The sustainable development goals provide an important framework for addressing dangerous climate change and achieving wider public health benefits.

OBJECTIVES: To suggest how public health systems and the health sector can utilise the United Nation (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) to address climate change and other threats to future health and deliver immediate public health benefits. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: We examined UN and World Health Organisation guidance on SDGs and other published texts on systems thinking, integration, universality and co-benefits. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The UN SDGs are a set of globally agreed objectives to end poverty, protect all that makes the planet habitable and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The SDGs integrate the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, environmental and social), they apply to high-income countries as well as developing countries and there are mechanisms to hold countries to account. There are three crucial issues for public health. First, a systems approach to future proof health and social justice. Second, an evidence-based approach to aid communication, framing and engagement. And, third, the importance of interventions that deliver health co-benefits (i.e. both immediate and long-term benefits to health, equity and prosperity). The SDGs present public health professionals with an important opportunity to create the right conditions for a better future through the organised efforts of society.

Public health genomics: the interface with public health intelligence and the role of public health observatories.

BACKGROUND: Public health genomics is a new field that brings the findings of research in genetic and molecular technologies together with public health. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interface between this new emerging field and that of public health intelligence. We describe the possible areas of integration between genomics and public health, suggesting a future potential role for the Public Health Observatories. METHODS: A small group comprising of a public health geneticist and representatives from Public Health Observatories met and discussed the ways in which the public health information and intelligence community might contribute to the developing agenda of public health genomics. RESULTS: The results of the deliberations are presented in this paper, and a combination of short, medium and longer term possibilities are described. Also, necessary changes and additions to routinely collected data are proposed. CONCLUSIONS: The emerging field of public health genomics has implications for the collection, management and analysis of routine data. The benefits of this will accrue over time, but changes need to be made now in order to make the best use of these developments. A possible supporting action plan for the development of public health genomics within Public Health Observatories is proposed.

Demanding healthcare.

This paper describes and compares the development of strategies to manage demand in healthcare in the UK and the USA. It suggests that the development is revealing the need to include disciplines other than the traditional ones of economics and public health if its effects are to be understood. Using as an example the growth of telephone help lines and telephone triage, based on computer based decision support systems, it explores the idea of increasing choice and alleviating fear as a way of reducing demand. Organizational behaviour and consumer behaviour can provide wider understanding of these issues, particularly as they relate to the emotional aspects of this activity. Some convergence of the UK and USA approaches and outcomes are identified but demand is revealed as a relatively unexplored territory in the management of health care in both countries.

An outbreak of infection with Salmonella enteritidis phage type 4 associated with the use of raw shell eggs.

A community outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis phage type (PT) 4 infection, associated with eating food from a sandwich bar in Colchester, occurred in July 1991. One hundred and forty-four people were reported with food poisoning, of whom 132 met the clinical case definition. Three cohort studies of 92 people showed that illness was associated with the consumption of food containing mayonnaise. S. enteritidis PT4, indistinguishable by plasmid profile analysis, was isolated from stool samples from 83 people, food items including egg shells from the sandwich bar, and birds taken from the egg producing farm which supplied the eggs. This was the largest recorded outbreak of S. enteritidis PT4 infection in recent years associated with eggs produced in the United Kingdom. Existing advice on avoiding the use of raw eggs in uncooked dishes had not been followed. This outbreak highlights the importance of training in the implementation of this advice.