Public Health Insight

A doctor proves handwashing saves lives and gets destroyed for it. A president dies of a preventable stroke. Scientists spend decades proving smoking kills while the industry fights back. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Barry Davis, author of The Preventioneers , introduces us to people in history who saw catastrophe coming, built the evidence, and ran straight into resis...

We often have the evidence to prevent harm long before we actually do something about it, and that delay costs lives. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, we sit down with a physician and mathematician whose career spans early machine learning research in the 1980s, landmark hypertension trials, and over 150 data monitoring committees. Dr. Davis reflects on the experiences that sh...

Daniella wanted to make a podcast for years, but she waited for the right idea. Then she noticed no one had made a public health show this honest and this bold, especially from a Black perspective. So she made it herself. In this episode, Daniella shares how she started Public Health Is Dead, built on years of teaching herself to record and edit on her own. It grew out of a frustration she kept ru...

A cannabis conference. A front-row seat she wasn't supposed to have. A question to Snoop Dogg about racial justice in cannabis legislation that she absolutely was not going to leave unasked. In this episode of a 4-part series in collaboration between Public Health Insight Podcast and Public Health Is Dead, Gordon Thane rewinds to the early beginnings of Daniella Barreto's story, which in...

Ever wonder why people ignore free health services, conveniently placed in their community, even when their life could depend on it? Looking back to the 1950s gives us some clues, and what researchers discovered led to the creation of one of public health's most enduring frameworks for understanding human behavior. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, host Gordon Thane unpack...

An MPH can cost two years, tens of thousands of dollars, the salary you would have earned if you continued to work instead, and the promise of the other degree that you decided not to pursue. So is it worth it?  In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, host Gordon Thane breaks down how to think through the real return on investment of a Master of Public Health, from tuition and debt t...

Health isn't created only in hospitals. It's achieved in housing, food systems, workplaces, and political decisions. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, host Gordon Thane traces the arc of health promotion through its defining milestones, from the Ottawa Charter to the Geneva Charter, revealing how each global conference pushed the field to see further: beyond behavior,...

Could hantavirus become the next pandemic? After a deadly outbreak on a cruise ship, that question is on everyone's mind. And "don't panic" isn't a real answer. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, host Gordon Thane explores what we know about hantaviruses so far, how Andes virus compares to COVID-19, and what the early science suggests about its potential...

How did sanitation become one of public health's greatest triumphs, while being its oldest unfinished problem?  In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, host Gordon Thane traces the story from Victorian Britain's overcrowded streets to Edwin Chadwick's groundbreaking 1842 report, which reframed disease as a product of "removable circumstances" rather than indi...

Teaching is one of the most underrated ways to advance public health. In this episode, Gordon reflects on his first semester teaching Health Promotion in Western University's MPH program and what the experience revealed about the field itself. From designing a course to classroom moments that genuinely surprised him, Gordon shares the thinking behind his approach and the lessons that stayed w...

What really happens when a reviewer opens your MPH application? Host Gordon Thane has been on the other side of the table and what he saw might surprise you. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, he breaks down the most common mistakes applicants make: ignoring instructions, leaning on weak references, writing generic statements that sound like everyone else, and confusing healthca...

By the end of your practicum, you'll land in one of three boxes — and you don't get to pick which one.. or do you?   In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, host Gordon Thane draws on his own journey to show why the students who thrive aren't the ones who wait for direction. From an unpaid MPH practicum placement to now being on the advisory board of that same organiza...

You can disagree on policy. You can't disagree on facts. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Brian Castucci unpacks what it really means when science bends to political power, whether silencing dangerous voices is ever justified, why public health is losing the war it should be winning - culminating in an uncomfortable truth: if you can't stand the people you'r...

How often do public health organizations decide what a community needs — without actually asking them? This episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast sees Gordon sit down with Alexandra Piatkowski, epidemiologist and founder & CEO of Piat Public Health, to unpack one of public health's most foundational — and often misused — tools: the community needs assessment. They explore why exist...

What does it take to hit the ground running after grad school? For Alexandra Piatkowski, the answer started long before graduation — by deliberately building real-world experience while still a student. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Gordon sits down with the founder of Piat Public Health to trace a career that blends epidemiology, health policy, and project management into...

Prevention is the most powerful public health tool we have and yet the hardest to fund. Dr. Hope Ferdowsian of Phoenix Zones Initiative explains how her organization is changing that: informing global health strategies, training cross-sector professionals, and advancing a justice-centered framework called Just One Health that targets root causes, not symptoms. She also shares a bold 10-year vision...

Animal abuse is a predictor child abuse. Slaughterhouse locations correlate with violent crime. Over three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases trace back to how we treat animals and ecosystems. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Hope Ferdowsian connects these patterns to a single root cause: systems built on hierarchies that reduce living beings to their financial worth...

Healing people requires healing animals and the systems we share. Dr. Hope Ferdowsian traces that conviction from a sheep named Crystal on an Oklahoma farm to sanctuary chimpanzees with PTSD, to asylum seekers she's evaluated across borders. The through-line isn't a coincidence — it's a career built on understanding humanity through animals, following suffering wherever it leads, an...

What if the prescription wasn't a pill, but cash? Rx Kids gives expecting and new mothers up to $7,500, no questions asked. Laura Keen from GiveDirectly explains why giving money to everyone — not just the poorest — actually works better, why nearly every eligible mom in Flint signed up, and what happened to preterm births, evictions, and depression when communities invested in families from...

Flint, Michigan was once known as one of America's most prosperous industrial cities. Decades of deindustrialization and a water crisis changed that, but crisis isn't the whole story. Laura Keen of GiveDirectly joins the podcast to explore the resilience behind the popular headlines, the gaps in America's safety net, and what the expanded Child Tax Credit revealed about child povert...

She studied philosophy at UPenn, sharpened her Spanish watching telenovelas with a host mom in silk robes and kitten heels, then moved to Peru and built staircases so families wouldn't fall carrying water. Laura Keen's path wound through cocoa farms in West Africa, anti-trafficking work in the Amazon, and the inner workings of fair trade — each stop ultimately leading her to GiveDirectly...

Imagine surviving a snake bite only to battle depression for years. Half of hospitals can't properly treat snake bites and almost all healthcare workers struggle to administer life-saving anti-venom in many ways. Dr. David Lalloo illuminates a crisis killing more people than many familiar diseases, yet receiving a fraction of the funding.  From recent strides in quality control to universal a...

Right now, someone is being bitten by a venomous snake. Over the course of a year, 138,000 deaths and 400,000 disabilities. Yet snake bite remains one of the world's most neglected health crises. Professor David Lalloo explains why this preventable tragedy persists—from the science of venom to the economics of anti-venom, and why the right treatment might not exist where people need it most....

A young doctor faces a choice: wait in line after a lecture or go to the pub. He waits. Fast forward, he's on a plane to Papua New Guinea. He arrives expecting malaria research—but finds 25% of ICU beds filled with snakebite victims.  Professor David Lalloo didn't plan to dedicate his life to one of the world's most neglected health crises. He stumbled into it. And it took until 201...

Public health says "don't drink and drive." Bud Light says "don't let the party stop—have a designated driver". One feels like a lecture, the other made millions take notice. That communication gap is why public health messaging still misses the mark despite saving millions of lives. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Brian Castrucci explains ho...