Health issues have long occupied top headlines in Canadian media, and no journalist has written on public health with more authority or for as many years as André Picard. Matters of Life and Death collects Picard's most compelling columns, covering a broad range of topics including Canada's right-to-die law, the true risks of the Zika virus, the financial challenges of a publicly funded health system, appalling health conditions in First Nations communities, the legalization of ma...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICYIt took the coronavirus pandemic to open our eyes to the deplorable state of so many of the nation's long-term care homes: the inhumane conditions, overworked and underpaid staff, and lack of oversight. In this timely new book, esteemed health reporter André Picard reveals the full extent of the crisis in eldercare, and offers an urgently needed prescription to...

A Healthy Society, Updated and Expanded Edition, is one doctor’s vision for a new approach to politics – and a new approach to building a healthier world. Drawing on his experiences as a family physician, Dr. Meili argues that health delivery too often focuses on treatment of immediate causes and ignores more fundamental conditions that lead to poor health. The social determinants of health – income, education, employment, housing, the wider environment, and social supports – have...

Few Canadians know of "Mr. L," an auto worker in Ontario who gave "the gift of life" in 1984 as part of a company blood donor drive. Many more will remember Kenneth Pittman, a 53-year-old heart patient, who died after being infected with AIDS -- from Mr. L's blood. They will also remember Mr. Pittman's wife, Rochelle, who contracted the virus from her husband because his doctor decided not to inform them of Mr. Pittman's fatal disease.This tragic story is a microcosm of Canada's bl...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICYIt took the coronavirus pandemic to open our eyes to the deplorable state of so many of the nation's long-term care homes: the inhumane conditions, overworked and underpaid staff, and lack of oversight. In this timely new book, esteemed health reporter André Picard reveals the full extent of the crisis in eldercare, and offers an urgently needed prescription to...

While Being Mortal (Atul Gawande) helped us understand disease and death, and Successful Aging (Daniel J. Levitin) showed us older years can be a time of joy and resilience, Happily Ever Older reveals how the right living arrangements can create a vibrancy that defies age or ability.Reporter Moira Welsh has spent years investigating retirement homes and long-term care facilities and wants to tell the dangerous stories. Not the accounts of...

While Being Mortal (Atul Gawande) helped us understand disease and death, and Successful Aging (Daniel J. Levitin) showed us older years can be a time of joy and resilience, Happily Ever Older reveals how the right living arrangements can create a vibrancy that defies age or ability.Reporter Moira Welsh has spent years investigating retirement homes and long-term care facilities and wants to tell the dangerous stories. Not the accounts of...

The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics provides an accessible and authoritative guide to health economics, intended for scholars and students in the field, as well as those in adjacent disciplines including health policy and clinical medicine. The chapters stress the direct impact of health economics reasoning on policy and practice, offering readers an introduction to the potential reach of the discipline. Contributions come from internationally-recognized leaders in health econ...

The widespread condemnation of drastic price increases on life-saving drugs highlights our growing dependency on and vulnerability to international pharmaceutical conglomerates. However, aren’t the interests of the public supposed to supersede the pursuit of private profit?In his new work, Private Profits versus Public Policy, Joel Lexchin addresses this question as he examines how public policy with respect to the pharmaceutical industry has evolved in Canada over the pas...

Canada has been among the world leaders in recognizing the multiple factors that impact health. Focusing on Canada’s health care system, Raisa B. Deber provides brief descriptions of some key facts and concepts necessary to understand health care policy in Canada and place it in an international context.An accessible guide, Treating Health Care unpacks key concepts to provide informed discussions that help us understand and diagnose Canada’s health care system and to clari...

We all feel uncomfortable about the role of profit in healthcare, we all have a vague notion that the global $600bn pharmaceutical industry is somehow evil and untrustworthy, but that sense rarely goes beyond a flaky, undifferentiated new age worldview. Bad Pharma puts real flesh on those bones, revealing the rigged evidence used by drug companies. Bad information means bad treatment decisions, which means patients suffer and die: there is no climactic moment of villainy, but drug...

Canada is the only OECD country that has universal, comprehensive public hospital and medical insurance but lacks equivalent pharmaceutical coverage. In Ideas and the Pace of Change, Katherine Boothe explains the reasons for this unique situation. Using archival, interview, and polling data, Boothe compares the policy histories of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia in order to understand why Canada followed a different path on pharmaceutical insurance.Boothe argues ...