British Medical Journal Letters and Rapid Responses

The letters and rapid responses provide important information about key health promotion topics. They will be useful for locating the latest and/or significant documents including national and international strategies, policies and guidelines. Some seminal documents such as the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion appear in more than one rapid response. Principles of health promotion and education are also discussed.

To read click on the item below the year.

Earlier items also cover relevant issues.

BMJ Rapid Responses

2025

    1. Good quality housing can protect and promote health.
    2. Robust data: crucial for guiding public health. 
    3. Children’s mental health – pivotal roles for health visitors and school nurses
    4. Action is urgently needed to reduce homelessness and save lives. 
    5. Invest in accident prevention to reduce avoidable deaths and reduce demand on our NHS.
    6. Physical activity: a persistently underused intervention.
    7. Listening to the health needs of young carers and their families.
    8. Vaccines: a historical public health success requiring urgent and sustained investment.
    9. Prioritise safe and active travel to promote health and reduce demand on our NHS and social care systems.
    10. Autism: we need to call out misinformation and create a society that works for autistic people. 

2024

  1. Child Health Action Plan: a multifaceted positive health approach is needed.
  2. The magnitude of the obesity epidemic should not be underestimated but tangible improvements in positive health are possible.
  3. Our leaders must implement comprehensive policies to reduce harm caused by homelessness, as a matter of urgency.
  4. Promoting swimming: a positive approach to public health.
  5. Governments must do more to promote safe and active travel to improve health.
  6. Investment in a healthy childhood will have enormous returns.
  7. A positive manifesto for public health.
  8. Accident prevention: effective measures need to be implemented.
  9. Bold action is needed urgently, to curb “vaping epidemic”.
  10. Create supportive environments to promote health.
  11. Childhood obesity: positive change is possible.
  12. Road safety in the UK: a preventable public health crisis
  13. Childhood obesity: a multi-faceted positive approach is needed.
  14. Government must prioritise safe, healthy homes. 

2023

  1. Accident prevention: there is a strong case for urgent action targeting primary prevention
  2. Public health grants: increased and sustained funding needed
  3. Need for accelerated action to make water, sanitation and hygiene a reality for all
  4. Obesogenic environments: the UK Government needs to act now
  5. Promoting health: a plea for participation
  6. The major conditions strategy—crucial roles for Directors of Public Health
  7. E-cigarettes: Evidence-based confusion
  8. The major conditions strategy—must look beyond the NHS
  9. Children’s mental health—pivotal roles for teachers and school nurses
  10. Primary care networks: drastic and immediate action is needed to tackle inequalities

2022

  1. Falls Prevention Programme in UK Care Homes. Maintaining and promoting health in care homes
  2. A prescription for the future of nursing: promoting the health and well-being of nurses should be a high priority
  3. Physical Activity: manifold benefits for health and well-being
  4. Exercise the miracle cure, but government must step up the action
  5. New food strategy: local directors of public health need to be given the power and resources
  6. Adequately funded public health must be at the centre of modern healthcare
  7. A Declaration for National Wellbeing
  8. Physical activity can do wonders for the nation’s health
  9. Public health grant: greater investment is needed
  10. Prioritising the health of our children and young people by promoting both safe and active travel
  11. Food banks should be phased out: fiscal measures are needed
  12. Vaping and protecting children: time for a rethink

2021

  1. Food poverty should not be allowed to continue: government action is needed
  2. Children’s mental health: the government needs to be far more ambitious
  3. Health in the UK: it is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is an age of wisdom, it is an age of foolishness
  4. Public health in England: a positive health strategy, independent structures and long-term funding are needed
  5. Re-creating health promoting schools will improve population health and help to reduce inequalities
  6. General practice on the brink: three key solutions the government must implement
  7. National Food Strategy: urgent and robust government support is needed
  8. Children’s health: opportunities to have a real impact
  9. Investing in public health is our best option for meeting current and future health challenges
  10. General practice and public health: from rhetoric to action
  11. Children with autism and their families: greater support is needed

2020

  1. Inequalities in 2020: time for a health strategy that unites the country
  2. Child Health in the UK: we need to help them survive and thrive
  3. Health promoting hospitals – back to the future!
  4. Covid-19: we need to give testing the priority it deserves
  5. Improving health by creating supportive environments
  6. NHS staff: in the future we need to promote their health
  7. Ageism in the UK: we need a fundamental shift in culture
  8. Childhood obesity crisis: a comprehensive strategy with high-level political support is needed.
  9. Healthy eating strategy: needs to be bigger, positive and adequately funded.
  10. Health promotion at the crossroads with the demise of Public Health England.
  11. Primary care under threat: time for the Government to address the urgent challenges.
  12. Covid-19 test and trace: localised approach urgently needed.

2019

  1. NHS long term plan: all patients to have access to online GP consultations by 2023-24
  2. The need to include accident prevention as a key area in the forthcoming Green Paper on Prevention
  3. Time to put GPs first by investing in general practice
  4. Child accident prevention: evidence-based approaches
  5. The need for a health strategy that unites the country
  6. The obesity epidemic: bold and decisive action needed
  7. “Best Buy in Public Health”: Physical Activity
  8. Nursing crisis: Missed opportunities in promoting the health of the country

2018

  1. David Oliver: Getting serious about prevention
  2. NHS must prioritise health of children and young people
  3. Fight childhood obesity with multiple methods, not just more taxes, MPs hear
  4. Childhood obesity: government’s plan targets energy drinks and junk food advertising
  5. E-cigarettes: relax rules to help more smokers quit, say MPs
  6. Lessons from history – public health successes
  7. Lowering hospital walls to achieve health equity
  8. Hancock pledges to invest in prevention to tackle “root causes” of ill health
  9. Alma Ata and primary healthcare: back to the future

2017

  1. Government’s response to inquiry on public health raises fears of more cuts. There should be investment – not cuts.
  2. UK children have “alarming gap” in health between rich and poor, report finds
  3. Time for the UK to commit to tackling child obesity
  4. Government’s childhood obesity plan does not go far enough, say MPs
  5. Next government must tackle public health “ticking time bomb,” says BMA
  6. Time to put health at the heart of all policy making
  7. Doctors can act as advocates on health effects of poverty, says BMA
  8. Spending on public health cut as councils look to save money
  9. Tobacco plan aims to produce England’s first smoke-free generation
  10. Over 1000 doctors sign letter calling for new tobacco plan for England

2016

  1. Public health—the frontline cuts begin
  2. Tackling the crisis in general practice
  3. Ten towns that promote health to be built in England
  4. Taxing sugar
  5. True patient participation is difficult and takes dialogue
  6. Government changes are jeopardising public health
  7. GP services in England get multibillion cash injection in landmark deal
  8. Report calls for bold action to prevent early deaths
  9. Sixty seconds on . . . road traffic crashes
  10. Clinicians underwhelmed by “watered down” childhood obesity strategy. LESSONS FROM RIO.
  11. Health must be embedded across all government policy, MPs say
  12. Over a third of children aged 10 – 11 in England are overweight or obese
  13. Government must not shy away from bold action on public health, says MP

2015

  1. Crashes involving young drivers
  2. Why don’t people exercise, even a little?
  3. Alcohol—who is paying the price?
  4. Why e-cigarettes are dividing the public health community
  5. BMA calls for 20% sugar tax to subsidise cost of fruit and vegetables
  6. Fuming about e-cigarettes and harm
  7. Evidence about electronic cigarettes: a foundation built on rock or sand? Fifteen questions to clear the fog around e-cigarettes
  8. How to assess quality in primary care

2014

  1. Doctors and teachers receive new guidance on the internet’s effect on young people’s sex lives and relationships
  2. Raiding the public health budget
  3. Regulation of electronic cigarettes
  4. Future government should prioritise public health, BMA says
  5. Future shape of general practice in England
  6. NHS plan calls for new models of care and greater emphasis on prevention
  7. E-cigarettes latest: users on the up but rules tighten
  8. Health charities call on UK prime minister to put prevention at top of agenda

2013

  1. Long term effect of reduced pack sizes of paracetamol on poisoning deaths and liver transplant activity in England and Wales: interrupted time series analyses
  2. Maps of premature deaths across England will help tackle variation, say public health chiefs
  3. Consistent food labelling system is rolled out across UK
  4. The strength of primary care systems
  5. It’s time to ban junk food on hospital premise
  6. BMJ briefing: meet the new masters of public health
  7. A substantial tax on sugar sweetened drinks could help reduce obesity

2012

  1. Doctors are told to “make every contact count” to reduce costs of poor lifestyles
  2. Finland leads 31 European countries in tackling child injuries with Greece last
  3. Put health at the heart of transport policies, says BMA report

BMJ Letters

2025

  1. Childhood obesity: positive change is possible (Letter)
  2. Invest in injury prevention to reduce avoidable deaths and demand on NHS (Letter)

2024

  1. Labour’s child health action plan: a multifaceted positive health approach is needed (letter).
  2. Promoting swimming: a positive approach to public health (letter).
  3. Homelessness is not a personal choice or inevitable. Our leaders must urgently implement comprehensive policies to reduce harm caused by homelessness (letter & letter of the week).
  4. Social determinants of health: a positive manifesto for public health (letter & letter of the week).
  5. Create supportive environments to promote health (letter).

2023

  1. The major conditions strategy—must look beyond the NHS
  2. Injury prevention: a strong case for urgent action (letter).
  3. Obesogenic environments: the UK government needs to act now (letter & letter of the week).
  4. Public health grants: increased and sustained funding needed (letter).
  5. Vaping and protecting children: time for a rethink (letter)
  6. Food banks should be phased out: fiscal measures are needed (letter).
  7. CHILD HEALTH AND SAFE AND ACTIVE TRAVEL. Prioritise health of children and young people by promoting both safe and active travel (letter).

2022

  1. Maintaining and promoting health in care homes. (Letter)
  2. Physical activity: manifold benefits for health and wellbeing. (Letter)
  3. England’s food strategy: local directors of public health need to be given power and resources. (Letter)
  4. Beneficial effect of exercise on social care. Physical activity could do wonders for the nation’s health. (Letter)

2021

  1. The BMJ Appeal 2020-21. Food poverty should not be allowed to continue—government action is needed. (letter)
  2. Children’s mental health: the UK government needs to be far more ambitious. (Letter)
  3. Creating health promoting schools will improve population health and help reduce inequalities. (Letter)
  4. General practice on the brink: three key solutions the government must implement. (Letter)
  5. National Food Strategy: urgent and robust government support is needed. (Letter)
  6. Children’s health: opportunities to have a real impact (Letter)

2020

  1. Public health priorities for 2020 – Inequalities in 2020: time for a health strategy that unites the country (Letter)
  2. UK infant mortality. Child health in the UK: we need to help children survive and thrive (Letter)
  3. Health promotion is at a crossroads with the demise of Public Health England. (Letter)
  4. Covid-19 test and trace: localised approach urgently needed. (Letter & Letter of the week)
  5. The BMJ Appeal 2020-21. Food poverty should not be allowed to continue—government action is needed. (letter)

2019

  1. Why the rules should not be relaxed for e-cigarettes to encourage people to stop smoking (Letter)
  2. Alcohol excess—time for a new positive and multifaceted strategy (Letter)
  3. Pressure on General Practice in England – Time to put GPs first by investing in General practice (Letter & Letter of the week)
  4. Alcohol excess – time for a new positive and multifaceted strategy (Letter)
  5. Obesity epidemic: bold and decisive action needed (Letter)

2018

  1. Government must get serious about prevention (Letter)

2017

  1. Over 1000 doctors sign letter calling for new tobacco plan for England
  2. Tobacco Control Plan is needed to fight the power of big tobacco. (Letter)

2016

  1. Need for increased investment in public health (Letter & letter of the week)
  2. Prioritising prevention and health promotion (Letter)
  3. We need “healthy towns” across all of England (Letter)
  4. Directors of public health are pivotal in tackling health inequalities (Letter & letter of the week)

2015

  1. Patterns and trends in sources of information about sex among young people in Britain: evidence from three National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (eLetter)
  2. Why we shouldn’t normalise the use of e-cigarettes (Letter)
  3. Taxing sugar should be just one element of a multifaceted campaign. (Letter)
  4. Seismic shift in policy needed to increase physical activity (Letter)

2014

  1. Raiding the public health budget. Action is needed to tackle current public health threats (Letter)
  2. Promoting the health of the population (Letter)

2013

  1. Premature deaths across England Time to focus on positive health indicators to reduce health inequalities (Letter)

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