Exit interview with Anthony Laverty – SSM Newsletter officer
We would like to thank Dr Anthony Laverty for his magnificent contribution to SSM Newsletter for the past 5 years and invited him to look back into his experience and answer a few questions as part of an exit interview.
Please introduce yourself and your area of work.
My name is Anthony Laverty and I am a Lecturer in Public Health at Imperial College London. I try to keep quite a broad focus on what can impact on population health, but always with a focus on the use of secondary data to support policy evaluation. At the minute I am leading a project funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research on the possible health and equity impacts of road user charging in England. It’s an interesting time – lots of local areas were planning on introducing or extending some form of road user charging, but now, its more up in the air.
For how long you been a member of the SSM Newsletter team?
Quite a while, I think about 4 -5 years in all I think.
What means Social Medicine to you, and do you think the field has changed over the past years?
This is a good question. I guess I would always bring it back to the social determinants of health – what is driving health outside of just the health sector. And also, what is the best way to support collective action to improve societies
What were the most enjoyable and challenging parts of the newsletter officer role?
The newsletter officer role is really fun because you get to work with a range of keen other people and try to produce the best content you can. The people are great and you get a wider insight into what is happening across the Society and public health. I am not sure I ever got very good at formatting the final product, but thankfully the rest of the team always had my back.
Did the newsletter officer role contribute in any way to your professional development?
Like a lot of things – it would be hard to draw a line to say x led to y, but it was a lot of fun.
Would you recommend it to other researchers in the field?
Yes – it will get you to read some things and think about things you probably wouldn’t otherwise!
If you are interested in joining our communication or newsletter teams, please do not hesitate to get in touch with d.cadar@ucl.ac.uk or Kate.Mason@liverpool.ac.uk.