Pharma’s post-COVID opportunity to improve patient outcomes

Pic: Pille R. Priske on unsplash

The immediate threat to patient care from COVID-19 has diminished with the passing of the acute phase of the pandemic, but its impact continues to be stubbornly significant.

After placing unprecedented pressure on health systems for two years and more, patient backlogs in Europe could take six years to clear and there’s still much unknown about ‘long COVID’ or even the virus’ links with other conditions like diabetes.

To help alleviate the situation, health services are thinking creatively about how to cut waiting lists, while also looking for technological solutions to improve access to services and care.

Prof Nigel Osborne: Science is catching up with historically pervasive ideas of ‘medical music’

Pic: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Internationally recognised composer, peace worker and musical therapy pioneer Professor Nigel Osborne talks about how his emerging field stands at an important threshold.

History provides a wealth of commentary on the emotional value of music. One of the earliest came from Plato, who concluded that “rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul”.

But translating such a widely acknowledged emotional impact into physiological improvements has been slow in coming, with medical authorities disdaining to back any sort of music therapy until fairly recently.

Health literacy needs support, now more than ever

Pic: Alfons Morales on Unsplash

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought healthcare guidelines and scientific advances front-of-mind on a global scale, in the process highlighting long-standing gaps in health literacy as well as an opportunity for pharma.

It’s long been known that many people struggle to access, understand and use health information and services to make decisions about their health.

As the WHO noted in 2013: “Knowledge societies in the 21st century confront a health decision-making paradox. People are increasingly challenged to make healthy lifestyle choices and manage their personal and family journeys through complex environments and health care systems but are not being prepared or supported well in addressing these tasks.”

Wellcome Photography Prize 2020 delivers authentic images of mental health

Benji Reid / Wellcome Photography Prize 2020

British artist Benji Reid is one of the UK’s pioneers of hip-hop theatre and culture. He studied at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and, given the meeting of theatricality, choreography and photography in his images, terms himself a ‘choreo-photolist’.

He also suffers from long bouts of depression and, after a particularly difficult period, created Holding on to Daddy, which earlier this week won the 2020 Wellcome Photography Prize in its Mental Health (single image) category.

Medical music to calm the nerves

Pic: Eric Nopanen on Unsplash

“Your doctor knows it keeps you calm,” sang the Beach Boys on Add Some Music to Your Day, from their 1970 album Sunflower.

The advice encased within their transcendent close harmonies and surf-inflected rock and roll may not have been peer-reviewed in any medical sense, but investigations of medical music therapy are nothing new.

Attitudes to health and science – where is public trust in vaccines the highest?

Credit: Science Museum, London

There’s good news and bad news for the life-saving benefits of vaccines in a new global report on public attitudes to health and science.

Hearteningly, more than three-quarters of the world’s population agree vaccines are safe and effective, and nine in 10 people around the world say their children have been vaccinated, according to the first Wellcome Global Monitor, which involved 140,000 people in 140 countries.