Ben Barr

@benjaminbarr.bsky.social

1.9K followers 1.9K following 230 posts

Professor in Applied Public Health Research. Head WHO collaborating centre for policy research on the determinants of health equity.
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/population-health/staff/benjamin-barr/ . Was once an anthropologist, maybe I still am. .. more

Videos

Public Health 46%

Medicine 29%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Ben Barr

womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 7h

1933 newspaper article on artist Frida Kahlo #WomensArt

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 3d

Do the Poor Gain More? The Impact of Secondary-Care Expenditure on Health Inequality. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Do the Poor Gain More? The Impact of Secondary-Care Expenditure on Health Inequality - Applied Health Economics and Health Policy

Background Quasi-experimental studies of mortality variation and trends among large administrative areas of England in the 2000s and early 2010s have suggested that more deprived populations gain larg...

link.springer.com

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 3d

Gramsci I believe

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 3d

I've previously wondered whether epidemiology could learn from theories of causality in history and law. Is there a literature on causality in history and law?

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 5d

Yes agree

Reposted by Ben Barr

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 7d

My mum, whose partially sighted, gets special assistance when flying, but they often insist she goes in a wheelchair, even though she doesn't need one, just needs someone to show her where to go.

Reposted by Gavin A. Schmidt, Ben Barr, Amy W. Ando , and 1 more Gavin A. Schmidt, Ben Barr, Amy W. Ando, Matthew Bodie

Adam Sharp @adamcsharp.bsky.social · 7d

The most brutal way of telling someone they’re a few sandwiches short of a picnic that I’ve heard in French is t’es pas la truite la plus oxygénée de la rivière. It means “you’re not the most oxygenated trout in the river.”

* read on for similar insults from around the world (a thread)…

Reposted by Ben Barr, Simon Wren‐Lewis

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 7d

"Much of MMT is neither new nor wrong: it’s just standard economic theory presented in different language. The disagreement arises not over whether government can compel the central bank to finance its spending, but to what extent government should do this."

criticalfinance.org/2025/12/19/w...

What’s wrong with MMT?

As Marc Lavoie and John Quiggin have noted, there are ‘two MMTs’. Scholars such as Randy Wray, Eric Tymoigne and Scott Fulwiler have contributed to debates on monetary economics, instit…

criticalfinance.org

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 7d

Seems likely. I will join the rebel alliance.

Reposted by Iain Buchan, Ben Barr

Ed Hill @edmhill.bsky.social · 7d

1/ 🎙️ New 'Health Data Decoded' episode! #SciComm

❓ What does it take to bridge clinical practice, data science and public health innovation?

👤 Guest: Iain Buchan (@profbuchan.bsky.social), Director of CHIL (@livunichil.bsky.social).

📹 YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHA9...

🎧 Spotify👇

Health Data Decoded | CHIL director – Iain Buchan [Ep. 10]

open.spotify.com

Reposted by Will Jennings, Ben Barr, Jonathan Hopkin , and 5 more Will Jennings, Ben Barr, Jonathan Hopkin, Robert Wolfe, Margot C. Finn, Maria Abreu, Calvin Jones, Paul Nightingale

Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 7d

This by the excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com confirms my view that political trends are being driven by the halting of the upward economic conveyor belt - striking charts: www.ft.com/content/30a4... Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

A stalled economic conveyor belt is behind the rise of anti-system, anti-growth parties on both the right and left

www.ft.com

Reposted by Ben Barr, Rosemary A. Joyce, Lesley A. Hall , and 7 more Ben Barr, Rosemary A. Joyce, Lesley A. Hall, Trevon D. Logan, Julia Lynch, Michael J. Taylor, Sebastian Karcher, Meredith Farkas, Manisha Sinha, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 7d

You’ll never guess who else experienced ‘racism’ on the job market despite their unimpeachable academic credentials.

Naomi Wolf: I got pretty far along in the hiring process for a wonderful position teaching at a NY state university before a dean in the department told me I couldn’t go any further because I was white.

Reposted by Elena Litchman, Ben Barr, Tim Leunig

Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 7d

Explore how other OECD countries spend their budgets: ourworldindata.org/grapher/gove...

Government spending by function

Share of total government spending by purpose of government activity. Categories are based on the Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG).

ourworldindata.org

Reposted by Ben Barr

Nuffield Trust @nuffieldtrust.org.uk · 8d

🆕 What do the changes to local government funding mean for social care? @camille-oung.bsky.social describes what the impact of yesterday’s Local Government Finance Settlement could be for the beleaguered social care sector.
www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/co...

Coal or chocolate coins: What do the changes to local government funding mean for social care?

As the government makes changes to how local government works and how it is funded, Camille Oung takes a closer look at those changes and explores what it all might mean for the beleaguered social car...

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Ben Barr

Ben Baumberg Geiger @benbgeiger.bsky.social · 9d

Great permanent job opportunity for interesting health economists in my department at King's College London - please circulate to anyone who might be a good fit! Deadline 8th Jan
www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/130565-...

Lecturer in Health Economics | King's College London

www.kcl.ac.uk

Reposted by Ben Barr, David Murakami Wood

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 11d

Because the issue of population change is so widely misunderstood, here's a short thread which seeks to lay it out simply.
It explains why there is almost nothing anyone can do to change the global population trajectory, both as numbers rise, then as they fall.
🧵1/13

Reposted by Ben Barr

Rick @flipchartrick.bsky.social · 11d

Brave deep-dive on the rise of special needs, by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com.

Increasing across the advanced economies and highest rate of increase among children of the better-off.

www.ft.com/content/8252...

How redefining special needs rocked education

Broadened criteria are benefiting the better-off, harming those facing greatest difficulty and straining the system

www.ft.com

Reposted by Ben Barr

Mark G. Sheppard @markgsheppard.com · 13d

My new WP "The Inequality of Recessions" looks at many @claudia-sahm.bsky.social-like rules.

One finding is when applying turning point functions to unemployment by education, the trend is clear: the less-educated experience downturns sooner.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

#EconSky

Reposted by Ben Barr, Mary Corcoran

elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 13d

The hunger strikes have been hospitalised. The UK government continues to even deny their existence.

A reminder that these people protested Elbit system, whose drones killed 3 British aid workers in Gaza.

www.instagram.com/reel/DSIoFWd...

NOVO ✦ on Instagram: "5 people have been hospitalised whilst in prison, out of a total of 8 people charged with alleged terror offences and criminal damage for taking action to disrupt the sale of wea...

novo_org on December 11, 2025: "5 people have been hospitalised whilst in prison, out of a total of 8 people charged with alleged terror offences and criminal damage for taking action to disrupt the s...

www.instagram.com

Reposted by Ben Barr

Public Health, Policy and Systems @ University of Liverpool @livuni-phps.bsky.social · 13d

1/ ❓Why choose postgraduate study in our Master of Public Health (MPH) Programme at the University of Liverpool?

📍 Liverpool can be your place to build your career as a public health leader striving to promote health to, and prevent disease in, individuals, families, communities and populations!

Master of Public Health MPH | Courses | University of Liverpool

Build the foundations of a career as a public health leader striving to promote health to, and prevent disease in, individuals, families, communities and populations. You’ll analyse public health syst...

www.liverpool.ac.uk

Reposted by Branko Milanovic, Ben Barr, Kris Inwood , and 2 more Branko Milanovic, Ben Barr, Kris Inwood, Aaron Sojourner, Simon Wiederhold

Arin Dube @arindube.bsky.social · 15d

Between 1979–2019, top pay (90th pct.) climbed 53%, middle only 23%, bottom (10th pct.) even lower 7%. (Productivity per hour climbed much more at 73%.)

But since 2019, fast gains at the bottom have already reversed about 1/3 of the rise in pay inequality.

A 🧵 about my book: The Wage Standard.

Ben Barr @benjaminbarr.bsky.social · 15d

I thought only scammers use times new Roman these days. Oh...

Reposted by Ben Barr

War on Want @waronwant.bsky.social · 16d

UK arms imported by Israel have doubled in 2025.

The UK is complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid of the Palestinian people.

Keep reading for 4⃣ more things you need to know.🧵

Reposted by Ben Barr

Steve Senior @stevensenior.bsky.social · 16d

The old Medical Officer of Health reports are becoming a bit of a weird obsession. Here's some things from Bradford in 1918: wellcomecollection.org/works/f2nczp...

For a long time, Bradford's birth rate was lower than the England average, where it's now higher (also, look at this lovely old graph)

Reposted by Ben Barr

Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 17d

I meet a lot of very smart AI critics who never seriously try to make AI work for them by spending a couple of hours with a frontier model working on hard tasks

People can be (and should be & are) critical after realizing what AI can do, but experience leads to better-informed and sharper critiques

Reposted by Mel Bartley, Ben Barr, Michael Kevane , and 2 more Mel Bartley, Ben Barr, Michael Kevane, Juanjo Medina, José Pina-Sánchez

Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 18d

Thrilled to share my latest paper entitled, "Estimating Discrimination in Sentencing: Distinguishing between Good and Bad Controls"

Led by @jpinasanchez.bsky.social, the paper introduces a framework for examining discrimination in criminal justice processes.

🧵 1/10

publicera.kb.se/ejels/articl...