If you were to sum up the results of the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), it would go something like this: gay marriage is fine, cheating is bad and sexual behaviours can be hindered by bad health.

Natsal infographic – number of partners
(Credit: http://www.natsal.ac.uk/)

You could also explain the results much more eloquently, as did Professor Dame Anne Johnson (UCL Infection & Population Health) in her Lunch Hour Lecture, ‘Studying sex comes of age.’

Statistics are tricky. In theory, they should confirm what we already know empirically, but often they still manage to surprise. In this regard, I found Professor Johnson’s talk a mixed bag of expectations met and surpassed. (more…)

Written by Thea Cassel (UCL Geography 2012), Communications Assistant at UCL

Of the multiple meanings that the lecture title alludes to, Dr Sarah Hawkes (Institute for Global Health) addressed the problems of targeting just one half of the population in relation to global health.

Why, when using the term ‘gender’, do businesses and health organisations actually mean women? And why, when looking at policy responses to global health, do they focus on the group that is in reality the least at risk?

The first thing that struck me as I looked around the lecture theatre was the good turnout of both men and women, as well as a large gaggle of teenagers attending on a school trip.

From previous experience, the mention of the word ‘gender’ quickly equates to just ‘women’ and more often than not it is predominantly women who take an interest in the subject – an issue that was subsequently tackled in the lecture. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to see a large number of men in the audience.

The lecture began with Dr Hawkes looking back at her initial interest in gender analysis from her work in Bangladesh, where she worked for the largest research organisation in a developing country. (more…)

UCL students and staff taking part in the ‘Aid
for Health’ negotiations at the Institute for
Global Health

Written by Rebecca Seglow Hudson (BSc Anthropology undergraduate).

UCL’s Institute for Global Health (IGH) was the site of some heated negotiations on Saturday 8 December.

A collection of 72 students, with an enormous range of experience and disciplinary backgrounds, spent the day simulating the discussions behind international aid deals.

Students represented organisations such as the World Bank, USAID, UNICEF and governmental departments of the simulation country, Malawi. Three parallel simulations took place in three separate rooms, with each room reaching a different conclusion on the use of the $200 million that donors were offering to improve Malawi’s health system.

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Morgan Williams, UCL School of Pharmacy, writes about the first event for the School after its merger with UCL, held on 10 January.

Everyone understands the importance of first impressions and tonight really has something of a first date feel to it.

Professor Sir John Tooke

It’s the fifth New Year Lecture that the School of Pharmacy has organised, but the first under the UCL banner. It comes just nine days after the conclusion of a merger process that’s taken up the best part of the past two years for the School.

I’d be lying if I said that it’s been an easy courtship. So, there’s a certain frisson in the air as Lord Tim Clement-Jones introduces our speaker Professor Sir John Tooke, UCL Vice-Provost (Health), to an audience at the Royal Society that is jam-packed with pharmacy movers and shakers.

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