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 unpacks the Health Belief Model and why it still shapes health promotion practice today.

Source Material

◼️ Theory at a Glance: A Guide For Health Promotion Practice

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

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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 to opportunity cost and the alternatives most people never seriously compare. Whether you are about to start a program, still weighing the decision, or already graduated and figuring out what comes next, this one is for you.

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

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, beyond healthcare, beyond borders. Yet the gap between what we know and what we do remains wide. This episode asks the question the field still wrestles with: what would it take to build a world where health is created, not just treated?

Source Material

1. A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians
2. Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion
3. Focus On: Foundations of Health Promotion
4. Seventh Global Conference on Health Promotion: Promoting Health and Development — Closing the Implementation Gap
5. The Geneva Charter for Well-being
6. Shaping Global Health Promotion: A Comprehensive Analysis of the 10 Global Conferences on Health Promotion Conferences, 1986–2021

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

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 to spread. He examines the key biological and ecological factors shaping the risk picture, and offers a way of thinking through the uncertainty for yourself as the story continues to develop.

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Resources

◼️NBCNews: Hantavirus cruise ship docks after seven weeks at sea

◼️KOMO News: What exactly is hantavirus and how concerned should Washington residents be?

◼️Firstpost: What is Hantavirus? Deadly Virus on Cruise Ship Kills 3 | Vantage on Firstpost | 4K

◼️WHO chief provides timeline around cruise-ship hantavirus cases

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

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 individual fate. We revisit the Great Stink of 1858, when London's sewage crisis finally reached Parliament, where swift action followed. Then we confront a sobering reality: 3.4 billion people still lack safely managed sanitation today.

Sources for Content

• Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain
• UK Parliament — 1842 Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population
• UK Parliament — The 1848 Public Health Act
• London Museum — The Great Stink of 1858
• Science Museum — Flushed Away: Sewers Through History
• Royal Museums Greenwich — Dickens and The Great Stink of 1858
• WHO/UNICEF JMP — Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000–2024
• UNICEF — Fast Facts: 1 in 4 People Globally Still Lack Access to Safe Drinking Water
• WHO — Sanitation Fact Sheet
• Britannica — Sir Edwin Chadwick
• EBSCO — Edwin Chadwick
• Vaishali — Edwin Chadwick: A Pioneer of Public Health Reform and His Relevance to Modern Public Health Practice

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

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 with him. Because public health advances not only through programs and policy but through the people we prepare to do the work. The challenges of tomorrow aren't waiting. Neither should the classroom.

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

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 healthcare with public health. More importantly, he shares what actually makes a file stand out. If you're applying, reapplying, or just curious how admissions really works — this one's essential listening.

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

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 organization member; he explores:

• how to tailor your practicum experience to the next job opportunity you’d like to pursue, and
• why the learning contract you signed may be out of date by the time you start day one, and
• how to build three references who'd hire you again tomorrow.

Host & Producer

◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback

If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.