Papers reviewed by the Reading Group
2024-2025
Lent Term
Wednesday 12 February 2025 - Lord Geoffrey Filkin
"Strategies for influencing health policy"
Michaelmas Term
Wednesday 13 November 2024 - Professor Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri and Dr Ritwick Sawarkar
2023-2024
Easter Term
Thursday 16 May 2024 - Dr Elias Nosrati, Professors Mike Kelly & Simon Szreter
Nosrati E, Kelly MP, Szreter S. Infant mortality and social causality: Lessons from the history of Britain's public health movement, c. 1834-1914. Br J Sociol. 2024 Jun 15.
Michaelmas Term
Wednesday 15 November 2023 - Professor Robert Gordon
"Bicycle Thieves = Ladri di biciclette"
Bicycle thieves Ladri di biciclette Robert S.C. Gordon. Chapters 5. Cities and 6. Communities.
Precarious lives: Inequalities in health through the lens of the film maker- A workshop on film, social realism, and inequalities in health with the participation of Ken Loach. Workshop report: Precarious lives: inequalities in health through the lens of the filmmaker 2023
2022-2023
Lent Term
Thursday 23 March 2023 - Professor Theresa Marteau
“Evaluation of evidence into practice to impact Inequalities in health”
Marteau, T. (2023). Evidence-neglect: addressing a barrier to UK health and climate policy ambitions. Science and Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scad021
Diamond, P., Richards, D., Sanders, A. and Westwood, A. (2023), Levelling Up the UK: If not the Conservatives, will Labour Learn the Lessons from Past Policy Failings?. The Political Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13234
2021-2022
Easter term
Tuesday 7 June 2022 - Dr Pepita Barlow
*Barlow, P and Thow, A.M. (2021) Neoliberal discourse, actor power, and the politics of nutrition policy: A qualitative analysis of informal challenges to nutrition labelling regulations at the World Trade Organization, 2007–2019. Social Science & Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113761
*Barlow, P (2018) Does trade liberalization reduce child mortality in low and middle-income countries? A synthetic control analysis of 36 policy experiments, 1963-2005. Social Science & Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.04.001
*Navarro, V (2009) International Journal of Health Services, Volume 39, Number 3, pages 423–441. https://doi: 10.2190/HS.39.3.a
Lent Term
Tuesday 22 February 2022 - Professor Gordon Harold
"Getting Under the Skin’ of Gene-Environment Interplay: Unpacking Genetic Factors from Family Environment Factors to Promote Children’s Mental Health and Future Life Chances"
*Conger, R et al. (1991) A Process Model of Family Economic Pressure and Early Adolescent Alcohol Use. The Journal of Early Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431691114003
*Ge, X et al. (1996) The Developmental Interface Between Nature and Nurture: A Mutual Influence Model of Child Antisocial Behavior and Parent Behaviors. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.32.4.574
*Harold, G, Leve, L & Sellers, R (2017) How Can Genetically Informed Research Help Inform the Next Generation of Interparental and Parenting Interventions? Child Development. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12742
Michaelmas Term
Tuesday 19 October 2021 - Professor Peter Jones
“On schizophrenia being more common in African Caribbean communities in Europe”
*Jongsma, H et al (2021) Understanding the excess psychosis risk in ethnic minorities: the impact of structure and identity. Social Psychiatry Psychiatric Epidemiology. DOI. 10.1007/s00127-021-02042-8
*Jones, P & Fung, W L A (2014) Ethnicity and Mental Health: The Example of Schizophrenia in the African-Caribbean Population in Europe. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139140348.011
*Burke, A (1984) Racism and Psychological Disturbance Among West Indians in Britain. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002076408403000108?journalCode=ispa#:~:text=https%3A//doi.org/10.1177/002076408403000108
2020-2021
Easter Term
Tuesday 22 June 2021 – Professor Aziz Sheikh & Professor Simon Griffin
"Can we create data-enabled learning health systems? Reflections from on COVID-19"
*Sheikh, A et al. (2021) Health information technology and digital innovation for national learning health and care systems. The Lancet Digital Health https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(21)00005-4
*Simpson, C. R et al (2021) First-dose ChAdOx1 and BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccines and thrombocytopenic, thromboembolic and hemorrhagic events in Scotland. Nature Medicine https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01408-4
*Sheikh, A (2021) From Learning Healthcare Systems to Learning Health Systems. Learning Health Systems https://doi.org/10.1002/lrh2.10216
*Vasileiou, E (2021) Interim findings from first-dose mass COVID-19 vaccination roll-out and COVID-19 hospital admissions in Scotland: a national prospective cohort study. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00677-2
*Sheikh, A (2021) SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC in Scotland: demographics, risk of hospital admission, and vaccine effectiveness. The Lancet https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01358-1
Lent Term
Tuesday 25 March 2021 – Professor Kevin Fenton
*Ward, H et al. (2021) Antibody prevalence for SARS-CoV-2 following the peak of the pandemic in England: REACT2 study in 100,000 adults https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.12.20173690v2
*Razieh, C et. al. (2021) Ethnic minorities and COVID-19: examining whether excess risk is mediated through deprivation. European Journal of Public Health https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurpub/ckab041/6179315
*Nafilyan, V et. al. (2021) Ethnic differences in COVID-19 mortality during the first two waves of the Coronavirus Pandemic: a nationwide cohort study of 29 million adults in England https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.03.21251004v1
*Lawes-Wickwar, S et. al. (2021) A Rapid Systematic Review of Public Responses to Health Messages Encouraging Vaccination against Infectious Diseases in a Pandemic or Epidemic. Vaccines
Michaelmas Term
Tuesday 17 November 2020 – Professor Mike Kelly and Dr John Ford
The interface between inequality and infections
* Bambra, C et al. (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. https://jech.bmj.com/content/74/11/964
* Horton, Richard. (2020) Offline: COVID-19 is not a pandemic, Vol 396 September 26, 2020: 874. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2932000-6
* The social, the biological and the material world and COVID 19. (M Kelly)
2019-2020
Lent Term
Tuesday 18 February 2020 – Professor Brian Ferguson and Professor Richard Cookson
Using scientific knowledge to help reduce health inequality: the role of lifecourse microsimulation
Cookson, Mirelman, Griffin, Asaria, Dawkins, Norheim, Verguet, & J Culyer (2017). Using Cost-Effectiveness Analysis to Address Health Equity Concerns. Value in health, 20, 206-212 (7 page journal article)
Skarda, I, Asaria, M and Cookson, R. (2020). Lifecourse microsimulation for economic evaluation of public investments in childhood. Equipol working paper, University of York.
Michaelmas Term
Tuesday 12 November 2019 – Professor Mike Kelly and Dr Elias Nosrati
Habitus, bodies and health inequalities
• Wacquant, Loïc (2006) Habitus, in Beckert, J and Zavirovski M (eds) International Encyclopaedia of Economic Sociology, London: Routledge. 315-319
https://loicwacquantorg.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/lw-2004-habitus-interencyecosoc.pdf
• Megan Warin, Vivienne Moore, Michael Davies, Stanley Ulijaszek (2016) Epigenetics and Obesity: The Reproduction of Habitus through Intracellular and Social Environments, Body and Society; Vol. 22(4) 53–78.
https://journals-sagepub-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1177/1357034X15590485
• Extracts: Local Government Board (1914) Forty-third Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1913-14. Supplement in continuation of the Report of the Medical Officer of the Board for 1913-14 containing a Third report on Infant Mortality dealing with infant mortality in Lancashire. London: HMSO.
2018-2019
Easter Term
Tuesday 9 July 2019 – Prof Allyson Pollock
The end of universal healthcare in England?
Pollock, A. M., Macfarlane, A. J. and Godden, S. (2012). Dismantling the signposts to public health? NHS data under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 2012(344) (Repository copy available here)
Pollock, A. M., & Roderick, P. (2018). Why we should be concerned about accountable care organisations in England’s NHS. BMJ, 360, k343.
Briefing note to House of Lords – ‘The changing data requirements of the market: implications for public health functions of the abolition of geographic areas and responsibilities’
Lent Term
Thursday 14 February 2019 – Dr Hilary Burton and Prof Mike Kelly
The impact of new technology on health inequalities
Draft of “Health technology and inequality” publication for PHG – not available for circulation.
Greenhalgh, T., Wherton, J., Papoutsi, C., Lynch, J., Hughes, G., Hinder, S., Procter, R. and Shaw, S., 2018. Analysing the role of complexity in explaining the fortunes of technology programmes: empirical application of the NASSS framework. BMC medicine, 16(1), p.66.
Michaelmas Term
Wednesday 14 November 2018 – Dr Elias Nosrati
Punitive social policy and the American overdose epidemic
Case, A. and Deaton, A., 2015. Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(49), pp.15078-15083.
Wacquant, L., 2014. Class, race and hyperincarceration in revanchist America. Socialism and Democracy, 28(3), pp.35-56.
Nosrati, E., Kang-Brown, J., Ash, M., McKee, M., Marmot, M. and King, L.P., 2019. Economic decline, incarceration, and mortality from drug use disorders in the USA between 1983 and 2014: an observational analysis. The Lancet Public Health, 4(7), pp.e326-e333.
2017-2018
Easter Term
A one day conference and public lecture on Friday 1 June 2018:
“Comparative perspectives on social inequalities in life and death: An interdisciplinary conference”
Lent Term
Thursday 8 February 2018 – Professor Susan J. Smith
The contribution of geography to the study of health inequalities
Papers for discussion
“Wellbeing at the edges of ownership” – Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
Michaelmas Term
Wednesday13 December 2017 – Professor Mike Savage
Contemporary understandings of social class
Papers for discussion
2016-2017
Lent Term
Wednesday 1 February 2017
This meeting provided an opportunity to discuss continuing work on Reading Group papers, and the development of a proposal to hold an event on the subject of social mammals
Michaelmas Term
Monday 3 October 2016 – Stephen Suomi on social mammals
Massart, R., Suderman, M.J., Nemoda, Z., Sutti, S., Ruggiero, A.M., Dettmer, A.M., Suomi, S.J. and Szyf, M. (2016) The Signature of Maternal Social Rank in Placenta Deoxyribonucleic Acid Methylation Profiles in Rhesus Monkeys. Child Development.
2015-2016
The main focus of meetings this year has been to work towards the production of academic papers. Consequently not every meeting involved a review of existing research.
Easter Term
Wednesday 8 June 2016
The final meeting of the year dealt with the progress being made on papers being written by the group, discussions on interdisciplinarity and the future of the Reading Group.
Wednesday 4 May 2016 – Professor Richard Holton on addiction
Holton, R. and Berridge, K. (2013) Compulsion and Choice in Addiction. A shortened version of: Addiction between compulsion and choice, in, N. Levy (ed.) Addiction and Self-Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 239–68. http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/rjh221/pubs/abcc.pdf
Lent Term
Wednesday 17 February 2016 – Dr Robbie Duschinsky on attachment
Raikes, H. A. and Thompson, R. A. (2005) Links between risk attachment and security: Models of influence, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology; 26:440-455.
Cyr, C., Euser, E. M. Bakermans-Kraneburg, M. J. and van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2010) Attachment security and disorganization in maltreating and high-risk families: A series of meta-analyses, Development and Psychopathology; 22: 87-108.
Main, M., Hesse, E. and Kaplan, N. (2005) Predictability of Attachment Behavior and Representational Processes at 1, 6, and 19 Years of Age: The Berkeley Longitudinal Study, in, K. E. Grossmann, K. Grossman and E. Waters (eds.) Attachment from Infancy to Adulthood: The Major Longitudinal Studies, New York: The Guildford Press.
Michaelmas Term
Wednesday 16 December 2015
The proposed work plan was further reviewed in this meeting.
Wednesday 25 November 2015
This meeting established the foundations of a work plan for the coming academic year, focusing mainly on the production of academic papers which built on the readings and discussions in the previous year.
2014-2015
Easter Term
Wednesday 24 June 2015
Gilens, M. & Page, B.I. (2014) Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, Perspectives on Politics; 12: 564-581.
Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap press.
Lent Term
Wednesday 18 March 2015
This meeting acted as a discussion of all the papers that had been reviewed so far and as a consolidation of key ideas and themes which had emerged from previous meetings of the Reading Group.
Further readings
Bunker, J. (2001) Medicine Matters After All: Measuring the benefits of medical care, a healthy lifestyle, and a just social environment. London: The Stationery Office/The Nuffield Trust.
Giddens, A. (1979) Central problems in social theory: action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Basingstoke: Macmillan
Giddens, A. (1982) Profiles and critiques in social theory. London: Macmillan
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity.
Health Education Authority (1998) The HEA Health and Lifestyle Survey: A Report on the Secondary Analysis of a National Data set of Health-related Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour, London: Health Education Authority.
Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap press.
Victora, C.G., Horta, B.L., de Mola, C.L., Quevedo, L., Pinheiro, R.T., Gigante, D.P.,Gonçalves,H. Barros, F.C. (2015) Association between breastfeeding and intelligence, educational intelligence, educational attainment, and income at 30 years of age: a prospective birth cohort study from Brazil, Lancet Glob Health 2015; 3: e199–205 http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X%2815%2970002-1.pdf
Tuesday 24 February 2015
Barker, D.J.P., Barker, M, Fleming, T., Lampl, M (2013) Support mothers to secure future public health, Nature; 504: 12 December 209-211
Ozane, S. E and Constancia, M. (2007) Mechanisms of Disease: the developmental origins of disease and the role of the epigenotype http://www.nature.com/nrendo/journal/v3/n7/full/ncpendmet0531.html
Stuckler, D., King, L., McKee, M (2009) Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis: a cross-national analysis, Lancet; Published online January 15, 2009 DOI:10.1016/S0140- 6736(09)60005-2
Wednesday 11 February 2015
Marteau, T.M. & Hall, P.A. (2013) Breadlines, brains, and behaviour: targeting executive functioning and environments may loosen the link between demography and destiny, BMJ 2013; 347: f6750 doi: 10.1136/bmj.f6750
Raver, C.C., Blair, C., Willoughby, M. (2013) Poverty as a predictor of 4-year-olds’ executive function:new perspectives on models of differential susceptibility, Developmental Psychology, 49:292–304.
Harris, J. (2002) From poor law to welfare state? A European perspective, in, Winch, D & O’Brien, P.K. (eds) The Political Economy of British Historical Experience, 1688-1914, London: British Academy.
Suggested further readings:
Solar, P. (1995) Poor relief and English economic development before the industrial revolution, Economic History Review; 48: 1-22
Ferguson, T. (1984) The Dawn of Scottish Social Welfare: A Survey From Medieval Times to 1863, London: Nelson
Fergusion, T. (1958) Scottish Social Welfare 1864-194, Edinburgh: Livingston
Thursday 22 January 2015
Conant, R.C. & Ashby, W.R. (1970) Every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system, Int. J. Systems Sci., 1970, 1: 89-97.
Anderson, E.S. (1999) What is the point of equality? Ethics; 109: 287-337