This essay is a response to Askegaard and Linnet’s (2011) call for a greater epistemological plurality within consumer culture theory (CCT). The paper begins with a brief review of what these authors refer to as the dominant existential-phenomenological perspective and their Morinian alternative, and then presents contemporary political philosophy as another alternative. Political philosophy ha...

Fat, sugar or sweetened beverage taxes are part of an overall public health nutrition approach to healthy eating. They are not approaches that on their own are likely to bring about change. Policy evidence from existing food tax implementation suggest that taxes need to be paralleled by subsidies and other interventions to encourage healthy eating. Such dual methods help not only contribute to ...

When the concept of free personal care for older people was introduced in 2001, it was generally regarded as one of the more unequivocal achievements of the fledgling Scottish Parliament.

Despite South Africa's history of violent political conflict, and the link between stressful experiences and smoking in the literature, no public health study has examined South Africans' experiences of human rights violations and smoking. Using data from participants in the nationally representative cross-sectional South Africa Stress and Health study (SASH), this analysis examined the associa...

BACKGROUND Interventions that target cancer patients and their caregivers have been shown to improve patient-caregiver communication, support, and emotional well-being. OBJECTIVE To adapt an in-person communication intervention for cancer patients and caregivers to a web-based format, and to examine the usability and acceptability of the web-based program among representative users. METHODS...

Codes of medical practice forbid a doctor to have sex with a patient. Still, practice and attitudes turn out to be unruly, so there is a need for (public) discussion and education. Moreover, other professional limitations in the doctor-patient relationship (e.g., 'non-medical' physical contact, dating a patient, accepting gifts from a patient, and treating partners, family-members and friends) ...

Every child reaches a point somewhere between infancy and young adulthood when he or she takes a step toward independence by caring for himself or herself for a period of time when no adult is present. Family decisions to allow their children to care for themselves vary widely, depending among other things on the family’s view of the risks associated with self-care, the child’s readiness for se...

In 1987 a conference on safe motherhood in Nairobi, Kenya, drew international attention to alarmingly high levels of maternal death in childbirth in developing countries. Global levels are estimated to be between 500,000 and 600,000 per year, with approximately one-tenth of these deaths occurring in Nigeria alone. The conference ended with a call for a reduction in maternal mortality by half by...