Blog
Cancer’s visible and invisible histories
The New York Times featured a piece on cancer in eastern Africa this past weekend. In the article "As Cancer Tears Through Africa, Drug Makers Draw Up a Battle Plan" reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. and photographer Charlie Shoemaker report that pharmaceutical companies...
What’s in a biscuit?
The reasons for the increase in the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in sub-Saharan African countries are complex, as much recent research has shown. So-called ‘lifestyle’ factors (including dietary change) may play a less central part than was previously thought. But...
Reframing NCDs and injuries
The Lancet Noncommunicable Disease and Injury Poverty Commission (NCDI Poverty Commission: www.ncdipoverty.org) was set up in late 2015 and is due to report later this year. Set up to ‘reframe’ understandings of NCDs and injuries around the vulnerabilities of the...
Preventing Global Cardiovascular Disease Epidemic: Outcomes of an International Teaching Seminar on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention
I attended the 49thTeaching Seminar of the International Society for Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention (ISCEP), which was held in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, from 5th-15th June, 2017. This event was hosted by the Jeffery Cheah Foundation, Sunway Medical...
Notes from a Book Launch: Staying Alive at the Uganda Cancer Institute
I joined colleagues as part of the research team on chronic disease in Africa after working on a long term project on the history of cancer in eastern Africa. This historical and ethnographic research on the Uganda Cancer Institute is just beginning to come out in a...
Metabolic Thinking
What do spoons taste of? What can cohort studies tell us about the drivers of obesity? How do drugs and bugs interact with their hosts in metabolism – and what exactly is a host? These were some of the many questions raised (if not completely answered) in...