It is tempting to see pandemics as unpredictable, cataclysmic incursions of nature into human society.1 Yet the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) is anything but a “natural” phenomenon. Epidemics and pandemics happen in a social, political and economic context,… Continue Reading
The National Health Service (NHS) has barely been out of the news in recent months: the publication of the Francis Report on the events at the mid-Staffordshire hospital, which has now been put into administration; the measles outbreak in south… Continue Reading
Over the past 30 years—during all the time we have been told that class is dead—something strange has been happening in the study of health. A generation of epidemiologists who study patterns of death (mortality) and illnesses (morbidity) have been… Continue Reading