Public health, pluralism, and the telos of political virtue.

In the ethics of public health, questions of virtue, that is, of what it means for public health to act excellently, have received little attention. This omission needs remedy first because achieving improvements in population-wide health can be in tension with goals like respect for the liberty, self-determination, or non-oppression of various individuals or groups. A virtue-ethics approach is flexible and well-suited for the kind of deliberation required to resolve or mitigate such tension.

Adult safeguarding legislation: Navigating the borderlands between mental capacity, mental health and social care law and practice.

Adult safeguarding legislation is contentious because it seeks to protect 'vulnerable' adults who fall between the borderlands of social care, mental health and mental capacity law. As a new and complex area of law and practice, further research on adult safeguarding legislation is required, in particular to consider it efficacy and human rights implications. Utilising a narrative literature review approach this article explores current research evidence on the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 to consider whether safeguarding powers and duties can achieve a proportionate balance between individual autonomy and the state's duties to protect adults at risk of harm and, if so, how.

A Model of Social Media Effects in Public Health Communication Campaigns: Systematic Review.

Background: Social media platforms are frequently used in health communication campaigns. Common understandings of campaign effects posit a sequential and linear series of steps from exposure to behavior change, commonly known as the hierarchy of effects model (HOE). These concepts need to be reevaluated in the age of social media, which are interactional and communal.

Response: Collective Moral Agents and Their Collective-Level Virtues.

In this short piece, I attempt to respond to some of the challenges raised by Jessica Nihlén Fahlquist and Karen Meagher in their commentaries on my paper, 'Public Health Virtue Ethics'. While these authors have made many insightful and challenging remarks, I mostly focus on two questions here: first, about the nature of collectives as moral agents, in response to Nihlén Fahlquist, and second, about the concept of a collective-level virtue, in response to Meagher.

Rules and Resistance: A Commentary on "An Archeology of Corruption in Medicine".

In the paper "An archeology of corruption in medicine" (2018), Miles Little, Wendy Lipworth, and Ian Kerridge ("the authors" or "Little et al.") present an account of corruption and describe its prevalent forms in medicine. In presenting an individual-focused account of corruption found within "social entities" (organizations, institutions, and systems), Little et al.

The 'tyranny of reproduction': Could ectogenesis further women's liberation?

This paper imagines what the liberatory possibilities of (full) ectogenesis are, insofar as it separates woman from female reproductive function. Even before use with human infants, ectogenesis productively disrupts the biological paradigm underlying current gender categories and divisions of labour. I begin by presenting a theory of women's oppression drawn from the radical feminisms of the 1960s, which sees oppression as deeply rooted in biology.

Exacerbating Inequalities? Health Policy and the Behavioural Sciences.

There have been calls for some time for a new approach to public health in the United Kingdom and beyond. This is consequent on the recognition and acceptance that health problems often have a complex and multi-faceted aetiology. At the same time, policies which utilise insights from research in behavioural economics and psychology ('behavioural science') have gained prominence on the political agenda.

Utility and justice in public health.

Background: Many public health practitioners and organizations view themselves as engaged in the promotion or achievement of equity. However, discussions around public health frequently assume that practitioners and policy-makers take a utilitarian approach to this work.

Methods: I argue that public health is better understood as a social justice endeavor.

The Restaurant Food Hot Potato: Stop Passing it on-A Commentary on Mah and Timming's, 'Equity in Public Health Ethics: The Case of Menu Labelling Policy at the Local Level'.

In the case discussion, 'Equity in Public Health Ethics: The Case of Menu Labelling Policy at the Local Level' (2014), Mah and Timming state that menu labelling would 'place requirements for information disclosure on private sector food businesses, which, as a policy instrument, is arguably less intrusive than related activities such as requiring changes to the food content'. In this commentary on Mah and Timming's case study, I focus on discussing how menu-labelling policy permits governments to avoid addressing the heart of the problem, which is high-calorie, high-sodium restaurant food. Menu labelling policy does not address food content in a way that is meaningful for change, instead relying on individuals to change their behaviour given new information.

Barriers to optimizing investments in the built environment to reduce youth obesity: policy-maker perspectives.

Objective: To identify factors which limit the ability of local governments to make appropriate investments in the built environment to promote youth health and reduce obesity outcomes in Atlantic Canada.

Method: Policy-makers and professionals participated in focus groups to discuss the receptiveness of local governments to introducing health considerations into decision-making. Seven facilitated focus groups involved 44 participants from Atlantic Canada.

The effect of whole grain wheat sourdough bread consumption on serum lipids in healthy normoglycemic/normoinsulinemic and hyperglycemic/hyperinsulinemic adults depends on presence of the APOE E3/E3 genotype: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Epidemiological studies associate consumption of whole grain foods, including breads, with reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk; however, few studies have compared wheat whole grains with wheat refined grains.

Methods: This study investigated effects of 6-week consumption of whole grain wheat sourdough bread in comparison to white bread on fasting serum lipids in normoglycemic/normoinsulinemic (NGI; n = 14) and hyperglycemic/hyperinsulinemic (HGI; n = 14) adults. The influence of single-nucleotide polymorphisms, 3 within the APOE gene (E2, E3, E4) and 2 within the hepatic lipase gene promoter (LIPC -514C>T, LIPC -250G>A) were considered.