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What defines the public(s) in ‘public health’? Three historians explore the relationship between public health and the community since the 19th century. Modern public health generated legal frameworks that defined social inclusion and exclusion in new ways, and shifted the boundaries between public and private. How were ideas like germ theory, and notions of healthy citizenship communicated, and received? Successful public health campaigns against infectious diseases also played a key role in shaping public opinion.

Mitchell Hammond teaches European history and the history of medicine at the University of Victoria. His book Epidemics and the Modern World was published in January with the University of Toronto Press.

James Hanley teaches the history of science and medicine at the University of Winnipeg. His research focuses on 19th century public health in Britain.

Sarah Wallace is the RCMP’s Historian in Ottawa, but in recent years has taught the History of Public Health at Trent University. Her research focuses on the relationship between pandemics and North America’s immigration policies.