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Biomedical subjects

Virginia Berridge

Publications and source records attributed to Virginia Berridge.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Medicinal plants and Malaria: an historical case study of research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the twentieth century.

Interest in medicinal plants has increased in recent years. This article examines the history of medicinal plant research through a case study of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) over the past 100 years. Papers published by members of the School and documents in the School archives show a fluctuating but continuous interest in plants as sources of medicine. Research interests of individual scientists, changes in the School structure and the changing role of research affected research into medicinal plants at LSHTM. As important were external developments, including the supply of plant resources, especially during wartime, the development of drug-resistance, advances in science and technology, knowledge exchange between both disciplines and cultures, the increased influence of global organizations on policy, as well as pressure groups particularly those involved in conservation. With the revival of interest in plants and the increasing variety of influences on research, it is important to have a better understanding of how debates and subsequent policy impact at the research level, and how research in turn impacts upon policy.

Anti-Infective Agents↗
PubMed2005

Smoking and the new health education in Britain 1950s-1970s.

Advertising has a dual function for British public health. Control or prohibition of mass advertising detrimental to health is a central objective for public health in Britain. Use of mass advertising has also been a more general public health strategy, such as during the initial government responses to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. We trace the initial significance of mass advertising in public health in Britain in the postwar decades up to the 1970s, identifying smoking as the key issue that helped to define this new approach. This approach drew from road safety and drink driving models, US advertising theory, relocation of health education within the central government, the arrival of mass consumption, and the rise of the "new public health" agenda.

Advertising↗
PubMed2005

Making health policy: networks in research and policy after 1945.

Science and policy in health and medicine have interacted in new ways in Britain since 1945. The relationship between research and policy has a history. The changing role of social medicine, the rise of health services research and "customer contractor" policies in government have been important. The relationship between research and policy has been analysed by different schools of thought. This chapter categorises them as several groups: "evidence-based", "journalism", "sociology of scientific knowledge" and "science policy studies". The chapters in the book illuminate aspects of these changing relationships. The role of chronic disease epidemiology, of new networks in public health, of media-focussed activism, and of health technology and its advocates have been more important than political interest.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed2005

Issue network versus producer network? ASH, the Tobacco Products Research Trust and UK smoking policy.

Policy science studies of networks in smoking policy segment the smoking arena into a "producer network" of industrial and retail interests and an "issue network" of anti-smoking organisations. Case studies of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) and the Tobacco Products Research Trust (TPRT) indicate that networks in smoking policy were more complex and overlapping. ASH pioneered a new style of media-conscious health activism in the 1970s with an anti-industry line. Nevertheless the strategy of harm reduction remained an objective for industry and government, and also for some public health interests through the work of the TPRT. First safer smoking and then nicotine were the focus of these activities.

Health Policy↗
PubMed2004

History of addictions.

This glossary arises out of research interests in the 19th and 20th century in the history of drugs, including the contemporary history of drug policy. It is necessarily brief, and British and American focused; it is also concentrated on narcotic drugs rather than alcohol and tobacco. However, the comments take on board the recent discussions of convergence across the substances, and also the spread of the concept of addiction to tobacco in recent years. The bibliography is also limited to specific interests.

Drug and Narcotic Control↗
PubMed2003

Post-war smoking policy in the UK and the redefinition of public health.

Current analyses of UK smoking policy within two frameworks--the 'heroes and villains' view of journalist accounts and a political science emphasis on rival 'producer' and 'issue' networks in policy making. It is often assumed that the US experience provides a universal historical model. This paper sees smoking policy in the UK as a case study in the relationship between 'scientific fact creation' and policy, which has also been emblematic of wider changes in public health ideology. The issue of smoking and lung cancer symbolized the post-war shift from infectious to chronic disease and the rise of a new 'lifestyle'-oriented public health. In the 1980s passive smoking brought a revival of environmentalism; in the 1990s the rediscovered concept of addiction symbolized developments in public health in which curative and preventive initiatives were entwined. Despite the rise of a militant 'healthism' within both anti-smoking and public health since the 1970s, British policy retained a dual focus, an emphasis on risk reduction as well as risk elimination in which policy networks were entwined rather than distinct. Some public health scientists worked in policy milieux, notably the expert committee, which crossed this apparent divide and which linked with industry. Connections between government and industry changed as public health 'treatment' brought the pharmaceutical industry into the picture.

Health Policy↗