National Social Marketing Centre

The government’s consultation on plain packaging for cigarettes is underway.  I welcome any measure intended to reduce the number of children smoking.  I have two young one’s of my own and certainly wouldn’t want them taking up the habit.

The NSMC is working with the Department of Health and UCL’s Institute of Health Equity on a programme of work to address health inequalities in England.

Steve Menzies and I are just back from a great trip to Vietnam where The Centre has been working with DFID and local partners on a project to increase the availability and use of condoms in men aged between 18-40 who have had sex with a female sex worker in the last three months.  We were working with a number of private sector firms in Vietnam who will be responsible for trying to get the new condom - VIP+ in as many Non Traditional Outlets (NTO's) as possible.  These NTO's - hotels, bars, massage parlours, local shops and supermarkets have been

The new paper from the Cabinet Office behavioural insights team is an interesting and welcome read.

Really interesting analysis programme on the BBC Radio 4 on Monday night - looking at what makes an effective school.

Rowena and I had another two good days in Finland last week after my previous blog. We had a great response to the session we ran at the University with lots of people interested in finding out more and looking forward to the translation of our Big Pocket Guide into Finnish.

Rowena and I are in Helsinki at the moment doing some training and project work with the Institute of Public Health and RAY, a major funder of public health work in Finland.