Search

The aim of this article is to examine the recent progress made by Government to improve public health and address health inequality. Elected in July 2024, the Labour government has promised to deliver a transition from reactive to preventative health policy and tackle social and geographic disparities in public health. However, this government pledge is not new and recent progress has been limited. This article examines progress in an area of policy that is increasingly recognised as a critical wider determinant of health, notably the link between the urban environment and health outcomes. Our analysis is based on extensive co-production with government. Drawing on co-production logs and the fieldnotes of an embedded researcher, this article reflects on the progress made under the Conservative's levelling up agenda and considers the potential of Labour's health mission. Our findings reveal that, while the figures on health inequality signal failure, there are glimmers of hope in creating new 'opportunity spaces' for doing things differently. We conclude that the critical intersection between new social science evidence and the entrepreneurial agency of public officials will be pivotal in making any headway against this target. Moreover, this must sit alongside more government investment to improve public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City regions and Mayoral Combined Authorities are at the heart of the devolution policy agenda in England. This article assesses and compares the policy and research capabilities of Combined Authorities in England, drawing on elite interviews with officials in four diverse Combined Authorities and their wider sub-regional policy and research communities. There are significant inequalities between the policy and research capabilities of the Combined Authorities reflecting institutional histories, as well as differences in size and functional responsibilities. Those with already greater capabilities and infrastructure appear likely to continue to benefit from greater opportunities in the future, widening existing inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The source of the bluestones at Stonehenge has long been debated, and while there is general consensus that the so-called spotted dolerites are derived from a relatively small number of outcrops exposed in the highest parts of Mynydd Preseli, in southwest Wales the source of the rhyolitic component has attracted relatively little detailed attention. This is largely because unlike the uniqueness of the spots in the coarser grained doleritic rocks, the rhyolites are fine-grained in character and lack any obvious distinctiveness, especially in hand specimen. This makes their provenancing difficult. A recent study, however, suggested that there was a close lithological similarity between the informally-termed ‘rhyolite with fabric’ bluestone component and rhyolitic rocks from the Ordovician Fishguard Volcanic Group exposed in the Pont Saeson area of north Pembrokeshire. This study aims to see if the chemistry of zircons, which are present in both sets of samples, could be used to support the petrographical association. Analyses for certain high field strength elements (including the rare earth elements) obtained by LA-ICP-MS showed that indeed the analyses were nearly identical when compared using a range of statistical approaches, including similarity coefficients, statistical distance, and principal component analysis, while showing clear differences to sample sets which had no reason to be correlated with the Pont Saeson samples. There are two important conclusions arising from this study. Firstly, the identification of the Pont Saeson source of the ‘rhyolite with fabric’ bluestone from outcrops in low ground to the north of the Mynydd Preseli will without doubt lead to fresh debates about the mechanisms of transport of this component of the bluestones to the Stonehenge site. Secondly, the chemistry of zircons may well prove to have a wider application in the provenancing of fine-grained rhyolitic rocks which have an archaeological context. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]