Today is also a big day for the blog – some lucky reader will be the 1000th hit to the site. Sorry no prizes for the lucky person and tracking won't be able to say who that person is. The relative success of sharing Canadian public health stories speaks to a need.
In keeping with good public health practice and evaluating the efforts, some interesting facts from what I can gleam and happy to share with you.
10% of the visitors in the past month have been good neighbours to the south. Welcome to the cloistered life of the Canadian public health worker.
The most popular page is on the issue of health equity south of the border and Gini Coefficient.
Visitors have come from 10 countries, with France and Russia running a distant 3rd to the US. Canadian visitors who are the main target appropriately constitute 90% of the following.
Only a handful of people have signed up for Tweets (@drphealth) and no one has used the following feed feature (at the lower left corner). The retweets through the Linked-IN professional network are the largest single social media source driving people to the website. As most people seem to access the site directly, I am thankful to those that are following.
As with many blogs, there may be lots of readers but only a very small number willing to actually put their words to a comment. I have received more emails than posted comments (drphealth@gmail.com), but still just a handful. Rest assured I will maintain your confidiality as well. Join the dialogue, it is the way the public health community will thrive. Your feedback on the blog, on any issue, and suggestions for topics are all welcomed.
INsite decision soon.
The rumour mill is starting to buzz. The Supreme Court decision on INsite may come out in the next week. Jump back to August 3 blog Insights into Insite to review the background. It is a substantive issue for the public health community that pits public health against the government of the day and no one looks good. No doubt the fight has caused negative repercussions throughout the public health community. It is interesting timing as the government continues to promote its 'get tough on crime' and 'lock up the drug users’' agendas. It might signal a loss for the government and need to regroup, or it may retrench their blinders. My bet is for the later and more troubled waters ahead. Stay tuned.
Provincial elections
Advocacy begins with you.
PEI and NWT go the polls October 3rd
Manitoba October 4th
Ontario October 6th
Newfoundland and Labrador and the Yukon October 11th
Saskatchewan Nov 7th
Quebec, Nunavut and Alberta probably in 2012.
I think our friends in BC are starting a guessing lottery and could slip in the queue sometime.
Can anyone make public health an issue on the political agenda? What questions can you find to ask candidates? A good resource is the CPHA policy website at http://www.cpha.ca/en/programs.aspx . CPHA also put out a guide for candidates questions for the spring national election, I could not locate it and seems so relevant now.
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