The UK Public Health Association conference: Good things and Wicked Problems

Just back from Bournemouth, where I presented a paper at the UK Public Health Association Forum, Britain’s biggest gathering of public health academics, professionals and practitioners - unlike Health Secretary “Andy” Burnham, who was due to speak at the plenary, but a no-show on the day. And his Tory oppo. Andrew Lansley, who also bailed. Quite why they didn’t turn up was unclear. True, it was Budget Day, and true, there is an election coming. But the former didn’t really affect health (“ring-fenced”) and the latter hasn’t been declared - yet. Whatever….. Though I have spoken at many IT and telecoms conferences, this was my first presentation to the health sector. The paper seemed to go down well, and it was a great opportunity to meet some key researchers and thinkers from the sector. I delivered a presentation linking the Wicked Problems of climate change and obesity, car dependency, social marketing and behavioural economics. A copy of the presentation is available on request from me at my (anti-spam) email address of “s[dot]young[@]brighton.ac.uk” The journal article on which the presentation was based can be obtained from the Online First section of Perspectives in Public Health.