52 weeks of public health research, part 3

Posted by Bronia Arnott and Martin White

From Bronia Arnott: Waiting at Central Station Newcastle to go to a meeting I thought this represented one of the projects that I am working on, Reflect, which is all about transport behaviour (change).

From Bronia Arnott: Are YOU engaging users and stakeholders in your research? This week has been full of meetings with stakeholders and finding out more about public involvement in research. This photo was taken at Newcastle Civic Centre, the venue of one of the meetings this week. 

From Martin White: I am not a coffee-holic, but I do like a decent cup and will go out of my way to get one. Once a day, mid-morning. Brown powder that transforms into a vaguely coffee tasting hot drink just won’t do (although with a lot of sugar works quite well for a hangover - not that I am alco-holic either, mind). It has to have a real coffee taste and aroma. Some might find this vaguely snobbish, but I don’t care too much about where it comes from, as long as it tastes good. What has this to do with work? Well, there comes a point, usually about 2 hours after my breakfast tea (don’t get me started on tea...) when it becomes genuinely hard to concentrate. My mind starts to drift and I start to imagine the smell and taste of that well-earned cup of morning coffee. Bear this in mind if you have a meeting with me between 10 and 12.

From Martin White: The internet has quite simply revolutionised academia. And I am big fan of open access publishing. However, there is something reassuring about the thud of a weighty package on your desk, signifying the arrival of a real, ink on paper, printed copy of your latest research output. I have been fortunate in the last couple of years to have a couple of articles accepted by Milbank Quarterly, the North American health policy journal. The published output looks and feels like a paperback book. And you receive a nice hand-signed letter from the publishing editor with your copy. All very reassuringly old fashioned.

 

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Just to remind you:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in my life, I foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on my own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send me an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and I’ll post them as soon as I can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Also, this doesn’t mean we wont also be posting words. You word-based posts are, as always, much appreciated.