OPHA is launching a public health book club beginning in 2026, excitedly hosted by OPHA's own avid reader, Emily McDaniel, MPH! Thank you very much to everyone who shared their thoughts and ideas to inform our new book club through our brief interest form. Please refer to this webpage for future book selections, meeting info, registration links, and resources. Happy reading and cheers to the wide world of public health!

Upcoming Meeting Dates & Times

January 15, 206 at 6-7pm on Zoom (tentative). Register & receive a calendar invite.

February 19, at 6-7pm on Zoom (tentative). Register & receive a calendar invite.

(Only A Few!) Suggested Books

• Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green (January & February 2026 selection)

• Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life by Alice Wong

• The Political Determinants of Health: Panacea for Health Inequities by Daniel E Dawes

• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A Washington

• The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World by Michael Marmot

• The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo
  
• Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty by Mark Robert Rank, Lawrence M Eppard & Heather E Bullock
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Host & Contact

My name is Emily McDaniel and I am an avid reader who would like to spend all of her free time reading books, buying books or telling people about books. I am currently in my memoir era and love to hear people’s stories in their own words. I am a nonfiction nerd and love to learn about psychology and public health. I am so excited for this book club and to get to read more books that give me new perspective and insight into the world of public health and beyond! I am also SO excited to meet all of you!

Emily (Pryor) McDaniel, MPH

emily-mcdaniel@ou.edu