IN FAVOUR OF CANADIAN SCHOOLS OF PUBLIC HEALTHAuthor(s): Ann RobertsonSource: Canadian Journal of Public Health / Revue Canadienne de Sante'e Publique, Vol. 81, No.1 (January/February 1990), p. 84Published by: Canadian Public Health AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41989839 .

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LETTER

IN FAVOUR OF CANADIAN SCHOOLS OF PUBLIC HEALTH

To the Editor:

Coming from a background in adult education and community development, and having worked in public health in Canada for a number of years, I desired to pursue doctoral training in public health. It was important to work within a public health as opposed to a clinical framework.

Public health is about the health of communities, is comprehensive, encompassing the social, political, economic and cultural context within which populations and communities are embedded; the community is the unit of analysis and the level of intervention in public health.

Public health is more political, less scientific and more controversial than medicine. It is grounded in solid epidemiological and health services research; it engages underlying and often competing values in our society; and is inherently a political practice. In order to understand public health, we need training in research methods and epidemiology in anthropology, political science, sociology and public policy. We need to be conversant with the multitude of ways of valuing the world as well as of knowing the world.

I left Canada to pursue a doctoral degree in public health because there is no school of public health in Canada. I did so at considerable expense to

myself. I could not have put together the doctoral training I desired (and have succeeded in obtaining at Berkeley) within any existing Canadian doctoral program.

I will follow this discussion with interest. Perhaps in the near future, there will be a school of public health in Canada to serve Canadian interests and to which those of us who have left might return.

Ann Robertson

Doctoral Candidate School of Public Health University of California, Berkeley

84 Canadian Journal of Public Health Vol. 81, January/ February 1990

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