Parution – This Is Public Health: A Canadian History

I wanted to let fellow historians know that the history of public health in Canada book project that I wrote for the CPHA’s Centenary is now complete and freely available online as an eBook. Hopefully it will soon be published as a regular paper book, but for now it is available as downloadable and interactive pdf files for each chapter.

You can see it at:

http://cpha100.ca/history/history-e-book

The book is entitled: This Is Public Health: A Canadian History

I had considerable editing and some additional research and writing support to complete this large project within a year from Sue Sullivan, who is credited as a co-author. The whole CPHA Centenary effort, specifically the book, an extensive website, and a major historical exhibit that was just set up at the CPHA’s Centennial Conference in Toronto, was directed by Sylvia Fanjoy. It was definitely a team effort as the Forward and Prefaces of the book highlight.

This is Public Health: A Canadian History is a downloadable e-book. Richly illustrated and interactive, this history explores public health from the time before Canada was a nation until 1986.

Photos and illustrations bring the story of public health alive. The history is dotted with profiles of the people who mobilized communities to promote health and to prevent disease and injury over the past 100 years.

Decade by decade, the history tells the stories of sanitary reformers who fought to improve the living conditions of the whole community and prevent disease and injury. Environmental pollution, contaminated food and water, birth control, vaccination and nutrition were challenges 100 years ago and remain important and sometimes controversial issues today.

The history ends with the development of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and what many consider to be the launch of a new era in public health. It’s striking how so many public health stories from the past still resonate today and this book is dedicated to Canada’s public health reformers, past and present, who strive to build a better, healthier future for all.