BMJ 2007;335:1177 (8 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39416.603773.DB
News
Smoking licences and cutting salt in food would reduce health inequalities
Andrew Cole
1 London
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A former government adviser has said that a system of licensing on buying tobacco products and banning added salt in processed foods could help boost public health and reduce health inequalities in the UK population.
Speaking at a Fabian Society forum that examined how to cut health inequalities over the next decade, Julian Le Grand, professor of social policy at the London School of Economics, said that although the costs of tackling public health problems were immediate, the benefits were realised only in the long term. As a result neither the public nor commissioning trusts saw public health as a priority.
One way to overcome this was to create situations where people had to opt out of healthy habits rather than opt in.
An example would be for anyone wishing to buy tobacco to have to pay for an annual licence, which would involve "complicated forms, a photo ID—and possibly
Rapid Responses:
Read all Rapid Responses
- Licensed to smoke: A few questions
- Peter O'Loughlin
bmj.com, 7 Dec 2007 [Full text] - hear hear
- Jim Howe
bmj.com, 19 Jan 2008 [Full text]
Tools
Services
Rapid responses for this article
Most read last month
Student BMJ
Risk of surgery for inflammatory bowel disease: record linkage studies
What can you learn from this BMJ paper? Read Leanne Tite's Paper+
