King's Health Economics

Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action...

(from my presentation at the IMF last week)

New blog from Refugee Mental Health & Place network: “Calm in the eye of a storm” - how third-sector organisations help people from refugee backgrounds build belonging, community and hope in London: www.kcl.ac.uk/how-third-pl...

We are pleased to be joining @thriveldn.bsky.social and other partners to work together and deliver upon a £1.5 million National Lottery Community Fund Climate Action Fund project, linking climate change and mental health.

Learn more: www.kcl.ac.uk/news/londone...

The Treasury should introduce an alcohol duty escalator, targeting off-trade alcohol, to help fund alcohol treatment and narrow the widening gap in price between supermarket and pub alcohol, says Labour MP @catsmithmp.bsky.social.

@dantomlinson.bsky.social @aha-uk.bsky.social

T’ai chi can help to combat insomnia The ancient martial art outperformed talking therapy for people who struggled to sleep, a study found

T’ai chi can help to combat insomnia

www.thetimes.com/article/7d0d...

Princess of Wales calls for end to 'stigma' around addiction The message from the Princess of Wales comes on Addiction Awareness Week.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

For women, divorce can mean never owning a home again Rising house prices and lower incomes due to caring for children can make it especially difficult for women to re-enter the housing market after a divorce.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

The woman who exposed the childcare industry

Universal childcare?
"Start putting public money into publicly run centres ... anything less than that, I think is just negligent".
open.spotify.com/episode/5ogZ...

I've written a piece for @addiction-ssa.org on Alcoholics Anonymous, exploring it's current role - and tensions - within the current recovery landscape 90 years after its first meetings were held. Please share 🙏

www.addiction-ssa.org/features/ess...

#alcoholicsanonymous #recovery #addiction

Studying moralities in drug policy: An editorial introduction Published in Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy (Vol. 32, No. 4, 2025)

Check out our new issue on moralities in drug policy. Fantastic editorial and most of the papers are open access: Studying moralities in drug policy: An editorial introduction www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

'It gave me my voice back': How group singing is helping new mums with postnatal depression New research suggests singing can be clinically effective at treating the symptoms and cost effective for the NHS.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Taxing wealth is a feminist issue We hear a lot about the gender pay gap - but what about the gender wealth gap?

The gender wealth gap sits at 21% - much higher than the wage gap - so why don't we hear anything about it?

@ignaciapinto.bsky.social of @womensbudgetgrp.bsky.social explains why taxing wealth is a feminist issue in a guest blog.
neweconomics.org/2025/09/taxi...

National roll-out of social prescribing in England's primary care system: a longitudinal observational study using Clinical Practice Research Datalink data Social prescribing has expanded rapidly in England, far exceeding initial targets of 900 000 patients by 2023–24, suggesting broad service acceptability. Progress is being made in reaching specific ta...

roll-out of social prescribing in England's primary care system

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Rapid ⬆️ in Px
Doesn't appear to a rapid increase in the £ available for services to which people are referred
If this were referrals to orthopaedics that wouldn't be ok
not ok in this context

🎉 Congrats to my PhD student Xiaoyu Zhang on her new PharmacoEconomics paper, co-supervised with @samjnorton.bsky.social and other co-authors!

It reviews the economic burden of inflammatory arthritis.
Full text: 🔗 rdcu.be/eIv8o

cc: @khe-kings.bsky.social

Self-sampling kits in GP appointments could prevent cancer in 1000 women a year Women who are overdue for cervical cancer screening are most likely to participate in screening when a self-sampling kit is offered by a healthcare professional as part of routine GP appointments

Offering self-sampling kits to test for HPV during a routine GP appointment could prevent cervical cancer in an extra 1000 women a year, new research from @kingslsm.bsky.social, @qmulfmd.bsky.social, @cancerresearchuk.org finds.

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/self-sa...

New gambling act needed for starters

The health dividend of cash transfer programmes Cash transfer programmes have expanded rapidly across low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), from eight countries with programmes in 1960 to 134 countries in 2019, and have demonstrated effec...

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

The health dividend of cash transfer programmes

Brazil's Bolsa Família Program, which provides an average of US$139 per month to over 20 million households in poverty

Study = www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Estimating the differential exposure of household groups to alcohol duty reforms in Great Britain AbstractBackground. We explored the potential impact of changes to the UK alcohol tax system implemented in August 2023 on increases on consumer spending,

New paper klaxon - out now in the Journal of Public Health @fphuk.bsky.social

We used detailed alcohol purchasing data from the 12 months prior to the recent alcohol tax reforms to estimate how different consumer groups might be affected by the changes to alcohol duties.

doi.org/10.1093/pubm...

What do school staff think about weight-related bullying in schools? Reflections on Catalyst Award conversations - ARC West Dr Lis Grey and Dr Beki Langford received a University of Bristol Knowledge Mobilisation Catalyst Award to talk to secondary school teachers about their work on weight-related bullying. Here’s what th...

Lis Grey and @bekilangford.bsky.social received a @bristoluni.bsky.social Knowledge Mobilisation Catalyst Award to talk to secondary school teachers about their work on weight-related bullying. Read their blog to find out what they discovered.

arc-w.nihr.ac.uk/what-do-scho...

New paper from myself and Matt Gaskell (Northern Gambling Clinics) out today.

Commentary on excellent article from Phil Newall.

Perhaps of interest if you like your commercial determinants of health applied to addiction.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Policy Modelling for Health Developing computer models to show how policies might affect health, so that policymakers can better understand their impacts on people in their area.

Read more about all the work of Policy Modelling for Health at www.phiuk.org/policy-model...

We published our Annual Review yesterday 👇 So today, a short thread on the work of Healthy Urban Places...

Political Rhetoric and Racial Discrimination in Arrests for Drugs* Abstract. This paper examines how political rhetoric shapes law enforcement behaviour. We analyse monthly arrest data from 1,420 police agencies across 38

We’re grateful to all who gave feedback at conferences, seminars and in private.
Special thanks to The Economic Journal editor, @essobecker.bsky.social, and anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments.

📄 Read the paper here:
academic.oup.com/ej/advance-a...
#EconTwitter 6/6

#HealthEconomics

Weight-loss apps and online therapists to be prescribed on the NHS The health service will be required to pay for proven digital products, in the same was as it does for medicines

Weight-loss apps and online therapists to be prescribed on the NHS

www.thetimes.com/article/1bef...

Councils hit with soaring cost of travel for special needs pupils Spending on home-to-school transport for children with additional needs has tripled over the past decade, reaching £2.25bn, the highest level on record

Councils hit with soaring cost of travel for special needs pupils

www.thetimes.com/article/9790...

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

SARG researchers co-author new book exploring 'culture of caution' in youth drinking decline - Sheffield Addictions Research Group A new book by an international team of experts, including researchers from the Sheffield Addictions Research Group (SARG), unpacks the complex social, cultural and economic factors driving the decline...

📚 Find out more about this new book co-authored by SARG's @jholmessheff.bsky.social and @soc-researcher.bsky.social which explores the complex social, cultural and economic factors driving the significant decline in youth drinking observed in high-income countries since the early 2000s #PublicHealth

<b>Can we Make Health Economic Decision Models as Simple as Possible, but Not Simpler? Introducing the SMART tool </b> <p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" class="first" dir="auto" id="d557661e165">Background: Developing health economic decision-analytic models (DAMs) requires making mo...

Great taxonomy of simple vs. complex (complicated?) decision-analytic model features.
drugrepocentral.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...

How to make America healthy: the real problems — and best fixes The United States has lower life expectancy than most similarly wealthy nations. Chronic disease is part of the cause, but so are guns, drugs and cars.

SARG's @victimofmaths.bsky.social contributes to this @nature.com article exploring the reasons why the USA has lower life expectancy than other wealthy nations.