By Nicole Martin World Heart Day takes place annually on 29 September, providing a platform to raise global awareness of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). It was created by the World Heart Federation to educate people about the actions they can take to prevent and control CVDs and to drive international action to encourage heart-healthy living across […]
Category: Feature
World Autism Awareness Day
Saturday 2nd April 2022 marks World Autism Awareness day. Many people have preconceptions about autism as being a condition that always causes major disability. However, autism is a spectrum that affects people in different ways and to varying degrees. It is, perhaps, more helpful to consider autism as traits that can, in severe cases, […]
World AIDS Day 2021
Today marks the annual World AIDS Day, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1987. The theme for this year’s awareness day is “End inequalities. End AIDS.” Apart from COVID-19, HIV/AIDS remains the only other ongoing pandemic affecting the world today. In stark contrast to COVID-19, HIV vaccines largely remain in development, though […]
World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021
Source: WHO (https://who.canto.global/v/campaigns/album/VH579). At BMJ Open, we wish to highlight events and topics of significance to our readers. Today saw the launch of the annual Antimicrobial Awareness Week (18-24 November 2021), promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2015. The theme for this year’s awareness week is “Spread awareness, stop resistance.” A series […]
World Alzheimer’s Day – rate of undetected dementia, education of health professionals, and automated detection of dementia.
“Know dementia, know Alzheimer’s” is the theme for this year’s World Alzheimer’s Day with a focus on raising awareness of symptoms and diagnosis of dementia. Globally there are over 50 million people living with dementia, and this number is predicted to rise to 150 million by 2050.1 In both England and Wales the leading cause […]
Clinical Influencers – the medical professionals promoting health on social media
Throughout 2020, social media companies were dragged into the spotlight of the traditional media over the spread of misinformation. Debates raged over corporate responsibility to prevent their channels being hijacked to spread harmful misinformation, both of a political nature in the US elections and for medical and scientific messages relating to the pandemic. This issue […]
Vaccination Attitudes and Uptake: A Q&A with Dr Samantha Vanderslott
As vaccines for coronavirus roll out across the globe, people can start to see a path out of the pandemic. Yet despite the development and distribution of safe and efficacious vaccines, a number of challenges lie ahead. Achieving high vaccination coverage will be crucial to the goal of suppressing community transmission of the disease. […]