Abigail Aiken trained in clinical medicine at the University of Cambridge, before completing an MPH at Harvard School of Public Health, a PhD in public policy at the University of Texas at Austin, and a post-doc at the Office of Population Research at Princeton. She is now assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public […]
Latest articles
Devolution and Termination of Pregnancy: Principles and Practice
The British Parliament is currently debating the Scotland Bill within the House of Lords, legislation that is designed to expand the powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood. Within this Bill, is the proposal to revoke the segment which prohibits Scotland from making legislation about abortion, essentially making this a devolved matter, as it […]
User Controlled Implantable Contraception: Baby, You Can Turn Me On
Over the course of this month, there has been quite a bit of press attention given to the Bimek SLV, a device purporting to be the first attempt to achieve user-reversible, surgical, male contraception. Men have, for a considerable amount of time, been left behind in the field of contraception. Women have both hormonal and […]
Constructing Information Requests: Making The New Normal
When we collect information from our patients, we ask, often unthinkingly, for quite a lot of it. Some of it has obvious value to our consultations: how long has it been there, and where does it itch? Some of it has additional use in research, and in auditing our practice. Today, we’re going to take […]
Lost Boys: Universal HPV Vaccination
Last month, the government announced an extension of the national HPV vaccination campaign to include men who have sex with men who are aged less than forty. This was welcomed, as this group, particularly men who exclusively have sex with men, are excluded from the direct effects of the vaccination of women. Vaccination is offered […]
Organisation Focus: National Ugly Mugs Scheme
Some readers may already be familiar with the National Ugly Mugs Scheme, an initiative which started life in Australia in 1986, developed by a collective of sex workers to circulated descriptions of people that they had encountered, or situations that they had been in, which had been dangerous. Sex workers have an increased risk of […]
Interview With MSP Jean Urquhart
Readers, in particular those in Scotland, may have read about the recent opening of a consultation to decriminalise sex work in Scotland. This Bill, Prostitution Law Reform (Scotland) Bill, is the first stage of an attempt to pass this legislation through the Scottish Parliament. Currently, in Scotland, the issue of sex working is covered by […]
Web-App Review: Petals
Ground breaking-anonymity features, and well-presented information, but needs to follow through. Petals is an online web application, developed by Coventry University, which aims to provide information and assistance to those who wish to know more about, or who are at risk of, FGM. Using the site is fairly straightforward. Accessed through the Petals homepage, it […]
Peer Reviewers Wanted
The Journal is seeking new peer reviewers. This would involve occasional work reviewing submitted papers for acceptance and advising on any final fine-tuning which needs to take place. This is done online, and reviewers can claim CPD using this work. If you would like further information, please contact info.jfprhc@bmj.com. […]
Data Use In Sexual Health
Last week, a London HIV clinic hit the headlines: in emailing service users en-masse with a newsletter, the service inadvertently emailed all clients, with names and email addresses visible to all recipients. Like the majority of information security breaches, this was not the result of a clever hack. Many media outlets have reported this breach as […]