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We are Health or High Water, a podcast about how public health is portrayed in pop culture and the media! We record live from a pillow fort in Brooke’s living room in Brooklyn.

Hosts Brooke, Lindsey and Cori hope to show you that public health is a field that affects everyone, nearly all the time, and is not actually a niche topic. We will dive into diverse topics, such as birth control, health insurance, addiction and substance abuse, abortions, mental health, the Affordable Care Act, sex ed, gun control, smoking, structural racism, teenage sexuality, gender identity, and much more. First and foremost, public health is not just medicine.

So, what is public health? According to the World Health Organization, public health is “the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts of society.”

What do we talk about? In the past, we’ve used Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation as an example to discuss social determinants of health, we track the depiction of birth control pills in media, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Gilmore Girls to Big Little Lies, we talk about how Lady Bird contains many public health stories, including mental health, cancer and teenage sexuality, and more!

By talking about how public health issues are depicted in television shows, films, books, theater, the news, and more, we hope to make public health issues accessible and interesting (and also give us an opportunity to talk about the media that we love).

You can subscribe and listen to our show on any of the following (or on any other podcast app!):

• iTunes
• Spotify
• Google Play
• Soundcloud
• Stitcher