Health inequalities and health-related economic inactivity: Why work needs health.

Tackling health inequalities demands whole systems strategies with reach beyond the traditional sphere of influence of health care systems. Practitioners and researchers have long recognised that wider social determinants, where people are born, the communities they live in, their built environment, access to education and resources and, most significantly for this discussion, their relationship to the labour market, profoundly shape health experiences and expectations over the lifecourse. At macro-level, economic structures and systems play a fundamental role in the distribution of good health and incidence of inequalities.

Costs of endovascular and open repair of thoracic aortic aneurysms.

Background: Repair of thoracic aortic aneurysms with either endovascular repair (TEVAR) or open surgical repair (OSR) represents major surgery, is costly and associated with significant complications. The aim of this study was to establish accurate costs of delivering TEVAR and OSR in a cohort of UK NHS patients suitable for open and endovascular treatment for the whole treatment pathway from admission and to discharge and 12-month follow-up.

Methods: A prospective study of UK NHS patients from 30 NHS vascular/cardiothoracic units in England aged ≥18, with distal arch/descending thoracic aortic aneurysms (CTAA) was undertaken.

Development of an Exergame to Deliver a Sustained Dose of High-Intensity Training: Formative Pilot Randomized Trial.

Background: Sport science can play a critical role in reducing health inequalities. The inverse relationship between life expectancy, cardiorespiratory fitness, and socioeconomic status could be addressed by performing high-intensity training (HIT), delivered in a class salient and accessible approach. Commercially available exergames have shown encouraging compliance rates but are primarily designed for entertainment purposes rather than focusing on health-related outcomes.

Governing at a distance: social marketing and the (bio) politics of responsibility.

In the recently published lectures from the College de France series, The Birth of Bio-Politics, Foucault (2009) offers his most explicit analysis of neo-liberal governmentality and its impact upon states and societies in the late twentieth century. Framed in terms of the bio-political as a mode of governance of populations and its relationship to neo-liberalism, these lectures offer a rich seam of theoretical resources with which to interrogate contemporary forms of governmentality. This paper seeks to apply these and some recent critical analysis by Foucauldian scholars, to the study of health governance, with particular reference to the use of social marketing as a strategy to improve the health of populations 'at a distance'.

Governing the healthy male citizen: men, masculinity and popular health in Men's Health magazine.

Recent commentators have noted the potential of newer neo-liberal discourses of health care to position responsibility for the management of well-being with the individual. Often promoted through the inculcation of risk avoidance and management, such discourses are played out in myriad settings, including the popular media. Magazines are one such media site in which diverse exhortations for the achievement of health, well-being and the perfectible body are made, and Bunton [1997.

Health Action Zones and the problem of community.

Health Actions Zones (HAZs) have been identified as initiatives reflecting the 'third way' policies espoused by the UK New Labour Government. Like other area-based or zone initiatives, HAZ programmes are designed to tackle inequalities and exclusion in some of the most deprived areas of the UK. This is to be achieved through partnerships between the public, private and voluntary sectors, and most significantly, communities themselves.