Presentations

Climate change is impacting the health of millions of people around the world. From slow onset climate changes to weather and climate extremes, climate change is impacting everything we care about. In this presentation, the health findings from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change impacts and adaptation will be presented, and then linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP27 and COP28. As one of the Lead Authors on the IPCC report, Dr. Harper will highlight the connections between the IPCC's international science assessment process to the international climate change negotiations that occur at UN Climate Change COPs.

Sherilee Harper is a Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and Health, Kule Scholar, and an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta.  Her research investigates associations between weather, environment, and health equity in the context of…

Portable air cleaners have the potential to reduce exposure to hazardous indoor particulate matter, such as smoke, dust, mould, pollen and pathogens. Although a good portable air cleaner typically costs less than $500, this cost may be prohibitive in some contexts, particularly if multiple air cleaners are needed to treat large rooms like classrooms. For this reason, public health agencies and others have been promoting the use of “do-it-yourself” (DIY) air cleaners constructed out of low-cost materials as an inexpensive and rapid means to address indoor particulate matter, particularly in emergency situations like a wildfire.

This webinar will highlight the findings of our upcoming NCCEH review on DIY air cleaner effectiveness compared to commercial units. The document also compares the various DIY air cleaner designs regarding cost effectiveness, energy efficiency, and noise generation, and reviews research on deploying these devices in the real world. The…

This research on healthy northern environments has an emphasis on community action, self-determination, and knowledge sharing, to better understand the intersections between food security, climate change, and Indigenous communities in northern regions within Canada. The team of northern communities, partners, and governments engages on interdisciplinary, community-based, and collaborative food system projects. This webinar will share past and ongoing case studies to evaluate community-led food system initiatives in the Northwest Territories and their links to environmental health, policy, and health and risk communication.  

Dr. Kelly Skinner is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo and was awarded a CIHR-PHAC Applied Public Health Chair in 2022. This Chair has an emphasis on community action, self-determination, and knowledge sharing, to better understand the intersections between food security, climate change…

Public libraries are evolving, lending out more than just books and acting as hubs for innovative programming. One example in Canada is the rise of radon “Lending Library” programs that connect patrons to radon information and digital radon detectors. Beginning in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, there are now over 300 libraries that lend digital detectors across the country and more come on board regularly. The success of the radon program hinges on the unique role that libraries play in communities. Not only are libraries well-established, trusted sources of knowledge but more and more libraries are taking part in innovative public health initiatives. In some regions, patrons can borrow items such as CO2 and PM2.5 sensors, sun lamps, surgical recovery equipment and even mobility-aides for visitors.   There is growing enthusiasm for more collaboration between librarians and public health professionals, in part as they address important issue such as access and health equity. This…

Le logement est un déterminant majeur par lequel les disparités en santé émergent et se maintiennent à long terme. Dans cette présentation, nous proposons un modèle conceptuel holistique de l’impact du logement sur les disparités en santé, qui comprend notamment tout l’éventail de risques, leur fardeau cumulatif et leur origine historique. Nous montrons comment les inégalités structurelles influencent la distribution inégale de l’accès à des facteurs de logement favorables à la santé correspondant à quatre déterminants : 1) les coûts (abordabilité); 2) les conditions (qualité); 3) la constance (stabilité); et 4) le contexte (quartier d’opportunités). Nous analysons également comment ces quatre déterminants peuvent entraîner un fardeau cumulatif en interagissant l’un avec l’autre et avec d’autres inégalités structurelles pour générer et concrétiser les disparités en santé. Pour conclure, nous proposons une vision complète du logement sain qui envisage l’impact du logement du point…

Water distribution lines, premise plumbing in homes and large buildings, and recreational waters (pools, spas, splash-parks), can harbour a range of opportunistic pathogens (OPs), like Legionella spp. that can cause serious infections and disease outbreaks among exposed, susceptible persons. Many interacting elements can affect the presence, proliferation, and likelihood of exposure to OPs in water systems, including climate warming, precipitation, humidity, increased air conditioning and need for cooling, and water efficiency measures. This presentation explores some of the ways that climate change could influence the occurrence of and exposure to OPs in our urban centres, and some of the measures that can be taken to reduce the risks.

Juliette O'Keeffe, MSc, PhD Environmental Health & Knowledge Translation Scientist, NCCEH

Juliette joined the NCCEH team in 2018 bringing with her previous experience delivering research for industry and government in the areas…

Urban rats are an important issue globally. Despite ongoing efforts to manage rats, they continue to flourish in cities, indicating that municipalities have not been able to find or widely implement solutions that sustainably eliminate rats. There is no consensus why management efforts may have failed and there is limited research describing or comparing municipal rat management approaches.

This webinar will present a project designed to understand the state of municipal rat management with a view towards providing recommendations for cities seeking to develop or improve their own rat management strategies. To achieve this, our research team traveled to seven cities in the USA with municipal rat management programs, interviewed program stakeholders, attended site visits, gathered rat-related municipal regulations, and synthesized the municipal rat management literature. Overall, we found an entrenched “war-on-rats” paradigm driving municipal rat management and dictating…

During intense heat waves, like those seen across the world over recent months, the most vulnerable members of communities often suffer the biggest impacts. Cities can reduce this burden by targeting heat-mitigating interventions in areas where vulnerable populations are exposed to hotter temperatures. However, pinpointing these hotspots can be a challenge because nationally standardized, locally relevant data that can help direct resources to those most at risk of negative outcomes from heat have so far been unavailable to public health professionals, urban planners and policy makers.

This webinar will present HealthyPlan.City, a new and innovative pan-Canadian tool that combines land surface temperature and tree canopy cover data with socio-demographic data to show areas of ‘equity priority’ where higher proportions of vulnerable populations (older adults, children, low-income individuals, visible minority individuals, and people who live alone) and hotter temperatures…

Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animals due to the pathogens they spread, and these insects are found in a wide variety of habitats, from the tropics to the arctic, from sea level to the alpine, and in heavily disturbed urban environments and intact old-growth forests. There are currently 51 species of mosquito reported from British Columbia, and 33 from the Yukon. However, there are large gaps in our knowledge about the distribution of both indigenous and invasive mosquitoes in northern and rural parts of British Columbia and the Yukon, including for important vector species. If we are to accurately predict where arbovirus transmission will occur, currently or under future climate change scenarios, we need a more accurate grasp of where established vectors occur and may expand to. Here we summarize existing knowledge about the mosquitoes of British Columbia and the Yukon, review recent work and efforts to expand on this knowledge, and discuss its significance to public and…

There is increasing evidence that long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) may adversely impact cognitive performance. Wildfire smoke is one of the largest sources of PM2.5 today and concentrations are likely to increase under climate change. However, little is known about how short-term exposure impacts cognitive function. We aimed to evaluate the associations between daily and hourly exposure to PM2.5 and wildfire smoke and cognitive performance in adults. Scores from 20 plays of an attention-oriented brain-training game were obtained for 10,228 adults in the United States (US). We estimated daily and hourly PM2.5 exposure through a data fusion of observations from multiple monitoring networks. Daily smoke exposure in the western US was obtained from satellite-derived estimates of smoke plume density. We used a longitudinal repeated measures design with linear mixed effects models to test for associations between short-term exposure and attention score. Results were…