The Public’s Health: a symposium on public health histories
Call for Papers
The University of Toronto’s Health History Group presents:
March 6 - 7, 2015
We are pleased to announce a request for submissions on the topic “The Public’s Health.” This interdisciplinary conference will be of interest to anyone thinking about the history of public health from diverse, unique perspectives. The conference will take place on Friday March 6 and Saturday, March 7, 2015 at the University of Toronto. Friday will be an academic day with a series of peer-reviewed sessions on the Public’s Health. Saturday will be a public day, with a series of public talks by contributors to the civic debate regarding definitions of the Public’s Health, and showcasing the work of high-school students who will have been engaged in a Collaborative Public History Project (Discovering the Public’s Health) during the summer and fall of 2014. A reception will be held on the Friday evening of the first day and will feature a keynote address
We encourage proposals for original papers for our academic day from individuals and groups. We invite abstracts from students and scholars in the social sciences and humanities, from those with clinical backgrounds, and from any others who are engaged in thinking about the public’s health. The following areas or themes are of particular interest:
1. Who defines “the public” and therefore its health?
2. Global public health in Toronto: immigrants, refugees and visitors bring the world here and change how we think about health
3. Toronto’s place in global health
4. Community engagement: its power and its complexities within the history of public health research
5. Indigenous health: Toronto’s Aboriginal communities and their historical and current health practices
6. History of ethics in public health research
7. The built environment: changing views and their effects on health
8. Epidemics and pandemics through time: cholera, diphtheria, polio, SARS, H1N1, etc.
Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes, with additional time for discussion. All papers must present original, unpublished work.
Those who are interested should send an abstract of no more than 250 words to
conference@torontohealthhistory.ca. Please send your submission as a Microsoft Word document. Abstracts must be received by
August 31, 2014.
All submissions will be judged on their merits by the Program Committee according to the following criteria:
1. Relevance to the theme and/or priority areas
2. Organization and clarity of the abstract
3. Interest to an interdisciplinary audience
The author listed as primary contact will be notified of the committee’s decision regarding their abstract submission by October 31, 2014.
About the Organizing Committee:
In 2010, a group of historians, librarians, archivists, healthcare professionals, educators and students at The University of Toronto came together as a result of their shared interest in heightening the visibility of scholars, resources and collaborative research opportunities in healthcare history at the University of Toronto. Since then, the group has grown to include representatives from the faculties of medicine, pharmacy, social work, information, occupational therapy, kinesiology and physical education, nursing, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Public Health Ontario, the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, and the Royal Ontario Museum. By initiating a conference in Toronto in 2012 on healthcare and its history, we had hoped to achieve four main goals: appreciating our history, building a community, fostering collaborations, and preserving our past. We are pleased to report that we achieved those goals at our first conference, “Taking Toronto’s Healthcare History,, and now intend to build on them with this second conference, on “The Public’s Health.”
