Blake Poland

 
 
Dr Blake Poland is a researcher, writer, activist and internationally recognized expert in health promotion and community health development. He is a graduate of McMaster University. Blake held the position of Research Scientist with the Addiction Research Foundation prior to becoming a professor in what is now the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, where he was the Director of the MHSc Program in Health Promotion from 1999 to 2007. He was Director of the Collaborative Program in Community Development at the University of Toronto from 2007-2008. Dr Poland is Lead Editor of Settings for Health Promotion: Linking Theory and Practice (Sage Publications, 2000), a book that is used around the world as one of the key texts on the settings (healthy places) approach in health promotion, as promoted by the World Health Organization. His 2009 paper on a framework for analyzing settings in Health Promotion Practice (with co-authors Krupa and McCall) was selected “best paper of the year” by the Society of Public Health Education (SOPHE).


Blake has brought together scientists from different disciplines, health and social service professionals, artists, and community members from all walks of life from activists to business people to the homeless to work on pressing social and health issues such as community health development, hospital-community collaboration, environmental health promotion, the health of marginalized groups, homeless youth, public health practice, and, most recently, building community resilience for the transition to a post-carbon society. He has also conducted scientific reviews for 12 national and provincial research funding agencies.


In addition to principal or co-investigator roles in 33 research studies, Blake is the author of over 50 papers in scholarly journals, 18 book chapters, and over two dozen other publications and reports. He is regularly asked to give keynote speeches around the world, and has given nearly 150 research presentations at scholarly conferences and community symposia/workshops. He is also the recipient of two awards for excellence in teaching and mentorship at the University of Toronto (2001 & 2007).


A long-time Oakville resident, Blake has been active in local initiatives to promote human and ecosystem health, community development, and hospital-community collaboration in Oakville, Toronto, and Brazil.


He is the lead organizer of Halton Green Screens and Transition Oakville, a former Board Member of Oakvillegreen Conservation Association, and the founding President of the West Kerr Village Resident’s Association.

 

beyond the formal bio...


favourite hobbies:

Cycling, walking, spending time with family, dialogue, reading, my Vespa


Most memorable trip:

Camino de Santiago, 2005

Brazil, 2009


favourite music:

(I love jazz, blues, some classical, pop, rock, and some techno/trance, R&B, reggae, instrumental, new age...)

A couple of my favourites:

4 September Suns (album), by One

The End of the Innocence, by Don Henley

I hope you dance, by Lee Ann Womack

Nanette Workman (blues/rock)

What matters, by Edwin McCain

100 years, by Five for Fighting

You, by Gordie Sampson

Trip, by Hedley

Lips of an angel, by Hinder

You’re beautiful, by James Blunt

I need you, by Leanne Rimes

Unwell, by Matchbox Twenty

Photograph, by Nickleback

I need to wake up, by Melissa Etheridge

Eddie, by Deanna Carter


Personal Motto:

“There’s much to be done...” ;-)

but also... “We are not only what we do, but how we are in the world - our quality of being, including how we are with each other”


some of my favourite books:

  1. 1.The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience by Rob Hopkins (2008, Green Books)

  2. 2.The Upside of Down, by Thomas Homer-Dixon

  3. 3.Getting to Maybe, by Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman & Michael Patton

  4. 4.Heat, by George Monbiot

  5. 5.How To Want What You Have, by Timothy Miller

  6. 6.The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

  7. 7.How to Save the World in Your Spare Time, by Elizabeth May

  8. 8.Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paolo Freire

  9. 9.My Camino, by Sue Kenney



my latest adventures

  1. •becoming an associate member of Whole Village, an ecovillage in the Caledon hills (www.wholevillage.org)

  2. •Halton Green Screens (a local eco-film series) www.haltongreenscreens.ca

  3. •Transition Oakville - a local initiative to build community resilience in the face of climate change, peak oil and environmental degradation (www.TransitionOakville.ca)

  4. •talking a 5-day intensive workshop with Joanna Macy (Guelph, 2009)

about me: the formal bio

MORE ABOUT ME:


  1. •my academic profile (2pg)

  2. •my brief CV

  3. •my political life (click on Campaign 2008 above)

  4. •my publications (see CV above)

  5. •my research grants (see CV)

  6. •my community involvement

  7. •50+ ways I’ve cut my carbon footprint (click on that page link in this website)


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