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Previously: 'observation' : 'anticipation' : 'astronautics' : 'space'
Dear HIFA colleagues,
HIFA profile [and my source]: Helen Layton is a Nurse and Global Health Consultant; Founder & Clinical Director, The Marula Institute; Co-founder & Executive Director, The Reach Foundation UK/Spain. My professional interests include maternal and child health, global health equity, respectful maternity care, community-led health education, and translating research into practice. As Co-founder and Executive Director of The Reach Foundation UK and Founder and Clinical Director of The Marula Institute, I am particularly interested in strengthening health systems, workforce education, safe care for children with complex needs, and ensuring women’s and families’ voices inform care.
Helen AT cathcom.org
"George Brown was a huge figure in sociology and social psychiatry. At a time when social science and psychiatry were so riven with conceptual differences they could not work constructively, George’s approach was collaborative, courageous and imaginative. His work addressed real-world problems and in so doing greatly enriched mental health research."Professor Matthew Hotopf, Executive Dean, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience:
Individual Psychology Life events PSYCHIATRY | Life events | ||
social Group Psychology Life events |
PSYCHO-POLITICAL |
See also:
Wing, J.K., & Brown, G.W. (1970). Institutionalism and
Schizophrenia: A Comparative Study of Three Mental Hospitals 1960–1968.
Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.
Brown, G. & Harris, T. (1978) Social Origins of Depression. A Study of Psychiatric Disorder in Women. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Brown G.W. & Harris, T. (1979) Social origins of depression: a study of psychiatric disorder in women, London: Tavistock Publications.Brown, G. W., & Harris, T. O. (Eds.). (1989). Life events and illness. The Guilford Press.
My source: Patrick Kidd. Forum, Obituary, The Observer. 20th September, 2026, p.42.
https://observer.co.uk/profile/obituary/article/george-brown-the-former-post-office-boy-who-unlocked-the-mystery-of-depression
Previously: 'social sciences' : 'psychiatry' : 'determinants'
The results of Menstrual Hygiene Day (MH Day) 2026 are in!
They show what is possible when thousands of organisations and individuals join forces. Advocates, NGOs, media, governments, communities, and corporates came together to drive awareness and action on menstrual health and hygiene (MHH). All with one goal: creating a #PeriodFriendlyWorld for everyone.
In 2026, we crossed the mark of 1,500 official partner organisations.
The MH Day movement continues to grow. 💪
And so does our impact.
This year, the team tracked more than 3,000 MH Day events, 28,300 pieces of media coverage, and 299,000 social media contributions!
Together, these efforts resulted in a new milestone: during the campaign period from 29 April to 10 June 2026:
MH Day collectively reached 1.135 billion people worldwide.
Isn’t that incredible?
That’s nearly one in seven people on the planet, and the biggest reach in the history of MH Day!
It shows that while MHH was a niche issue a few years ago, it is becoming more and more relevant for the mainstream of society.
Read more about the
numbers, trends, and stories
behind MH Day 2026
Thank you for being part of this growing movement!
Together for a #PeriodFriendlyWorld!
Warmly,
Ina, Aya and the team at the International Secretariat of MH Day / WASH United
Coverage plans are ready for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope prelaunch and launch activities. Roman is NASA’s next-generation observatory designed to explore some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including dark energy. NASA and SpaceX are targeting Roman’s liftoff for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch coverage begins at 6:20 a.m. Live coverage of these events will stream through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online:
| education for ALL life chances Nancy Grace | STEMM |
| ROMAN Girls - Women in Science | Political investment in Science for Public and Planetary Good |
See also:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/
Previously: 'women' : 'astronomy' : 'big picture'
At the beginning of this year, the Taliban issued a decree effectively
legalising domestic violence by allowing husbands to punish their wives.
And in May, another decree removed minimum age protections for marriage and made it harder for women to leave a spouse. This has increased the risk of forced and child marriage.
This is not just a loss of rights. It is the systematic
erasure of women and girls from public life.
Five years on from the Taliban takeover and the
exclusion of women and girls is being normalised.
| Visibility |
Gender apartheid | State sanctioned abuse
|
Previously: 'Afghanistan' : 'women' : 'girls'
See also 8th Sept. The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape from Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America. Blumenstein & Kapp. Hardcover, 368 pages. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN: 9781538779002
FINAL REPORT:
'This independent review of maternity services at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) considered the quality of care relating to newborn, infant and maternal harm at the trust.
This report covers the findings, conclusions and essential actions of this independent review of maternity services.
Based on a review of over 2,500 family cases that formed part of this investigation, the final report outlines:
- local actions for learning that staff at the trust must do
- system-wide learnings
- immediate and essential actions to improve maternity and neonatal care
The Independent Maternity Review (known as the Ockenden review) was led by Donna Ockenden and involved a multi-professional team of more than 160 reviewers. The review team held individual meetings with over 500 families, and more than 830 current and former staff at NUH engaged with the review.'
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a3bb59c4c7605ab567238ec/ockenden-report-review-of-maternity-services-nottingham-university-hospitals-nhs-trust-e-lay.pdf
https://www.ockendenmaternityreview.org.uk/
listening | Communication Processes Health Systems |
mothers families experience | LISTENING staffing funding |
Previously: 'maternity' : 'risk' : 'safety' : 'compassion'
A period-friendly world is a world in which menstruation is accepted as a normal fact of life and is no longer stigmatised. It is a world in which everyone is educated about menstruation from an early age. In a period-friendly world, everyone has access to quality and affordable period products of their choice. Everyone has access to period-friendly toilets. And in a period-friendly world, menstrual health services are available to everyone. It is a world where no one is held back just because they menstruate. (MH Day mission)
Global perspective of menstruation
MHH-related challenges
1 of 3 April 2026 Continued ... #PeriodFriendlyWorld
This International Women's Day, we're amplifying the work of women philosophers.
Our Women Reading Deleuze virtual issue pulls out articles from the Deleuze and Guattari Studies journal, chapters from the Deleuze Connections series and blog posts from our Deleuze Centenary celebrations, all written by women.
20 articles, chapters and blog essays by women
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| UNiTE to end digital violence: why digital safety is a gender and public health imperative in emergencies |
We are delighted to invite you to join our webinar on #UNiTE to end digital violence, on 1 December 2025, 13.00 CET (geneva time), with Ms Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur for violence against women, its causes and consequences, Dr Stella Chungong, Director and Chair of the WHO Health Emergencies Gender Working Group, and voices of community experiences.
Please do join the discussion and share widely.
Title: UNiTE to end digital violence: why digital safety is a gender and public health imperative in emergencies
Time and Date: 13:00 – 14:30 CET (Geneva), Monday, 1 December 2025
Registration: https://bit.ly/4prKGeu
Digital violence, such as doxxing, deepfakes, and online harassment, poses significant public health risks. Millions of women, girls, and adolescents face harassment, stalking, and threats in digital spaces meant for connection.
In crisis settings, these digital threats create multiple challenges. Understand what they are and why it is important to integrate digital safety into humanitarian health responses.
Tentative Agenda and Speakers
Welcome/Opening remarks: Digital safety as a public health imperative in crises: Dr Stella Chungong, Director, Department of Health Emergency Preparedness & Chair, WHE Gender Working Group
Preparedness begins with protection: why digital violence must be addressed in humanitarian health work: Dr Stella Chungong, Director, Department of Health Emergency Preparedness & Chair, WHE Gender Working Group
UNFPA perspective from Executive Director, UNFPA: delivered by Dr Eugene Kongyuy, Deputy Director of Humanitarian Response Division to represent the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Keynote address: Ms Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women, its causes and consequences
Risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management: digital violence as a driver of misinformation: Dr Kai Von Harbou, Unit Head, Community Protection & Resilience, WHO
Surviving Digital Violence: DR Millie Phiri, journalist, researcher and author on digital violence
Community Voice: Ms Sohaila Shamseldeen, Youth and Development Coordinator, Etijah
'Some time in the late 1800s, the body of a young woman was pulled from the River Seine. Lacking any signs of struggle or foul play, her death was ruled a suicide. She was displayed on a slab of marble in the window of the Paris morgue - standard procedure for corpses awaiting identification. At the time, the morgue was a popular, albeit gruesome, attraction which drew more daily visitors than the Louvre. ... Apparently, the forensic scientist assigned to the drowned girl's cadaver became so captivated by her that he paid a moulder to make a plaster cast of her face.' p.16.
'The face is important. The face: pleasant, delicate features, all languid curves, a relaxed, even blissful expression. Her long, matted eyelashes stuck, as if still wet, to plump cheeks. Her mouth curved into an enigmatic smile. The face, gone unclaimed, triggered an intense, cultish frenzy across Europe. She was dubbed the L'Inconnue de la Seine (the Unknown Woman of the Seine). ... The advent of mechanical reproduction allowed the mask to be copied and sold on a massive scale. ... Widely replicated in plaster, wax and then plastic, L'Inconnue's dead face was used as a model for artists at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and apprentices at beautician training schools.' p.16. | |
'You may have seen her face yourself. In fact, odds are you've kissed it - indeed, 300 million people have. In 1955, tasked with the job of creating a life-size doll for teaching mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Norwegian toymaker Åsmund Lærdal thought back to a death mask he'd noticed years ago, hung in his wife's family home. Lærdal wanted the face to be inviting, not dead-looking. It had to be female, of course, the kind of face men undergoing CPR training would be inclined to kiss. L`Inconnue was, perhaps, the obvious choice for Resuscì Anne, the doll that is still used in schools and swimming pools across the UK and US. Lærdal's website nods to the mask's origins, writing that "the face of death became the face of life".' p.16. |
Ack. Sarah Haque, https://www.sarahhaque.co.uk/
The strange allure of L'Inconnue de la Seine, FT Magazine, 1,149, November 1, 2025. p.16-17. https://www.ft.com/content/64c930ac-b2b7-4314-b915-eb93c87a451f
See also: Wikipedia - L'Inconnue de la Seine
The 2025 peace laureate
'The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to Maria Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
In the past year, Ms Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions of people. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.'
A woman A girl Personhood Personal identity Dehumanisation Self-expression | objectification defined |
A girl A women Cultural life Psycho-Social Community life - denied | Gender crimes against girls & women Human Rights denial Law? National identity Nationhood? |
From a visit to Liverpool Tate 13.6.2008:
 | |
%E2%80%98%20Mary%20Kelly%201975%20Tate.png) |
1975, Mary Kelly © Tate
'Chalk and crayon drawings by Mary Kelly’s son are overlayed with transcriptions, annotations and reflections based on their interactions as he began nursery. These panels are the third group of a six-part series, each documenting a formative moment in Kelly’s son's early life. Kelly has stated that Post-Partum Document is not ‘autobiographical’. She instead uses her story to suggest ‘an interplay of voices – the mother’s experience, feminist analysis, academic discussion, political debate’. The work subverts romanticised depictions of the mother-child relationship, presenting the experience as inevitably bound up with societal norms and gendered expectations.'
See also: Mary Kelly
dyad : perspective : art
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Does the language we use really matter? A public NHS document includes the following:
'PHARMACY
2.1BackgroundHealth and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) in England hold statutory responsibility to publish and keep up to date a statement of the needs for pharmaceutical services of the population in its area, referred to as a pharmaceutical needs assessment (PNA). PNAs are used by the NHS to make decisions on which NHS funded services need to be provided by local community pharmacies.'
drugs manufactoring testing | |
(April 27, 1928 – April 9, 2025) |
As mentioned before, I try to keep grounded, in terms of my parochial perspective on the world, even as technology brings this world, and many others to so many screens.
BBC Radio 4 'PM' 1700-1800 UT today mentioned this news and an event to follow:
 |
| Mākereti "Maggie" Papakura was an internationally renowned Whakarewarewa guide. |
Pioneering Maori scholar and famed Whakarewarewa guide Mākereti Papakura will be honoured with a posthumous degree more than 100 years after she began her studies, Oxford University has announced.The above stood out as last evening I greatly enjoyed listening to Discovery on the BBC World Service:
Her family and iwi say they are grateful for the tribute to her memory, and it is testament to her determination to ensure Māori stories would not be forgotten.
Born in 1873 at Matatā, Papakura is believed to be the first indigenous woman to study at the university, Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography said in a statement.
She made her name as the pre-eminent guide at Whakarewarewa in the early 1900s and was known as Guide Maggie'. . . .... I will watch for further news.
'Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber are both scientists, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about the women that came before them. In Unstoppable, Julia and Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the scientists, engineers and innovators that they wish they’d known about when they were starting out in science. This week, a Māori marine scientist is combining indigenous knowledge with marine science to save the oceans that are so integral to her heritage. ...'
mental
| physical treatment |
SOCIO- | resistance? -POLITICS of health |
Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.
- Pablo Picasso
HUMANISTIC - mind | body - MECHANISTIC "The 'beat' goes on"!? |
 |
| 'Massacre in Korea' (1951) |
The continent has made significant progress in recent years, but the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for sustained efforts to address the complex issues surrounding malnutrition, particularly for women and children as we build traction to meet the sustainable development goals by 2030.
"The year 2025 will also be significant as it marks the end of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. N4G Paris will serve as a multi-stakeholder summit, advocating for ambitious financial and political commitments and fostering dialogue among diverse actors from around the world, including governments, international organizations, research institutions, civil society organizations, philanthropies, private sector entities, and more." - #N4G
Connecting dots is a a key imperative as we build Africa's nutrition movement. One of them is viewing nutrition from a programmable health systems lens. Have we given this enough traction ?
"The N4G conference presents a crucial opportunity for Africa to gain traction on its mission to eliminate malnutrition. The conference aims to mobilize ambitious financial and political commitments, foster dialogue among diverse stakeholders, and put nutrition at the center of the sustainable development agenda." - United Nations SDGs Professional Support Group for Africa
One of the key lessons from COVID-19 is the importance of strengthening health systems, particularly at the primary healthcare level. The pandemic has exposed weaknesses in many health systems, highlighting the need for increased investment in health care infrastructure, workforce, and services which will ultimately impact on nutrition delivery at the base of the health system.
The upcoming Africa Primary Health Care Forum , scheduled for Abuja on July 14-15, 2025, will provide a platform for stakeholders to discuss the importance of primary health care(PHC) in achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and health security, as well addressing malnutrition in PHC systems. The forum will also explore the role of digital health, digitised workforce, partnerships and financing in strengthening primary healthcare systems and improving general health outcomes.
More details continued at: https://www.phc.africa/
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| Brian E. Hodges - c/o Brian's family. |
Born in Liverpool, NW England, UK.
Community Mental Health Nurse NHS, Part-time Lecturer,
Researcher Nursing & Technology Enhanced Learning
Registered Nurse - Mental Health & General
Community Psychiatric Nursing (Cert.) MMU
PG Cert. Ed.
BA(Joint Hons.) Computing and Philosophy - BIHE - Bolton
PG(Dip.) Collaboration on Psychosocial Education [COPE] Univ. Man.
MRES. e-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning, Lancaster Univ.
Live and work in NW England - seeking a global perspective.
The views expressed on W2tQ are entirely my own, unless stated otherwise.
Comments are disabled.
If you would like to get in touch please e-mail me at
h2cmng AT yahoo.co.uk
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
