Public Health is Dead

About 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 Podcast (Silver). It also won Gold at the W3 Awards in Science & Technology and was nominated in the 2025 International Women's Podcast Awards for "Moment of Factual Clarity" and 3x in the 2025 Canadian Podcast Awards for Outstanding Debut for a Series, Outstanding Science Series, and Outstanding Health & Wellness Series. *** Visit publichealthisdead.com for more information

Publisher

Public Health is Dead

Category

education · health & fitness · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 Oct 2024

Latest episode

24 Jun 2026

Latest episodes

3 of 15 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   24 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT

   PHMC - Hantavirus Horrors and Hubris

   Public health leader Dr. Jane Smith discusses how misplaced priorities lead to preventable hantavirus outbreaks, revealing critical lessons for pandemic preparedness.

2. 

   24 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT

   TIME for Pandemic Gaslighting

   For Public Health Media Club, Daniella & MJ deconstruct TIME magazine's "The COVID-19 Pandemic Will Be Over When Americans Think It Is".

3. 

   15 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Legacies of Colonialism in Public Health

   Can global public health break from its colonial past for a different future?

4. 

   21 Jan 2026

   PHMC - Everything is Tuberculosis

   Our take on John Green's hit book "Everything is Tuberculosis". Is it just another white saviour story?

5. 

   25 Dec 2025

   SPECIAL: Beyond Baggy Blues—how to stop COVID in hospitals

   Dr. Dick Zoutman shares five effective strategies to curb COVID-19 transmission within hospital settings, offering practical solutions for healthcare professionals in this interview.

6. 

   28 Nov 2025

   Bad Press: How the media manufactures consent in the age of COVID

   This episode examines how media coverage shapes public perception of public health issues, particularly during the COVID era, by influencing consent.

7. 

   3 Sept 2025

   PHMC - Measles on the Backburner

   Host Dr. Jane Smith interviews Dr. John Doe, a leading epidemiologist, about Canada's potential loss of measles elimination status and the media's inadequate coverage of the airborne disease.

8. 

   16 Jul 2025

   Public Health Media Club - Still Masking After All These Years

   The Public Health Media Club discusses the continued use of masking, in this crossover episode of "Public Health is Dead" and "Everything is Public Health."

9. 

   28 Jun 2025

   SPECIAL: "But My Therapist Said"—COVID-Informed Therapists Chat

   Mental health professionals discuss collective care and COVID-19 awareness for therapists in this interview episode.

10. 

    21 May 2025

    How to Stop an Epidemic: When SARS Came to the ER

    How an emergency physician and her team helped prevent a SARS outbreak at Vancouver General Hospital and what public health can still learn from a 2003 success.

11. 

    9 Mar 2025

    Something's in the Air

    How a mixup about airborne transmission led to one of the biggest public health errors in history.

12. 

    22 Dec 2024

    An Air-Raising Experience at the Orpheum Theatre

    Buildings need to breathe too! A field trip to the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver to learn more about their ventilation system, built after the 1918 flu pandemic.

13. 

    29 Nov 2024

    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 for them.

14. 

    29 Nov 2024

    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!

15. 

    24 Oct 2024

    Introducing Public Health is Dead

    Your anti-establishment field guide to surviving in the era of pandemics.

Inside a recent episode

PHMC - Hantavirus Horrors and Hubris

Published 24 Jun 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] And I've been saying this for a long time. People have also been writing about this. There's an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal that was published in response to this ridiculous sort of close contact advice from the WHO called Hantavirus Outbreak Should Reset WHO's Default Approach to Airborne Risk. Basically making the point that like close contact encapsulates so many things. It's a subjective measure of distance. It's not even like the nonsense six feet thing, two meters thing people were trying to do around COVID. It's really subjective, like close contact. What is that? I was listening to Science Versus episode about this too, which... […]

Who has been a guest on Public Health is Dead

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Dr Dick Zoutman
• Dr John Doe
• Mental health professionals

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

80 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

86 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 25 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

13

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

91

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