Understanding the Health of Populations: A Canadian Perspective

Understanding Cause to Find Effective Solutions

How can we improve the health of populations? This compact and comprehensive textbook guides students and emerging public health practitioners through an exploration of this question by focusing on another one: What causes illness in populations in the first place?

The better our answer to this question, says physician-academic Dr. Stephen Hodgins, the better our solutions are likely to be.

From early, single-cause theories of disease to today’s complex webs of interacting determinants of health, Hodgins draws on his decades of global and Canadian public health practice to illustrate how our understanding of what is causing a problem shapes the possible solutions we are able to see, and the choices we make in practice.

With an emphasis on clarity, efficiency, and practical application, readers learn to think critically about multifactorial causation, to better understand where and what public health action will be most effective.

Key features include:

• Clear explanations of theories and models of causation in public health
• Concise chapters connecting historical insights with real-world practice
• Focus questions at the end of each chapter to apply key concepts
• “Further Readings” lists to guide deeper learning

Stephen Hodgins is a physician-academic, now based at the University of Alberta, who has spent most of his professional life in public health practice, primarily in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and South Asia, and in Indigenous communities in Canada. For seven years, he was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Global Health: Science and Practice. His work has focused particularly on community-based primary health care and maternal-child health and nutrition.