Public Health is Dead
by Public Health is Dead
Public Health is Dead is an award-winning public health advocacy show. It's a forward-thinking autopsy on how we've f*cked up in public health. How do we prepare for future pandemics while we're already in the thick of one? And how do we reinvent systems that place some of us closer to death? Through examining our past successes and failures, often through the lens of COVID, we plot a route out of apathy and denial towards health liberation for all. You'll hear unusual tales of how we've battled infectious disease throughout history and mind-stretching interviews with undaunted public health advocates today. This podcast is your anti-establishment field guide to surviving in the new age of pandemics — full of vision, hope, and a little punk rock attitude. Public Health is Dead is a eulogy for the field as we know it and a gathering of voices to map out where we go next.***Public Health is Dead is a 2025 Signal Award-winning podcast for Best Education Podcast (Gold) and Best Science
Episodes
-
Hantavirus Horrors and Hubris - PHMC
"Should you be worried?" is the wrong question for the media to be asking about public health issues. We need good information to make good decisions. But global public health leaders seem more concerned about avoiding panic than avoiding pandemics. When a virus started spreading human-to-human…
more -
TIME for Pandemic Gaslighting - PHMC
This is a piece from the "pandemic-is-over-bro-just-trust-us" hall of fame. Daniella & MJ (host of "Everything is Public Health") deconstruct TIME magazine's "The COVID-19 Pandemic Will Be Over When Americans Think It Is" from January 2023. This one has it all, folks. There's mansplaining, risk...
-
Legacies of Colonialism in Public Health
Public health has been used as a tool of empire for centuries. Keeping settlers healthy enough to maintain colonial control over land, resources, and capital is a part of public health’s history. It’s also part of its present. *Content Note: This episode contains mentions of residential schools…
more -
Everything is Tuberculosis - PHMC
Book report! What Daniella & MJ liked and didn't like about John Green's newest book, "Everything is Tuberculosis". Written in the age of COVID, does he address the thing TB is known for: airborne disease transmission? Can he separate himself from tired old tropes of white saviourism in Africa?…
more -
SPECIAL: Beyond Baggy Blues—how to stop COVID in hospitals
If you go into hospital, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting more sick. Many people get COVID, flu, and other airborne infections from being in hospital, even though it’s preventable. This is a policy failure. And it's fixable. Dr. Dick Zoutman, Board Chair at the Canadian COVID Society…
more -
Bad Press: How the media manufactures consent in the age of COVID
Most people get a lot of what they know about public health from what’s in the news. But what’s in the news—and the way it’s talked about—is not always clear or accurate. This episode tracks how the media has contributed to the alarming decline of public health and played a role in blocking...
-
Measles on the Backburner - PHMC
Canada could lose its measles elimination status, which says a lot about the state of public health overall. Media coverage leaves much to be desired when it comes to informing the public about measles vaccines, airborne transmission, and social determinants of health, especially with a new…
more -
Still Masking After All These Years - PHMC
This is Public Health Media Club—a chatty and critical exchange about public health in the media! Daniella (of "Public Health is Dead") & MJ (of "Everything is Public Health") do a crossover episode about COVID, people still masking, and "The Science"! First up, from the Atlantic: The Evermaskers...
-
SPECIAL: "But My Therapist Said"—COVID-Informed Therapists Chat
Ever heard anyone say they can't care about COVID anymore because it's bad for their mental health? Or their therapist said people still masking have "COVID anxiety"? Well, here are three mental health professionals who have a thing or two to say about that! Meet Pierre, Briana, and Ji-Youn, who...
-
How to Stop an Epidemic: When SARS Came to the ER
In March 2003, one SARS patient showed up in a Vancouver emergency room and another went to a Toronto emergency room. But two very different sequences of events unfolded. Dr. Lyne Filiatrault was working in the Vancouver ER that day. Her team leapt into action and—with a little luck and a lot of...
-
Something's in the Air (The Airborne Transmission Error)
How a mixup about airborne transmission led to one of the biggest public health errors in history. 5 years since the COVID pandemic began, public health has yet to clearly address it. A lot of disease spread happens through the air we share. And most people don’t know. Over the last century, our...
-
An Air-Raising Experience at the Orpheum Theatre
A field trip to the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver to learn more about their ventilation system, built after the 1918 flu pandemic. Ladies and Gentlethems, the show you’ve all been waiting for, the show that will keep you glued to your seat! A show all about preventing diseases and pathogens and,...
-
Long COVID: The Experts Were Wrong with Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and Hazie Thompson
Could you have Long COVID and not know it? Possibly, according to a leading Long COVID physician-epidemiologist who explains what the condition is and how it has impacted millions of people around the world. We also meet someone living with Long COVID who shares what the experience has been like...
-
Here Lies Public Health
What is public health? A quick intro to the show, your host, and what to expect. Public health may be dead but we're not dead yet! *** If you’ve always wanted more clarity about what public health is or how it’s meant to protect you, this episode is a short one to share a working definition, set...
-
Introducing Public Health is Dead
If you have a feeling something isn’t quite right in the world of disease control... If your kids are sick of being sick (and their teachers are too)... If your favourite artists keep cancelling their shows because of another "mystery illness"... Or if you’ve been suffering for years with Long...
About this show
Public Health is Dead is an award-winning public health advocacy show. It's a forward-thinking autopsy on how we've f*cked up in public health. How do we prepare for future pandemics while we're already in the thick of one? And how do we reinvent systems that place some of us closer to death? Through examining our past successes and failures, often through the lens of COVID, we plot a route out of apathy and denial towards health liberation for all. You'll hear unusual tales of how we've battled infectious disease throughout history and mind-stretching interviews with undaunted public health advocates today. This podcast is your anti-establishment field guide to surviving in the new age of pandemics — full of vision, hope, and a little punk rock attitude. Public Health is Dead is a eulogy for the field as we know it and a gathering of voices to map out where we go next.***Public Health is Dead is a 2025 Signal Award-winning podcast for Best Education Podcast (Gold) and Best Science
Hosted by
Public Health is Dead