- 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
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
Natural eating in Jamaica and the Caribbean
Riaz Phillips is passionate about the Jamaican food he grew up with and plant-based Caribbean food he came to later, like roti, baiganee and vegan stews and curries. Here he explores the origins and surging popularity of these natural ‘health foods’.
- Article
- Article
We need less ‘sickle cell warriors’ and more allies
Rejecting the epithet “warrior”, Cheryl Telfer describes the pervasive effect sickle cell disease has on her life, and calls for more people to donate blood to help sicklers.
- Article
- Article
The law of periodicity for menstruation
Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.
- Article
- Article
Why are women more willing donors than men?
Why is there a gender imbalance when it comes to the donation of organs, blood and tissue, and what can be done about it?
- Article
- Article
A message from my skin
As wildfires threatened Seattle, resident Sydney Baker experienced corresponding flares of acne and rashes. Her skin was telling her something about the health of the world around her.
- Article
- Article
Chronic illness and the pressure to get well
When she was ill, Naomi Morris assumed she was on a straightforward journey from sickness to health. But what if our experiences of mental distress and ill health aren’t that neat?
- Article
- Article
We who can’t believe
Unless she falls to the floor unconscious, Anne Boyer has always ignored signs of illness. Cancer, however, made her face her fallibility.
- 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
A story of death, trauma and austerity
Marienna Pope-Weidemann, whose teenage cousin Gaia died after going missing, advocates a rethink of our systems, which currently fail many in mental distress.
- Book extract
- Book extract
“Above resistant pavements, I floated”
In this extract from ‘Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts’, walk with Iain Sinclair through the streets of London.
- Long read
- Long read
The ambivalence of air
Daisy Lafarge investigates the effects of air quality and pressure on body and mind, exploring air as cure, but one with contradictions.
- Article
- Article
Reversing the psychiatric gaze
Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.
- Article
- Article
Tracing the toxic story of tear gas
Investigating tear gas – from factory to Black Lives Matter protest – Imani Jacqueline Brown uncovers a toxic legacy where pollution, violence and racism are intimately entwined.
- Article
- Article
Do good mothers make good democracy?
To be psychologically fit for democracy, one distinguished paediatrician argued that you need a ‘good enough mother’ – and that we must acknowledge the bad side of our feelings.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Dangers inside and out
Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.
- Article
- Article
Are you still nursing?
Julia Martins might get the side-eye for breastfeeding a three-year-old in the UK but, as she explains, examples from history, as well as the cultural norms of Brazil, where she grew up, are firmly on the side of extended nursing.
- Article
- Article
How can we prevent violence?
Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.
- Article
- Article
What is violence?
Criminologist Laura Bui explores her early understanding of violence and outlines its definition and wider consequences.
- Article
- Article
Silent threat
As Vanessa Peterson recovered from a frighteningly serious illness, she wondered whether it was linked to air quality. For many communities, she found, pollution is a political issue.
- Article
- Article
The trouble with too many things
Hoarding is a slippery subject – difficult to define or diagnose. As she tries to explain the intensity of her grandma’s collecting, Georgie Evans finds the words and tools at her disposal aren’t all that helpful.
- Article
- Article
How Indigenous insight inspires sustainable science
The forest of the Amazon Basin is inextricably bound up with the lives of the Indigenous peoples living there. Find out how they feel about the forest, use what it provides, and try to protect it from aggressive commercial exploitation.
- Article
- Article
A bad atmosphere in the Balkans
The citizens of Belgrade, one of the most polluted cities in Europe, are finally pushing back against the polluters, whose activities they’ve been encouraged to accept.
- Article
- Article
Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta
A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.