Public Health Insight

One in five women and one in eight men report a history of child sexual abuse. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Frank Putnam, author of Old Before Their Time, explains what 35 years of the Female Growth and Development Study found. He describes how childhood trauma shows up in the body as early autoimmune activity, inflammation, and epigenetic aging. He also covers how adverse experiences compound, how trauma crosses generations, and why a child protection system with outdated, inconsistent data struggles to respond.

References for Our Discussion
◼️New Book: Old Before Their Time: A Scientific Life Investigating How Maltreatment Harms Children and the Adults They Become **Participate in the book giveaway. Contest rules at the end of the description**

Guest
◼️Dr. Frank Putnam

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

Book Giveaway Contest
We're giving away a signed copy of Dr. Frank Putnam's new book, Old Before Their Time: A Scientific Life Investigating How Maltreatment Harms Children and the Adults They Become. You can participate wherever you are in the world. To enter, just send an email to thepublichealthinsight@gmail.com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Entries close October 21st, and we'll reach out to the winner on Oct 23rd.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Frank Putnam noticed that the children referred to him had very different symptoms but one thing in common: a history of abuse. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Putnam, author of Old Before Their Time, walks us through the path that led him from adult psychiatry to child protection. He also explains how he launched a study that followed abused girls for decades, at a time when many dismissed the work as a social problem rather than a scientific one.

References for Our Discussion
◼️New Book: Old Before Their Time: A Scientific Life Investigating How Maltreatment Harms Children and the Adults They Become **Participate in the book giveaway. Contest rules at the end of the description**

Guest
◼️Dr. Frank Putnam

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes
◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

Book Giveaway Contest
We're giving away a signed copy of Dr. Frank Putnam's new book, Old Before Their Time: A Scientific Life Investigating How Maltreatment Harms Children and the Adults They Become. You can participate wherever you are in the world. To enter, just send an email to thepublichealthinsight@gmail.com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Entries close October 21st, and we'll reach out to the winner on Oct 23rd.

A tobacco company promises jobs, investment and a factory, but only if a government makes health warnings smaller. Investigative journalist Matthew Chapman joins the Public Health Insight Podcast to examine how tobacco companies adapt their products and influence the rules governing them. Drawing on investigations in Kenya, Israel and the United Kingdom, he reveals undisclosed payments to experts, pressure on policymakers and efforts to weaken or delay regulation. The conversation explores Britain’s generational tobacco ban, the immense death toll linked to China Tobacco, and the limits of personal choice for addictive substances. 

Guest
◼️Matthew Chapman 

References for Our Discussion
◼️Lawmaker with family tie to British American Tobacco attempts to stop UK smoking ban 
◼️British American Tobacco undermines Kenyan health laws in bid for Gen Z
◼️What to know about the global tobacco control treaty

Host & Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

When a disaster is prevented, it doesn't make the news and most don't hear about it; and that's exactly the problem. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast with Dr. Barry Davis, biostatistician and author of The Preventioneers, we explore why prevention's biggest successes stay invisible. We discuss why climate warnings have gone unheeded for 170 years, why treatment beats prevention for the "popular vote," and how to rebuild trust with a public that distrusts experts. The answer isn't more data, but humility, storytelling, and trusted messengers.

References for Our Discussion
◼️[NEW BOOK] The Preventioneers: Diseases, Disasters, and the Discoveries That Changed Our World
◼️An Ounce of Prevention: A Substack by Barry R. Davis 

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

A doctor proves handwashing saves lives and gets destroyed for it. A president dies of a preventable stroke. Scientists spend decades proving smoking kills while the industry fights back. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Barry Davis, author of The Preventioneers, introduces us to people in history who saw catastrophe coming, built the evidence, and ran straight into resistance from industries, institutions, and a public that didn't want to hear it. If prevention saves lives, protects health, and saves money, why do we keep ignoring it until it's too late? This episode digs into that question.

References for Our Discussion
◼️[NEW BOOK] The Preventioneers: Diseases, Disasters, and the Discoveries That Changed Our World
◼️An Ounce of Prevention: A Substack by Barry R. Davis 

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.