Page top

The PHA - an informed, collaborative and strong advocate for public health.

Public Health Champion 1999  -  Helen Glasgow

A writer by profession, Helen Glasgow has always combined her talent to communicate a message with her desire to contribute to better community health.

Her path to public health advocate began during her husband's 12 year tenure in India. In a voluntary capacity she began to develop ways to communicate simple messages about maternal and child health to villagers.

With UNICEF seed money she designed a resource called Better Child Care which was light on word count but heavy on pictures and could be used by village health workers who may not have had much education. It eventually sold over a million copies, in more than 20 languages, in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and in Africa. It remains, Helen says, one of her most satisfying achievements.

On her return to New Zealand at the end of the 70s and after various other communications roles, Helen Glasgow became communications consultant to the Cancer Society and worked on a pioneering campaign on melanoma awareness. She says this represented a new direction following the low-key skin cancer "Slip, slop, slap" campaign. The new campaign took the message in a serious direction, making people aware of the prevalence and menacing nature of melanoma and how it was as much a young person's as older person's disease.

At this time she also contributed to the passage of the Smoke-free Environments Act 1990, which required smokefree offices and a ban on tobacco product advertising and sponsorship. There was bitter opposition to the legislation, and advocates were subject to scathing comments from politicians, sports organisations worried at losing their tobacco company sponsorship, the media and the public. As a member of the group Coalition against Tobacco Advertising and Promotion, Helen provided key communications advice that mounted a skilful programme to garner public support and influence stakeholders. With the passage of this legislation, New Zealand was considered a world leader in tobacco control.

In 1990 Helen joined the Cancer Society as its national health manager, overseeing the melanoma campaign, and the Fit Food campaign which ran from 1992 to 1995. The campaign was ahead of its time, promoting the same kind of messages that are being picked up now about healthy eating and healthy activities.

In 1998, Helen and Iain Potter from the Health Sponsorship Council worked with Te Hotu Manawa Māori to set up The Quit Group to demonstrate the benefits of a smoking cessation television campaign with a linked Quitline. The three organisations set up a pilot in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty areas.

The Quit Group gained Ministry of Health funding for national smoking cessation service and Helen became Executive Director in 2000. The group now operates New Zealand's national freephone Quitline which provides support and advice to around 30,000 callers a year, making it one of the busiest quitlines in the world.

Helen says although they are making good headway with supportive legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, and smoking becoming more of a fringe activity, the important message to continue hammering is that it is not normal to smoke around people, even in homes and cars. She says this "denormalising" of smoking instead of it being seen as glamorous is the constant driver of the Quit Group.

Helen Glasgow was particularly pleased to receive, in 2006, Hone Harawira's Black Rock award for her work in cutting smoking rates among Māori.

She says while the desire of the Māori Party MP to turn New Zealand into a smokefree country was at first considered a bit ambitious, The Quit Group has embraced that goal and its vision is a smokefree Aotearoa/New Zealand by 2020.

Like all the other PHA champions, Helen Glasgow manages to pack more activities in a day than most do in a month. She is a member of the Cancer Control Council, a ministerial advisory group and the founder in 1995 of the Wellington Waterfront Watch which has campaigned against inappropriate use of the harbour waterfront. She has been a member of the Cancer Control Steering Group and Public Health Association Headquarters Committee as well as Chair of the Smokefree Coalition and Agencies for Nutrition Action. She received the Queen's Service Medal in 2004.

During the rare periods Helen is not working, her favourite day involves spending time with her daughter and grandchildren, walking, gardening and reading.