HEAL Anticipations

Hi Everyone:

I look forward to seeing you all at our first EDUC 820 class in the Fall. Since you have now received the course overview, let me make just a few comments to set the context for the studies we will undertake.

We will begin the first course by considering how health can be understood and addressed both individually and in society at large. While our focus throughout the HEAL MEd will be on health education and, specifically, on what each of us is most concerned about in educating ourselves and others to lead healthy and active lives, there is a backdrop to our health commitments that has to do with "the social determinants or health." That's why we will make extensive reference to the required text, edited by Dennis Raphael, that is titled *Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives*, Third Edition, Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2016. This rather voluminous text covers the macro-level factors (which some writers call "upstream" conditions) determining individual health status and choices. 

We will discover through our readings and discussions in the HEAL MEd that no academic text offers the definitive word on health, let alone full clarity on how we should educate others to be healthy and active. Accordingly, we will consider how a recent Public Health Agency of Canada statement on *Global Change and Public Health: Addressing the Ecological Determinants of Health* (2015) has already enlarged the "social determinants of health" to include consideration of not just those "upstream" conditions but also the wider "landscape" in which health may flow to us and from us, or not. We will consider, in light of this ecological awareness of health, the important and increasing recognition of the "determinants of indigenous peoples' health in Canada." In a recent (2015) text with this title, the authors argue that our interests in health should go "beyond the social" to consider how, historically and culturally, healthy choices have been denied especially to the indigenous peoples of Canada and elsewhere.

Please go on-line and google the three "supplementary course readings" listed in the course outline that pertain to: (1) the "social determinants of health"; (2) "the ecological determinants of health"; and (3) "the social determinants of Aboriginal Peoples' Health." We'll refer to them when we get into our discussions throughout the semester of the required course text, so don't do anything more than peruse them at this time. I'll also bring a fuller reading list to our first class along with a list of "watchings" that will inform our class discussions and activities.

My second set of comments pertain to how we will each frame a health education topic in the first course and articulate it throughout the two years of the HEAL MEd. You may already have such a topic, or you might have a range of health-related interests with no specific focus at this time. Whatever the case, the statements of intent that you submitted with your HEAL MEd applications indicate good starting points. So, think about what motivates you health-wise, what is most personally relevant to you, and what you are thus motivated to share with others.

I ask that you create a "postcard" of this interest or set of interests that you will be prepared to share with one another at our first class. The postcard format is something that one of our previous HEAL instructors, Dr. Lynn Fels, introduced to the program. It was very much appreciated and so I'd like us to continue with it. What it requires is simply an image of some sort (which could be a photograph, a drawing, an illustration taken from some public source, a graphic, etc.) that is accompanied by a personalized text (an anecdote, some descriptive musing on an event, a poem that expresses some health motivation, a commentary on something you experienced, etc.). The visual and textual possibilities are open. Think of an actual postcard that is sent to friends and family from a travel location. It has an image that helps the recipient imagine being there and it has some writing that tells something about the experience of being there. Likewise, a postcard of your health interest should illustrate or otherwise evoke a health interest and then describe or otherwise provide just a brief sense of what that health interest holds for you and thus what interest it might hold for others. As a postcard, it is short and sweet – just an image and a couple of paragraphs at most. It should all fit on one page.

The content of the postcard can be anything that comes to mind as expressing what interests you health-wise at the level of personal engagement and individual sense-making. Sure, we are all interested in any number of health issues but, if pressed, what are the interests that others would recognize in our daily lives and that we can attest to in terms of what we prefer to do and the practices we pursue? If asked what really animates us and what we most passionate about, what visual images and what soundbites provide pretty good clues? That's the important content of the HEAL postcard which like any postcard will be just one view of where we find ourselves coupled with a short, accompanying text that we can embellish when we find ourselves "at home" with one another. Please don't overthink this exercise. It is just intended to be a discussion starter and an entry point for subsequent consideration of your health interests and the creation of a sustaining HEAL inquiry topic. Our first course and subsequent courses will provide support in developing your HEAL inquiry topic. Also note that for this postcard exercise there is no call for anything grandiose like a formally-stated research question, issue or problem. That may come later, however we are beginning with where our health interests truly lie and where we find our personal and professional motivations to be healthy and to live actively. I am confident that by starting our HEAL MEd with acknowledgment of the "lived experience" we can come to define HEAL inquiries that are personally and professionally satisfying and all the more powerful for being grounded in those lived experiences.

In the meantime, enjoy the summer now that the good weather has returned.

Regards,

Stephen.