthcare
In this extract from ‘Divided’, Annabel Sowemimo describes the way her nana’s stroke and hospitalisation heightened her awareness of the need for us all to advocate for the health of others.
- Article
- Article
Society, not Covid-19, makes us vulnerable
Rick Burgess coped with the death of his mother in February 2020 by immersing himself in the task of protecting his community from Covid-19 and challenging the government's failure to protect and support elderly and Disabled people during the pandemic.
- Article
- Article
WhatsApp aunties and the spread of fake news
The advantages of WhatApp chat groups – especially as a cost-free way of keeping in touch with family around the world – make them fertile ground for the spread of bogus medical advice. Writer Rianna Walcott explores how to encourage ‘aunties’ in the community to question the truth of unattributed health hoaxes.
- Article
- Article
Ways appear
While his sense of body shame meant the personal side of his life was unfulfilled, Chris’s career was rewarding. His own childhood experiences gave him profound empathy for the children he worked with.
- Long read
- Long read
Healthy scepticism
Healthcare sceptics – like those opposed to Covid-19 vaccinations – often have serious, nuanced reasons for doubting medical authorities.