Public Engagement Officer Posts

Two new Public Engagement Officer positions have been announced on the Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award Project, 'Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850–2000', led by Principal Investigators Dr Catherine Cox (UCD CHOMI) and Professor Hilary Marland (CHM, University of Warwick).

Role

The successful applicants will act as key intermediaries between the project and relevant partners in the arts and policy, play a lead role in promoting the project through various media outlets and in the planning, organisation and promotion events. They are seeking applicants with previous experience of working in public or policy engagement.

Public Engagement Officer, CHOMI, University College Dublin

This Public Engagement post will be based at the UCD Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, School of History, University College Dublin. This part-time position will last for 24 months commencing from shortly after 9 January 2017. 

Salary: €33,900 per annum pro-rata (40% pro-rata, i.e. €13,560 per annum part-time)

Those interested should contact Dr Catherine Cox prior to making an application.

Closing Date: 4 December 2016

Reference Number: 008854

For further details and to apply, please see: Public Engagement Officer, UCD

Public Engagement Officer, CHM, University of Warwick

This Public Engagement post will be based at the Centre for the History of Medicine, Department of History, University of Warwick. This part-time position will last for 24 months commencing from shortly after 9 January 2017.

Salary: £29,301 – £38,183 per annum pro-rata (0.4 FTE).

Closing Date: 1 December 2016

For further details and to apply, please see: Public Engagement Officer (78714-106)

Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850–2000

Prisoner Health Project: Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award

histprisonhealth.com

A major new research project in the history medicine has just been launched: 'Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850–2000'. This collaborative, five-year study, funded by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award, is being led by co-Principal Investigators, Professor Hilary Marland, of the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick, and Dr. Catherine Cox, Director of the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin.

Strangely, the history of medicine, despite its strong focus on the history of institutions, has neglected the prison as a site of medical treatment. It's great to see that such an ambitious project is going to address this omission. That this is a comparative research project is also exciting; comparative historical analysis, despite its strong tradition in the social sciences and a limited recent resurgence, is long overdue a renewal.

Project aims

The co-Principal Investigators, Catherine and Hilary, are keen for the project's research to resonate with contemporary concerns in the prison service and they aim to tackle historical questions of prisoner health that are still relevant today. For example, they and their team are going to look at the high incidence of mental illness amongst prisoners, the health of women prisoners and the status of prison maternity services, as well as the response to prisoner substance abuse and the impact of HIV/AIDS. All of these topics are still major concerns in the medical management of contemporary prison populations in Ireland and England. 

Late nineteenth-century photographs of
prisoners in Reading Gaol
Berkshire Records Office P/RP1/5/2
Source: Berkshire Family Historian

Scope of project

Each of the different research strands within the project will cover the period from rise of the modern penal system during the mid-nineteenth century up to the present. Fundamental to the project is the comparative analysis of English and Irish prison services and the conceptual basis of prisoners' entitlement to health in both England and Ireland. 

Prisoner health and human rights

The project team is going to address the question of who advocates for prisoners' health, both within and without the prison service. They will also investigate the extent to which prisoners have been seen as entitled to health care and if human rights debates have had any influence on the provision of medical care for prisoners. Another principal area of historical inquiry is going to be the extent to which prison doctors have felt themselves to be constrained by dual and conflicting loyalties to the prison regime and to their prisoner patients. 

Policy workshops and public engagement

Hilary and Catherine have also said that the project is going to engage with policy makers and prison reform organisations, including the Howard League for Penal Reform. With that in mind, they are busily preparing several policy workshops and compiling a list of potential invitees. They also hope to engage with the general public and people working in the area of prisoner welfare through a series of outreach projects. Among the most interesting of these are their plans to commission both a theatrical production and a piece of artwork that will be based on their team's research findings. 

Project members

Dr. Catherine Cox, University College Dublin, Principal Investigator. 

Professor Hilary Marland, University of Warwick, Principal Investigator.

Both Hilary and Catherine are working on the relationship between the prison system and mental illness – a subject of acute contemporary relevance considering the high levels psychiatric morbidity amongst prisoners – and they are also looking at the impact of the prison on prisoner mental health. In addition, Catherine will focus on the evolution of the separate system in Ireland and its impact on mental health while Hilary will examine the question of women and mental health in the prison system.

Dr. Will Murphy, Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University, is researching the health of political prisoners and the impact they had in shaping attitudes and practices of health and medicine in Irish and English prisons.

Dr. Fiachra Byrne, University College Dublin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow (3 years), is working on the mental health of juvenile prisoners in England and Ireland.

Dr. Nicholas Duvall, University of Warwick (year 1), University College Dublin (year 2), Postdoctoral Fellow (2 years), is going to be supporting Hilary and Catherine in their research and will also develop his own project on the health of prison officers. 

Dr. Margaret Charleroy, University of Warwick, Postdoctoral Research Fellow (3 years), is working on the management of prisoner health, disease and chronic illness.

A further Postdoctoral Fellow, who will be researching the history of HIV/AIDS in prisons under the supervision of Professor Virginia Berridge at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is slated for appointment later this year (2015).  

Public Engagement Officers, at Warwick and Dublin, will be appointed in late 2015. They will have responsibility with implementing the project's arts and policy initiatives.

In 2016, there will be two PhDs appointed to the project. One, based at UCD, will work on prison reform movements; the other, based at Warwick, will investigate the health of women prisoners.

If you want to find out more about 'Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850–2000', you can visit the UCD project page or the Warwick project page. The project team have also announced their Advisory Board members and provide a list of recent and upcoming project activities.

For further project details or inquiries, you can contact Hilary by email at hilary.marland@warwick.ac.uk or Catherine at catherine.cox@ucd.ie

A Malady of Migration: theatre production in Coventry and Dublin

At a time when the issues of migration and mental health are seldom out of the news, the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI) has worked with the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick (CHM) and Talking Birds theatre company to develop a new theatre production which explores why the mid-nineteenth century saw a prevalence of mental disorders among Irish migrants.The new piece is called 'A Malady of Migration' and is based on research being carried out by Professor Hilary Marland of Warwick and Dr Catherine Cox of University College Dublin, in a project called Madness, Migration and the Irish in Lancashire, c.1850-1921, funded by the Wellcome Trust. They are supported by postgraduate students and others, who will conduct supplementary research and take supporting roles in the drama.

There will be an expert panel discussion after the Thursday evening performances in each venue and a post performance discussion on Saturday lunchtime, providing opportunities for audience members to discuss the making of the piece with researchers and the theatre company, and to engage in debate on issues raised by the performances. A series of short briefing sheets have been produced to complement the drama and provide background information. These can be accessed here.

Check out the Malady of Migration website here!

Performances

Shop Front Theatre, City Arcade, Coventry CV1 3HW (opposite Argos):
Thurs 26th to Sat 28th June 2014
1pm - £6 (£3) and 7pm - £8 (£4)
Box office 0845 680 1926 talkingbirds.co.uk

The New Theatre, Temple Bar, Dublin:
Thurs 3rd to Sat 5th July 2014
1pm - €8 (€4) and 7.30pm - €10 (€5)
Box office 01 670 3361 thenewtheatre.com

A Malady of Migration

Madness, migration, and the Irish in Lancashire, 1850-1921

The Crusade to ‘Conquer Cancer’ in Ireland, 1950s-70s - Smoking and Lung Cancer: The Rise of the Visual by Jane Hand

In this month's blog post, Jane Hand, a PhD student at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick, writes about public health initiatives in the campaign against lung cancer in Ireland, c.1958-78. This was the subject of her MA dissertation undertaken at CHOMI, UCD (2011).

Since the late 1950s the relationship between smoking and lung cancer gained increased national prominence in Ireland, becoming the focus for a variety of both public and voluntary health education campaigns. The visual component of these health campaigns was central to the formulation of health education strategies reflecting changing perceptions of disease. In addition, as health advertising became increasingly central to public health, aspects of medicine and media consumption became more closely allied. This facilitated the emergence of a lifestyle-orientated public health centred on behavioural modification in relation to chronic disease diminution.

Fig. 1 Anti-Smoking Leaflet aimed at children, 

Department of Health and Children (NAI S16659A)

The causal connection between smoking and lung cancer was the first major chronic disease model to be explicitly linked to lifestyle factors. Consequently, health education material attempted to incorporate models of behavioural change. The initial release of anti-smoking publicity material in 1958 consisted of two leaflets highlighting the connection between smoking and lung cancer. As shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, the first leaflet targeted adults, whilst the second aimed at reducing the smoking uptake amongst the young. Both publications employed visual techniques centred upon simplistic imagery, eye-catching colour usage and the juxtaposition of upper and lower case text to emphasise particular aspects of its composition to the reader. By adopting a question/answer format these leaflets provided concise and precise health information whilst removing medical jargon from their explanatory texts. Their basic function was to establish a specific mode of behaviour and correct health conduct in relation to cigarette smoking. Minister for Health, Séan MacEntee made the rationale behind the publication of these leaflets by the Department of Health exceedingly clear: ‘The reports of investigations into the death rates from lung cancer have ensured that the results must be brought to the notice of the public’.¹

                                                 

Fig. 2 Anti-Smoking Leaflet aimed at adults,
Department of Health and Children (NAI S16659A)

Efforts to reduce tobacco consumption amongst younger age groups remained a central objective of state-led health promotion initiatives. Consequently the “Smoking Kills Your Taste for Life” campaign centred upon the mantra ‘If You Don’t Smoke - Don’t Start, If You Do Smoke – Stop Now!’ which represented the principal component of the Department’s health education strategy for much of the 1970s. A series of health educational films, including the “Smoking Kills Your Taste for Life” filmlets, were shown in primary schools throughout the country, with Irish-language voiceovers for those schools situated in Gaeltacht areas and some others that requested the Irish version.²

The dangers of smoking were compiled in a booklet The Facts about Smoking and Health, anti-smoking posters were widely circulated and a series of shorts were aired on RTÉ television.³ The establishment of a poster competition on a non-smoking theme proved particularly popular.⁴ The competition itself was widely advertised using press, radio and television. Entry forms had themselves acted as advertisements, comprising a strong anti-smoking message. As displayed in Fig. 3, these provided educative information concerning the dangers of smoking whilst appealing to the public-consciousness to elicit a positive response: ‘Deep down you must know that smoking is bad for your health – but let’s face it, at your age lung cancer seems a remote possibility’.⁵  The use of a direct-address style in the accompanying text to this pamphlet only served to further foster a perception that confidence in curative measures was maintained within the visual expression of disease and illness.

       

Fig. 3 ‘Smoking Kills Your Taste for Life’ poster competition entry form
Department of Health Files (INACT 428227)

During the 1970s an emphasis on the harmful effects of tobacco smoking on the lungs became more overt. The utilisation of various shock tactics, specific medical knowledge and biological explanations became increasingly standard practice. Science was becoming as much a part of the various promotion techniques employed, as were those pleas to health consciousness. Increased biological knowledge facilitated the emergence of a series of intellectually founded anti-tobacco smoking campaigns, particularly those instigated by the Irish Cancer Society, such as “How Smoking Affects Us” reproduced as Fig. 4.⁶ The caption serves to draw the reader’s attention to the integral message of the leaflet thus preventing any possible misinterpretation.⁷ By combining text and illustration the pamphlet successfully attempts to heighten its educative purpose. Ultimately the use of a diagram coupled with numbered explanations serves to convey an otherwise complicated medical message in a concise and understandable format.

           

Fig. 4 Anti-Smoking Leaflet produced by the Irish Cancer Society,
Department of Health Files (INACT 428227)

The 1970s represented the era when persuasion media as a method of health education became central to public health campaigns. Analogous to Britain, state expenditure on health promotion increased dramatically reaching £110,000 for the year 1970-1971, thereby facilitating the application of new-style advertising campaigns highlighting the tobacco and lung cancer risk.⁸ Campaigns developed a more scientific and biological character. The use of a series of precise anatomical diagrams designed to outline the effects of smoking on the body became evermore commonplace Whereas almost all anti-smoking propaganda produced during the late 1950s and 1960s had focused exclusively on the relationship between smoking and lung cancer, the 1970s was notable for widening the scope of the anti-smoking crusade. No longer was the lung perceived as the only body organ to be affected by the adverse effects of prolonged cigarette smoking, but rather its additional detrimental effects, as displayed in Fig. 5, Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, on the heart, brain, and nose and throat in particular were increasingly expounded.

Fig. 5, Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 The Better Health Pack Leaflets
on the bodily effects of smoking (NLI Ir614 h4)

Moreover, the focus altered somewhat with increased state interest in the effects of smoking on the pregnant woman. The dangers of smoking in pregnancy were highlighted in a special article entitled ‘You and Your Baby’ which was distributed nationally by the medical profession to expectant mothers.⁹ With the formation of the Health Education Bureau in 1975 and its greatly increased budget following the appointment of Charles Haughey as Minister for Health in 1977, state sponsored health campaigns adopted a more sophisticated composition.¹⁰ The tar and nicotine content of cigarettes was increasingly emphasised to create an anti-aesthetic surrounding the habit of smoking.¹¹ The promotion of anti-smoking material centred on the endorsement of behavioural change rather than on compulsion, with the media providing the key factor within a new style of health activism. 

The modification of individual behaviour through the initiation of highly stylised visual health campaigns became central to public and voluntary information programmes. As encapsulated by MacEntee, lifestyle choice and behavioural change became pivotal to the success of anti-smoking education campaigns centred upon the concept that ‘If you have never smoked, don’t take it up; if you are already a smoker, give it up, or at least do not smoke immoderately’.¹² By accepting the epidemiological argument for a connection between smoking and lung cancer both the state and voluntary organisations alike firmly aligned themselves to the implementation of a programme of preventative measures. This was achieved through the adoption of visual illustration as the main feature of health advertisement material. The promotion of anti-smoking material within Irish public health campaigns relied upon the efficacy of visual advertising in producing health responses on the part of the public. Ultimately this ‘visuality’ in promotion methods was key to the rise of a new health ideology based on individual responsibility for healthy lifestyles and behaviours.

Jane Hand is a doctoral student at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick. Her PhD is entitled 'You Are What You Eat: Chronic Disease, Consumerism and Health Education in Britain since the Second World War' and she may be contacted at j "dot" hand "at" warwick "dot" ac "dot" uk

Author’s note:

The images reproduced in this post were sourced directly from the Department of Health with the permission of Fergal Flynn, Department of Health.

All other primary source material is held at the National Archives of Ireland.

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1. Department of An Taoiseach, ‘Cancer: Publicity Leaflets etc.,’ 11^th February 1958, National Archives of Ireland, TAOIS S16659A. [Italics added by author].↩
2. Anon, ‘Radio programme on cigarette smoking’, 1973, Department of Health and Children, INACT 461262.↩
3. Minister for Health (Erskine Hamilton Childers), ‘Radio Programme on Cigarette Smoking 19/06/1973 – Written Answers’, Department of Health and Children, INACT 461262.↩
4. Minister for Health (Erskine Hamilton Childers), ‘Radio Programme on Cigarette Smoking 19/06/1973 – Written Answers’, Department of Health and Children, INACT 461262.↩
5. Minister for Health (Erskine Hamilton Childers), 'Address by Mr Erskine Childers, T.D., Táinaiste and Minister for Health at the Prize-giving ceremony in the anti-smoking poster competition in the Metropole Ballroom, Dublin, 6 January, 1971’, Anti Smoking Poster Campaign for School Children and Television Campaign, Department of Health and Children, INACT 422036.↩
6. The Information Services of the Irish Cancer Society, Smoking Burns You Up: How Smoking Affects Us, Leaflet Department of Health and Children, INACT 428227.↩
7. Cooter and Stein, ‘Coming into focus’, p. 186.↩
8. Coiste no gConnartha Rialtas, ‘A meeting of the Government Contracts Committee’, 6 August 1970, Department of Health and Children, INACT 422036; Minster for Health (Erskine Hamilton Childers), ‘Ceisteanna – Questions. Oral Answers – Health Educational Programmes’, Dáil Debates, vol. 254, col. 2249-2250, 23 June 1971; Berridge and Loughlin, ‘Smoking and the New Health Education in Britain 1950s-1970s’, pp 960-961.↩
9. Anon, ‘Radio programme on cigarette smoking’, 1973, Department of Health and Children, INACT 461262; ‘ “You and Your Baby”: A Family Doctor Publication by the Irish Medical Association in conjunction with the British Medical Association’, Department of Health and Children, INACT 461262.↩
10. Dwyer, Short Fellow, p. 152. ↩
11. Berridge and Loughlin, ‘Smoking and the New Health Education in Britain 1950s-1970s’, p. 961.↩
12. Irish Times, 5 Dec. 1959.↩