Blake Poland

University of Toronto | U of T · Dalla Lana School of Public Health

As awareness grows of the catastrophic implications of global environmental change, multiple scholarly fields addressing health-environment relationships have advocated 'transformative' educational strategies. Holistic Indigenous health-environment models inspire and inform many such efforts, but related land-based learning initiatives involving un...

There is mounting concern over the potential harms associated with ultra-processed foods, including poor mental health and antisocial behavior. Cutting-edge research provides an enhanced understanding of biophysiological mechanisms, including microbiome pathways, and invites a historical reexamination of earlier work that investigated the relations...

This paper presents insights from the work of the Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health (CoPEH-Canada) and 15 years (2008–2022) of land-based, transdisciplinary, learner-centred, transformative learning and training. We have oriented our learning approaches to Head, Hands, and Heart, which symbolise cognitive, psychomotor...

Planetary health provides a perspective of ecological interdependence that connects the health and vitality of individuals, communities, and Earth's natural systems. It includes the social, political, and economic ecosystems that influence both individuals and whole societies. In an era of interconnected grand challenges threatening health of all s...

The premise of this book is that public health policy is locked in a stalemate between the evidence-based and the politics-driven policy-making perspectives. This chapter argues that local public health actors on the ground develop strategies to work around this stalemate and circulate their evidence into the policy process. These strategies are in...

The “Earthrise” photograph, taken on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, became one of the most significant images of the 20th Century. It triggered a profound shift in environmental awareness and the potential for human unity—inspiring the first Earth Day in 1970. Taking inspiration from these events 50 years later, we initiated Project Earthrise at our 20...

The “Earthrise” photograph, taken on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, became one of the most significant images of the 20th Century. It triggered a profound shift in environmental awareness and the potential for human unity—inspiring the first Earth Day in 1970. Taking inspiration from these events 50 years later, we initiated Project Earthrise at our 20...

In this chapter, we address what is currently thought to be the environmental origins (and consequences) of COVID-19, from the “wet markets” of Wuhan, China, to the clearing skies over major cities around the world, from the vastly unequal realities of urban (and rural) spread and containment to the reconfiguration of urban space, climate justice,...

In this chapter, we address what is currently thought to be the environmental origins (and consequences) of COVID-19, from the “wet markets” of Wuhan, China, to the clearing skies over major cities around the world, from the vastly unequal realities of urban (and rural) spread and containment to the reconfiguration of urban space, climate justice,...

Objectives Psychosocial adaptation to climate change-related events remains understudied. We sought to assess how the psychosocial consequences of a major event were addressed via public health responses (e.g., programs, policies, and practices) that aimed to enhance, protect, and promote mental health.Methods We report on a study of health and soc...

Retail food environments are an important setting for promoting healthier diets and reducing the global burden of diet-related disease. The purpose of this 2-year community–university partnership was to develop a health promotion intervention for stores in a rural and remote region of British Columbia, Canada. This article reports on the qualitativ...

As a collective organized to address the education implications of calls for public health engagement on the ecological determinants of health, we, the Ecological Determinants Group on Education (cpha.ca/EDGE), urge the health community to properly understand and address the importance of the ecological determinants of the public’s health, consiste...

Despite significant engagement with new and emerging issues in public health practice, the public health literature has few theoretical explanations for how new practices emerge, take root, and become institutionalized. In this contribution, we utilize Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts of field, habitus and capital, and in-depth interviews wi...

Urban policies that encourage walking or cycling to work are widely considered as healthy public policies given the benefits of increased physical activity, reduced traffic congestion and reduced air pollution. The difficulty for public health actors is that action to promote walking or cycling is largely outside their reach, for instance : buildin...

Originating in the UK in 2006, the Transition movement is oriented to local grassroots citizen-led efforts that prepare for and support a societal energy transition to a low-carbon future in response to climate change, peak oil, ecological degradation, and economic instability. Overlapping significantly with relocalization, degrowth/slow growth, lo...

A growing number of health authorities around the world are conducting climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments; however, few explore impacts and adaptations related to mental health. We argue for an expanded conceptualization of health that includes both the physiological and psychological aspects of climate change and he...

Suggested Citation: Ecological Determinants Group on Education (2018) Ecological Determinants of Health in Public Health Education in Canada: A Scan of Needs, Challenges and Assets. Parkes M.W., Poland, B (Lead Authors); Allison S, Cole, D., Culbert I., de Leeuw S., Gislason M., Hancock T., Howard C., Koropeski, J., La Prairie, A., Greenwood, M., P...

This article is about a mode of scholarly practice we call critical social science with public health. The article responds to our dissatisfaction with established approaches to social science engagement with public health that have developed out of Straus’ early distinction between sociology in and of medicine. By critical social science with publ...

Dialogue and story-telling are essential elements of many qualitative methodologies and action research itself, reflecting the constructivist paradigm in which qualitative research (QR) and action research (AR) are grounded, and the co-construction of knowledge that takes place amongst research participants (in group settings) and researchers. This...

Cet article fait état des résultats d’une recherche action participative, réalisée à l’aide de méthodes mixtes, qui visait à comprendre comment le Mouvement en Transition a émergé au Canada, quels sont les défis qui s’y présentent et quelles sont les possibilités d’action. Dans cet article, nous discuterons de la participation citoyenne et ferons é...

Background: People experiencing homelessness have some of the highest morbidity rates and lowest age of mortality in Canada yet face many barriers to care, in particular the attitudes of healthcare providers. Objectives: In this critical ethnographic study, power within client–provider relationships in health care with people experiencing homelessn...

Similar to other global cities, Toronto (Canada) is addressing conflicting energy concerns in the form of the need to consider energy sustainability while concurrently continuing to expand urban development in response to high levels of immigrant population growth. We argue that energy solutions and policy interventions cannot be successful unless...

This commentary identifies similarities, differences and opportunities for synergy and mutual learning between the Healthy Cities and the Transition movements. We outline what we consider to be the ‘pressing issues’ facing humanity and the planet in the early 21st century; consider the extent to which health promotion has engaged with and addressed...

The health of whole populations within nations and globally and the implications of climate change are two of the most important challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Both are components of a complex global crisis that must be acknowledged and addressed. Here we draw the attention of health professionals to some emerging threats and insig...

To explore an example of a reflexive intervention with health professionals working in tobacco control (TC). This study reports the perceived intervention effects regarding: (i) participants' understanding of reflexivity and personal learning and (ii) conditions needed in order to integrate reflexivity into professional and organizational practices...

Trevor Hancock, Donald W. Spady, & Colin L. Soskolne (Editors), Sandra Allison, Andrea Chircop, George McKibbon, Sherilee Harper, Margot Parkes, Blake Poland (Contributing Authors). 2015. Global Change and Public Health: Addressing the Ecological Determinants of Health. The Report in Brief. (CPHA Working Group on the Ecological Determinants of Heal...

Background Food banks have emerged in response to growing food insecurity among low-income groups in many affluent nations, but their ability to manage this problem is questionable. In Canada, in the absence of public programs and policy interventions, food banks are the only source of immediate assistance for households struggling to meet food nee...

Health promotion and social determinants of health approaches, when integrated, can better contribute to understanding and addressing health inequities. Yet, they have typically been pursued as two solitudes. This paper presents the key elements, principles, actions, and potential synergies of these complementary frameworks for addressing health eq...

Introduction: The creation of supportive environments for health is a basic action principle of health promotion, and equity is a core value. A settings approach offers an opportunity to bridge these two, with its focus on the interplay between individual, environmental and social determinants of health. Methods: We conducted a scoping review of...

Homelessness is an experience of being displaced. Once removed from their personal places, homeless people are barred access to healthy places in which to be. Health clinics for people who are experiencing homelessness offer an opportunity to create health-promoting places. In this study, we explore how place is experienced within a community healt...

Health and peace are complex ideologies that share several fundamental elements. In this paper, we begin by defining health and peace to better understand and appreciate their elements and how they can be promoted. Building on this, the paper tackles the determinants of peace and health at various levels: at the individual, community, and societal...

OUDSHOORN A, WARD-GRIFFIN C, FORCHUK C, BERMAN H and POLAND B. Nursing Inquiry 2012 [Epub ahead of Print] Client-provider relationships in a community health clinic for people who are experiencing homelessness Recognizing the importance of health-promoting relationships in engaging people who are experiencing homelessness in care, most research on...

We discuss how the tobacco control discourse on youth smoking in Canada appears to be producing and constituting socially marginalised smokers. We analyse material from a study on social inequalities in Canadian youth smoking. Individual interviews were conducted in 2007 and 2008 with tobacco control practitioners specialising in youth smoking prev...

Thank-you for the opportunity to be with you today in this fascinating panel on the state of health promotion in Brazil, Canada and around the world. It is a great pleasure to be here, and to share my thoughts and reflections with you, not as na expert here to tell you how it ‘should’ be, but as a colleague interested in dialogue around points of m...

In this paper, we reflect on and explore what remains to be done to make the concept of supportive environments--one of the Ottawa Charter's five core action areas--a reality in the context of growing uncertainty about the future and accelerated pace of change. We pay particular attention to the physical environment, while underscoring the inextric...

In response to the dominance of green capitalist discourses in Canada's environmental movement, in this paper, we argue that strategies to improve energy policy must also provide mechanisms to address social conflicts and social disparities. Environmental justice is proposed as an alternative to mainstream environmentalism, one that seeks to addres...

Previous research has classified smokers and non-smokers on the basis of their attitudes and behaviours towards smoking and smoking restrictions.1–3 Work by Poland et al ,1 using data from 1996, concluded that Ontario smokers clustered into three groups: (1) ‘adamant’ smokers who believe smoking restrictions have gone too far and are unlikely to ac...

Spatial disparities in environmental quality and practices are contributing to rising health inequalities worldwide. To date, the field of health promotion has not contributed as significantly as it might to a systematic analysis of the physical environment as a determinant of health nor to a critique of inequitable environmental governance practic...

Background : Health promotion seeks to move beyond an individual-based approach to health to one focused on settings where people live, work and play. Through its focus on the interplay between personal, organizational and environmental determinants of health, the settings approach offers great potential to modify social determinants of health and...

2010) 'I'm a young student, I'm a girl … and for some reason they are hard on me for smoking: The role of gender and social context for smoking behaviour', Critical Public Health, 20: 3, 323 — 338 To link to this Article: Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for re...

As we move further into the twenty-first century, there is growing realization that the relationship between humans and the wider environment is crucially important, and a recognition that unfettered globalization linked to an increasingly dominant consumer culture has wrought devastating impacts. Within this context, and catalyzed particularly by...

In this paper, we reflect on and explore what remains to be done to make the concept of supportive environments— one of the Ottawa Charter's five core action areas—a reality in the context of growing uncertainty about the future and accelerated pace of change. We pay particular attention to the physical environment, while underscoring the inextrica...

The use of visual methodologies has gained increased prominence among health researchers working with socially marginalised populations, including those studying tobacco and other types of substance use. This article draws from two separate studies combining qualitative and photographic methods to illustrate the unique insights that visual research...

Warning: this article contains strong language.This paper focuses on the ways in which social context structures smokers’ views of, and reactions to, tobacco control. This exploratory study examined the interactions between tobacco control and smokers’ social contexts and how this may be contributing to inequalities in smoking. We found in our samp...

Taking a settings approach to health promotion means addressing the contexts within which people live, work, and play and making these the object of inquiry and intervention as well as the needs and capacities of people to be found in different settings. This approach can increase the likelihood of success because it offers opportunities to situate...

Persons 'branded' as dangerous to the public's health often try to hide their status (as smokers, as HIV positive, etc). Yet, a small but growing subgroup has re-appropriated stigma symbols and voluntarily branded themselves as 'marked' individuals, rebellious, transgressive and refusing to be shamed by their status. In this article we examine volu...

To describe homeless youths' experiences of food insecurity and examine the relation between chronic food deprivation and food acquisition practices. A cross-sectional survey of homeless youths was conducted in 2003 to assess their nutritional vulnerability and describe their food acquisition practices. Toronto, Canada. Two hundred and sixty-one yo...

Over the past two decades, Canada has witnessed a proliferation of community-based initiatives providing charitable meals to homeless and under-housed individuals. The existing research has raised concerns about the ability of such initiatives to meet users' nutrient needs. As part of a study of Toronto meal programs, open-ended interviews with pro...

The home is a significant source of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure for many children and, therefore, increasingly a focus of intervention, although evidence of effectiveness remains equivocal. However, little is known about the nature, genesis, and micro-social context of self-imposed restrictions on smoking in the home. In this explora...

Clinical practice guidelines have been a popular tool for the improvement of health care through the implementation of evidence from systematic research. Yet, it is increasingly clear that knowledge alone is insufficient to change practice. The social, cultural, and material contexts within which practice occurs may invite or reject innovation, com...

The uneven distribution of environmental hazards across space and in vulnerable populations reflects underlying societal inequities. Fragmented research has led to gaps in comprehensive understanding of and action on environmental health inequities in Canada and there is a need to gain a better picture of the research landscape in order to integrat...

This paper draws from a qualitative study of tobacco use by young women in Toronto, Canada. Narrative interviews were used to understand the multiple roles and functions of smoking within the everyday lives of female adolescents. Guided by a Bourdieusian theoretical framework this study employed the core construct of cultural capital in order to po...

The provision of "closer-to-patient" services has increased in most industrialized countries. However, the migration of services in non-traditional health care settings implies redefining the role of technical and human entities and transforming the nature and use of technologies and places. Drawing on various scholarly efforts to conceptualize spa...

Context can be broadly defined as "the circumstances or events that form the environment within which something exists or takes place" (Encarta, 1999). That 'something' can be health behavior, another health determinant, an intervention, or an evaluation. Each of these events unfolds, not in a vacuum, but in a complex social context which necessari...

The professional claims and struggles involved in the design of non-traditional health care places are rarely problematized in applied health research, perhaps because they tend to fade away once the new design is implemented. This paper offers insights into such professional tensions and their impact on health care delivery by examining the design...

When conducted with sensitivity and refl exivity, participatory action research (PAR) can be an empowering process that is particularly relevant for engaging young people in refl ection and dialogue for social change. As the theory and practice of PAR evolve, researchers have evaluated the experiences of community participants, using both qualitati...

In this chapter, we focus on the settings approach to health promotion. We start with a brief review of its origins and development in relation to international policy; provide an overview of theory and concepts relevant to current practice; focus on the challenges faced in building evidence of effectiveness for the approach; and conclude by discus...

Thank-you for the opportunity to be with you today in this fascinating panel on the state of health promotion in Brazil, Canada and around the world. It is a great pleasure to be here, and to share my thoughts and reflections with you, not as an expert here to tell you how it ‘should’ be, but as a colleague interested in dialogue around points of m...

In this chapter, we focus on the settings approach to health promotion. We start with a brief review of its origins and development in relation to international policy; provide an overview of theory and concepts relevant to current practice; focus on the challenges faced in building evidence of effectiveness for the approach; and conclude by discus...

A clear emphasis on the patient's view is discernible in the health services research literature of the past decades. Such a switch to patients' perspectives has been greatly facilitated by a wider acceptance and use of qualitative methods. In particular, focus groups are often used to uncover the range and depth of experiences of health services u...

This article reviews the main epistemological approaches within health psychology. It considers the approach based on critical realism and various strategies for linking health psychology with social action. It argues that critical health psychology has a distinct contribution to make in promoting public health as part of the broader movement for s...

A better understanding of the social context of smoking may help to enhance tobacco control research and practice.

With the geographical literatures and issues outlined in the first paper very much in mind, this paper focuses specifically on the places in the concepts and locales of gerontological nursing practice. Particular attention is paid to the role of nurses in the making of long-term care institutions and to some fundamental priorities of care. Consider...

Social capital has been the focus of considerable academic and policy interest in recent years. Despite this interest, the concept remains undertheorized: there is an urgent need for a critical engagement with this literature that goes beyond summary. This paper lays a foundation for a critical dialogue between social capital and health promotion,...

The physical, symbolic and experiential aspects of receiving long-term care are examined in this paper using Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field. We draw on data from an ethnographic study of home care in 16 homes in urban, rural and remote locations in Ontario, Canada. Across all cases, data about domestic and caregiving routines were gathere...

Collaboration between hospitals and community organisations has been promoted over the past 20 years by various levels of government, hospital associations, health promotion advocates, and others at the state/province, national and international levels as a way to improve the 'efficiency of the system', reduce duplication, enhance effectiveness and...

The devolution of care into nontraditional community-based settings has led to a proliferation of sites for health and social care. Despite recent (re)formulations of 'evidence-based' approaches that stress the importance of optimizing interventions to best practice by taking into account the uniqueness of place, there is relatively little guidance...

This paper problematises the emergence and functioning of the recent phenomenon of ‘supervised injection sites’ (SISs) as a case study of post-welfarist governmentality. We propose that SISs arose as an unprecedented intervention in the late 20th century to deal with the increasing challenge of ‘urban drug scenes’ towards public order interests ‘en...

Community-based action research has received increased attention in health research as an important vehicle for both knowledge creation and community capacity-building. This approach to research is value-driven, attuned to power issues, committed to stakeholder participation, and action-oriented. Efforts to build capacity within the health research...

There is a need to widen the practice of health psychologists to include the theories and methods of community psychology and an awareness of contemporary issues in community health. The aim of such a community health psychology would be both to deepen our understanding of the aetiology of health and illness in society and to develop strategies tha...

Adolescents present many challenges in providing them effective preventive services and health care. Yet, they are typically the early adopters of new technology (eg, the Internet). This creates important opportunities for engaging youths via eHealth. To describe how adolescents use technology for their health-information needs, identify the challe...

The rapid growth of the Internet is increasingly international with young people being the early adopters in most countries. However, the quality of Internet access looms as a major barrier hidden behind Internet use statistics. The goal of this study was to provide an in-depth evaluation of young people's perspectives on using the Internet to obta...

To examine the congruence in perceptions and attitudes of legislators and the public regarding tobacco and tobacco control policies. Two cross-sectional surveys were used, one of elected federal and provincial legislators and one of adult residents in Ontario, Canada. Perceptions and attitudes were analyzed as dependent variables using multiple log...

We examine the heterogeneity among current and former smokers categorized by 'stage of change' with respect to their perceptions about tobacco and tobacco control. Current and former smokers (n = 846) from a general population sample of adults in Ontario, Canada, were subdivided according to the stages of change categories (precontemplation, contem...

To describe and discuss the challenges in evaluation of a participatory action research with street-involved youth. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized for both process and outcome evaluations. Process evaluation methods included in-depth individual interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and session debri...

The Community Action and Public Health study explored how Ontario public health practitioners interpret and implement guidance in community action. In-depth interviews were conducted with 107 public health professionals and community members in 6 Ontario health units. This report briefly describes the study methods and presents results pertaining t...

To determine if smokers and non-smokers cluster into meaningful, discrete subgroups with distinguishable attitudes and behaviours regarding smoking and smoking restrictions. Qualitative research with 45 smokers guided development of questionnaire items applied in a population based telephone survey of 432 current smokers and 1332 non-smokers in Ont...

Using data from a 1996 random-digit-dialing computer-assisted telephone survey of Ontario adults, 424 smokers and 1,340 nonsmokers were compared regarding knowledge about the health effects of tobacco use, attitudes toward restrictions on smoking and other tobacco control measures, and predictions of compliance with more restrictions. The response...

This paper examines the discourse of 'interactions' as applied to the interpersonal management of smoking in public places (and to accounts thereof). Empirical data from a qualitative study of smokers and non-smokers in metropolitan Toronto, Ontario (Canada) are used to illustrate how smokers and non-smokers define and claim to operationalize 'cons...

The Community Action in Public Health Study explored how public health managers, frontline staff, and community participants interpret, implement and receive policy guidelines urging collaboration with community groups in public health work. In-depth case studies of 6 public health units in Ontario, Canada focussed on 19 community development proje...