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Wednesday 22 April 2015

DrPHealth – time to begin to wrap up the blog site

Over the past 4 years, there have been over 430 posts and over 35,000 viewers. 

For the dedicated reader, you will note that there have been no posting for the past 6 weeks. It seems that the time has come to allow the site to remain active as there are some very good unique resources that are not synthesized in other locations, and many pages that are now outdated and should be viewed with a skeptical eye.

Just as importantly, the main audience for this site has been public health workers in Canada.   Where the first few years were predominately Canadian readers, and in the mid-years about half;  Now both Russian and US viewers outnumber the primary target audience.  While such international interest is appreciated, it begs the question as to whether the primary mandate is being met

The site was started when there was as relative dearth of on-line resources.  Now there is a plethora. Blogs have popped up, and more importantly, are better evidence synthesis sites that use rigorous approaches. 

Twitter was merely a curiosity.  Facebook was still a personal sharing site and not the information source it has become.  The growth in both to meet professional and private needs speaks to their effectiveness.  The growth of interest from the international community also speaks to the rapid uptake of Web based systems.

Overall the effort has been successful in communicating out.  The site however was not well used for stimulating dialogue amongt professionals.  And while there have been a smattering of guest contributions, a prime purpose of protecting anonymity makes the site open to question for its legitimacy (a valid concern from the media), and in many instances experts in various areas would prefer their pieces to carry proper attribution. 

Still to come may be an important series on discrimination and health, and given the recent events in the US, this has become even more pressing. 


Your thoughts and comments are still welcomed.   The drphealth@gmail.com address remains active and monitored.