Our guest on this podcast is Sean Valles, the author of Philosophy of Population Health: Philosophy for a New Public Health Era.

In this episode: 

How Dr. Valles’s current work developed from research on race concepts and population health (1:00) — What is the difference between public health and population health? (2:00) — Is health simply the absence of disease, or is it more complicated than that? (4:45) — New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, “sin taxes,” and soda bans: is paternalism ever justified in the cause of public health? (8:45) — Fast food and community culture: thinking about McDonald’s and Burger King in social context (14:30) — Epistemic humility: how experts should approach social problems (16:45) — Intersectionality: how can government work with, e.g., religious groups to foster population health? (21:30) — On “Some Comments about Being a Philosopher of Color and the Reasons I Didn’t Write a (Real) Paper for this (Seemingly) Ideal Venue for my Work” (25:15) — Personal experiences and public response (29:30) — Why faculty members shouldn’t call their students “kids” (31:30) — What can bioethics contribute to the conversation about climate change? (36:00)