Jack Birch

Slide with pictures of Prof Oyinlola Oyebode, Queen Mary University of London; Co-Chair of SSMPH 2026 Local Organising Committee Text reads: "Introducing... Oyinlola Oyebode! "Although I had attended the conference for years, I mainly joined the society for the chance to get a mentor. The first conversation I had with my mentor prompted me to apply for the job I have now at QMUL which was a really good move!"

With abstract submissions now ✨OPEN✨ for the joint SSMPH EuroEpi 2026 conference, we are delighted to introduce the other co-chair of this year's Local Organising Committee: Prof Oyinlola Oyebode from @qmul-wiph.bsky.social

Link to blog: bit.ly/4bmvXhr

Conference website: bit.ly/4oyrifb

#denpruqm | NIHR Policy Research Unit Behavioural and Social Sciences We've had a great two days connecting with two other NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) Policy Research Units. On Tuesday 27th January, we visited the Policy Research Unit in Dem...

We spent this week connecting with the @nihr.bsky.social Policy Research Units in Dementia and Neurodegeneration @denpru-qm.bsky.social and Policy Innovation and Evaluation @piru-lshtm.bsky.social.

Read more about what we got up to on our LinkedIn page below:

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

First paper of 2026! In our study, we examined whether public health messages can encourage people to adopt protective behaviours, such as wearing masks, washing hands, and keeping distance, to reduce the spread of respiratory infections like COVID-19 and influenza.

www.nature.com/articles/s43...

OF COURSE drink driving laws need to be updated in England and Wales We are using antiquated regulations, and are out of step with much of the rest of the world

Great stuff here from @soozaphone.bsky.social about the flimsiness of arguments being trotted out today against lowering the drink drive limit in England & Wales
open.substack.com/pub/suzigage...

I might be one of the cynics complaining about enforcement though...

These approaches should build on foundations of trust, accessibility, and inclusion to involve diverse and underrepresented communities.

Congrats to the authorship team, particularly Catherine Shuttleworth who led the paper and Lauren Bell for seeing it over the line!

In those studies, a number of approaches were used. Mainly, these were forms of participatory approaches, but we also identified examples of Delphi exercises, a super-setting approach, a nominal group technique, a deliberative exercise, and a modified James Lind Alliance process being used.

We found 18 studies that had examples of priority setting around the wider determinants of health and involved local communities in research or intervention prioritisation.

Approaches for community intervention and research priority setting to reduce health inequalities: a scoping review AbstractBackground. There is growing attention on research and intervention prioritization regarding the social determinants of health to address health in

Delighted to share this paper I co-authored that reviewed approaches for health inequality-related research priority setting that involve the affected communities.

academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/a...

Screenshot of title page including the following abstract: To minimise confounding bias and disentangle warranted from unwarranted disparities, researchers examining sentencing discrimination have traditionally sought to control for as many legal factors as possible. However, over the past decade, a growing number of scholars have questioned this strategy, noting that many legal factors are themselves subject to judicial discretion and that controlling for them can introduce post-treatment bias. Here, we use directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to provide a formal and comprehensive assessment of the different types of bias that may arise from different choices of controls. In addition, we propose a new modelling framework to facilitate the selection of controls and reflect the model uncertainty created by the trade-off inherent in judicially-defined legal factors and other factors with a similar dual causal role. We apply this framework to examine race disparities in US federal courts and gender disparities in the England and Wales magistrates’ court. We find substantial model uncertainty for gender disparities and for race disparities affecting Hispanic offenders, rendering estimates of the latter inconclusive. Disparities against black offenders are more consistent and — under specific conditions — could be interpreted as evidence of direct discrimination.

Thrilled to share my latest paper entitled, "Estimating Discrimination in Sentencing: Distinguishing between Good and Bad Controls"

Led by @jpinasanchez.bsky.social, the paper introduces a framework for examining discrimination in criminal justice processes.

🧵 1/10

publicera.kb.se/ejels/articl...

The National Institute for Health and Care Research Policy Research Unit in Behavioural and Social Sciences among world-class researchers, briefing MPs and parliamentary staff on the latest evidence… ... The National Institute for Health and Care Research Policy Research Unit in Behavioural and Social Sciences among world-class researchers, briefing MPs and parliamentary staff on the latest evidence n...

Our researchers Dr Fiona Graham and Dr @laurajmcgowan.bsky.social were at Evidence Week 2025 in Parliament last week, organised by @senseaboutsci.bsky.social.

They discussed our work on virtual words in the NHS with MPs - read more about it here: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

I'm starting to agree with you on this! Most active, and probably most interesting in terms of the extra engagement that happens on there

A "methods primer" article in the journal "BMJ Medicine", titled "Factors associated with: problems of using exploratory multivariable regression to identify causal risk factors"

We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?

Changes to UK soft drinks tax are a missed opportunity for public health The government’s decision not to introduce a higher rate tax for the most sugary drinks is good news for industry but not for public health, argue Lauren Bandy and Peter Scarborough In the 2024 autu...

Lauren Bandy and I got a short piece in BMJ arguing that the proposed changes to UK sugar drink tax target the wrong end of the market. Changing the threshold where tax is applied from 5g sugar/100mL to 4g only hurts those that have ALREADY reformulated and changes nothing for high sugar drinks.

At the beginning of October, all our researchers and co-investigators from across the NIHR Policy Research Unit Behavioural and Social Sciences got together at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton…... At the beginning of October, all our researchers and co-investigators from across the NIHR Policy Research Unit Behavioural and Social Sciences got together at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton ...

Earlier this month, all our researchers & co-investigators got together at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton.

We discussed topics such as engaging youth in research, public involvement, and ensuring meaningful impact.

Read more here: www.linkedin.com/posts/nihr-p...

To have this as the policy for a mental health service is *wild*. If someone does not attend a mental health assessment appointment, they're probably worse not better...

We're are now accepting applications for an exciting DPhil at the @oxprimarycare.bsky.social, *FUNDED* by the THRIVING Food Futures research hub!
The project is about divisive policies, supervised by me, Dr Rachel Pechey @petescarbs.bsky.social @ashakaur.bsky.social
lnkd.in/eezGaZZ3
Pls share! ✨

Jack, wearing a pink shirt, looking very seriously at a handheld microphone

P.s.: caption competition for my stern look at a malfunctioning microphone?

My main takeaway reflection from the conference - as researchers, to what extent should we be acting as advocates (or even activists?) for 1) what our research finds and 2) the policy implications of that research?

Jack standing in a pink shirt and navy chinos on a flowery carpet. He was presenting at the 2025 Society for Social Medicine and Population Health annual scientific meeting

Just back from attending another excellent @socsocmed.bsky.social conference #SSM2025

It was great catching up with old and new friends that I've made over my time in academia to date. I was happy to share our @nihr-pru-bass.bsky.social research on populism and public health interventions.

Less inequality = fewer problems

@profkepickett.bsky.social lays our her vision for a good society at #SSM2025

@socsocmed.bsky.social

Image of jack in a pink shirt and blue trousers standing up and presenting

It was great to present our review of interview studies looking at populism and how people receive public health interventions @socsocmed.bsky.social #SSM2025 yesterday!

Looking forward to two more days of exciting talks 🤓

#SSM2025 Early Career Researcher day! Follow this thread to see updates (I'm doing the updates, so look forward to inevitable typos)

Super interesting thread from @amckinlay.bsky.social on how trust relates to public health, and how this links to our recent work looking at how populism affects the acceptability of public health interventions

⬇️

Thank you @jackmbirch.bsky.social for summarising your experiences at our recent #DigitalHealthDivide2025 workshop at @univie.ac.at!

After all the bollocks of claiming (wrongly) that the UK has two tier justice system, Farage is planning exactly that.

A really nice example on how to visually communicate the text contents of a paper on mobile phones

Considering the digital health divide - NIHR PRU Behavioural and Social Sciences One of our Newcastle-based researchers, Dr Jack Birch, recently attended a workshop on the ‘digital health divide’ at the University of Vienna. “The digital health divide is how digital interventions ...

Our researcher @jackmbirch.bsky.social recently attended a workshop on the digital health divide at the University of Vienna @univie.ac.at.

Read about how they considered how research practice can be improved when considering the digital health divide ⬇️

behscipru.nihr.ac.uk/3207-2/

Are there inequalities in the attendance at and effectiveness of behavioural weight management interventions for adults in the UK? An individual participant data meta-analysis Objectives Interventions for obesity that require individual behaviour change, such as behavioural weight management interventions, may contribute to health inequalities. We explored if there was evid...

Very happy to see a big paper from my PhD *OUT TODAY*

We explored if there were inequalities in the attendance & effectiveness of behavioural weight management interventions in an individual participant data meta-analysis.

See the thread for findings 👇

bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/3/2/...

Want to help improve mental health in academia? We are looking for bloggers for our November and December slots.

You can submit a pitch here and learn more about the process: voicesofacademia.com/contact-2/

AI tools used by English councils downplay women’s health issues, study finds Exclusive: LSE research finds risk of gender bias in care decisions made based on AI summaries of case notes

AI replicates, magnifies and perpetuates the biases already active in our health system and society www.theguardian.com/technology/2...