New Beginnings

We’ve been wanting to start this for a while now. A space on the internet for professionals, new and seasoned, in public health in Canada to come together, to connect, to share and to learn. Along the way, we hope to spark dialogue and spread great ideas. And most importantly, to give young public health professionals a voice.

When we first began our public health careers, there were few opportunities to reach out and connect with others in our field. Talking to other young professionals, we realized many shared the same views.

As members of the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA), we worked closely with the New Professionals Working Group (NPWG), which had been created in 2013 by fellow public health professionals who had seen a similar need for community and networking opportunities among our peers. Through the NPWG, which we later rebranded as the New Professionals Network (NPN), we were able to engage with and learn from a wide network of public health professionals, both new and seasoned.

This opportunity helped us see how passionate the public health community is, and how hard-working its members are. And though we had moved on from our duties at the OPHA, we did not want to end our engagement with this great community.

A standard definition of the public health workforce is elusive – what we do changes from one day to the next; the issues we tackle as a community are as diverse as are its people; but the one common thread might be this – the driving desire to help others and better our society.

We want this small corner of the Internet, the Public Health Collective, to be our space. A space for us – all of us – to discuss, learn from one another, and engage in the ideas and issues we tackle every day.

Think of us (Megha and Priya) as your curators; we will be writing some content, but we want you to help us. We called this a collective for a reason.

We hope to provide varied content, from book reviews and opinion pieces on public health issues, to personal and professional development, as well featured profiles of public health professionals making impact – and we want you to write this content as well. In the future, we hope to expand to audio and visual content – podcasts, short videos, interviews.

In the meantime – do you have a favourite book you’ve read that you would recommend to the public health community? Someone you know who is making an incredible impact on public health in your community? A burning issue you’d like to address in a blog post? Reach out to us with your ideas (editors@thephcollective.com)!

Okay, now that the intros are over, let’s talk!