AGM Program

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

MAY 18th

10am to 12:15pm PACIFIC | 1pm to 3:15pm EASTERN

Opening remarks: Where we’ve been and where we’re going

Join us to hear about CANUE’s accomplishments and a proposed vision for the future.

Starts at 10am PACIFIC | 1pm EASTERN

Jeff Brook is the Nominated PI and Scientific Director of the CANUE. He has 25 years of experience as an Environment Canada scientist working at the science-policy interface. He is one of Canada’s leading experts in air quality, recognized at all levels of government and academically, including for his substantial contributions in air pollution health research. Dr. Brook has led scientific assessments to inform policy nationally and internationally, and advised multi-stakeholder groups shaping policy.  Recently his efforts have expanded beyond air quality, for example for 8 years he has led the Environmental Working Group of the Canadian Health Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study and co-led the Gene x Environment Research Platform within the AllerGen Network of Centres of Excellence.

Eleanor Setton is the Managing Director of CANUE. As an Adjunct Associate Professor (2008- 2016), Eleanor  acted as Co-Director of the Spatial Sciences Research Lab (SSRL) at the University of Victoria. This role involved managing the SSRL grants, staff, and students, and conducting a range of research related to spatial aspects of exposure to environmental pollutants as a PI or Co-PI. Eleanor has extensive expertise in population-level environmental exposure assessment; direct experience working with large spatial and tabular datasets related to land use, pollutant emissions and socio-economic characteristics; and developing knowledge translation products about cancer and the environment.

Panel: Critical needs, opportunities and trends in urban built environment health research and policy

Making cities healthier places for people requires a multidisciplinary approach. Hear four unique perspectives from our speakers, representing the fields of environmental epidemiology, exposure science, public health and urban design.

Starts at 10:15am PACIFIC | 1:15pm EASTERN

Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen is a world leading expert in environmental exposure assessment, epidemiology, and health risk/impact assessment with a strong focus and interest on healthy urban living.  He is director of Urban Planning, Environment and Health and Air pollution and Urban Environment at ISGlobal, Barcelona.  He is President of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology. He has edited 3 books on Exposure Assessment and on Environmental Epidemiology, and one on Integrating human health into Urban and Transport planning, and has co-authored more than 500 papers published in peer reviewed journals and 30 book chapters. His latest book COVID19 and the City discusses the transformation of the city as a result of COVID19.   In 2018, he was awarded the ISEE John Goldsmith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Environmental Epidemiology.  In both 2018, 2019 and 2020 he was among the 1% most cited scientists in the world.

Esra Suel currently holds a Health Data Research UK fellowship in the Faculty of Medicine – School of Public Health at Imperial College London, and is a member of the Wellcome Trust-funded Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities. Her research is focused on the use of emerging sources of digital data for characterizing urban environmental features and exposures. She is mainly interested in regular monitoring of socio-economic status, housing quality, and transport characteristics in urban areas at high spatial resolution. She works with street level images, high resolution satellite data, and mobile phone data. Methodologically, she is interested in integrating data-driven, a.k.a. machine learning, and hypothesis-driven models to leverage strengths of both the new digital (e.g. large scale continuous, low-cost) and traditional (e.g. semantically rich) data sources. Esra completed her PhD in 2016 where she investigated mathematical modelling of decision making to study shifting patterns of spending and mobility with the increasing use of online shopping through combining heterogeneous data sources. She holds a BSc degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Sabanci University (Istanbul), and an MSE degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.

Antonio Gomez-Palacio is a practicing urban planner at DIALOG, with a keen interest in the interface between wellbeing and the built environment. He has collaborated with Conference Board of Canada and others for the publication of the Community Wellbeing Framework, and is a member of the National Roundtable of Health and Design Professionals currently working on the second version of the Community Wellbeing Framework. His professional experience and research focuses on the intersection of architecture, planning, and urban design. He’s internationally recognized for transforming cities into vibrant urban places that respond to their social, economic, and environmental contexts. Antonio has worked on a wide range of projects focused on urban intensification, master planning, mixed-use, transit, heritage, economic development, and sustainability. His project work includes light-rail transit (LRT) projects for Mississauga, Brampton, and Edmonton, downtown plans for Halifax and Regina, and campus plans for Seneca College and Laurentian University. In addition to impacting communities through his professional practice, Antonio has acted as chair of the Toronto Society of Architects and the City of Vaughan’s Design Review Panel. He is involved with several industry initiatives and organizations, including the Canadian Institute of Planners, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and the Canadian Urban Transit Association.

Cory Neudorf is the Lead Academic Medical Health Officer for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, a Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan, College of Medicine, and President of the Urban Public Health Network which includes the Medical Officers of Health in 24 of Canada’s large urban centres.   He sits on various provincial, national and international advisory bodies and Boards relating to public and population health research, reporting and monitoring, and best practice.  His research interests include health inequalities, health status indicators and surveys, health status monitoring and reporting, and integrating population health data and Geographic Information Systems into public health and health planning. He received his medical degree from the University of Saskatchewan, a Master of Health Science degree in Community Health and Epidemiology from the University of Toronto, and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada with Certification in the specialty of Community Medicine.

Overview: Pre-meeting survey results

This short presentation will provide a summary of the feedback we’ve received via the pre-meeting survey.

Starts at 11am PACIFIC | 2pm EASTERN

Dany Doiron is a Research Associate at the Respiratory Epidemiology and Clinical Research Unit of the McGill University Health Centre. Dany finished a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Basel in 2019 where he studied the respiratory health effects ambient air pollution using large cohort studies and exposure databases. Since 2016, Dany provides expertise on linking environmental data to confidential health databases for CANUE.

Discussion: Priorities and recommendations for a new CANUE

Join four leaders in environmental health, representing students, mid-career, and senior researchers for a discussion to help inform our next 5-year Strategic Plan as a not-for-profit organization.

Starts at 11:15am PACIFIC | 2:15 pm EASTERN

Michael Brauer is an internationally recognized leader in environmental health.  His research focuses on linkages between the built environment and human health, with specific interest in transportation-related and biomass air pollution, the global health impacts of air pollution and the relationships between multiple exposures mediated by urban form and population health. His contributions to environmental health have been acknowledged by a number of awards including the Wesolowski Award from the International Society of Exposure Science, WH Thurlbeck Prize for Research in Lung Disease, the Bastable-Potts Asthma Research Prize, the Distinguished Achievement Award for Overall Excellence from the UBC Faculty of Medicine and several publication awards.

He is a Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia (UBC) – where he also holds associate appointments in the Division of Respiratory Medicine and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. He is an Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington where he leads the Environmental Risk Factors team for the Global Burden of Disease. Dr. Brauer is currently co-PI of Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities (PEHC) (http://equitablehealthycities.org/about-us/), a global partnership that aims to improve population health, enhance health equity and ensure environmental sustainability in cities around the world through co-production of rigorous evidence with policy and civil society partners in cities in six countries.

Rae L Jewett (they/them) is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto, Department of Geography and Planning.  Rae currently holds a Queen Elizabeth II Scholarship in Science and Technology (sponsored by Esri Canada), was a 2019-2020 CIHR Health System Impact Fellow, and is a co-founder of the GeoHealth Network. Rae’s research examines the intersection of health services and policy research with geography, particularly how this intersection can be applied to foster resilient and healthy communities.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rae participated in the United Nations Research Roadmap for COVID-19 Recovery through their contribution on geographies of community resilience and social cohesion during COVID-19 and pandemics; rapid reviews for the Atlantic SPOR Evidence Alliance; and publications on the geography of Ontario and Canada’s government pandemic response.

Laura Rosella is the Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the Population Health Analytics Lab  and an Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto; a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence; and Site Director for ICES UofT. She also holds a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics. Her research interests include population health, predictive models to support public health planning, and population health management. She has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of epidemiology, population health and health services research. Notably, Dr. Rosella was recently awarded the Brian MacMahon Early Career Epidemiology Award by the Society for Epidemiologic Research and was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40. Her research has been featured by Forbes, Newsweek, Reuters, CBC, CTV, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and The Toronto Star.

Scott Weichenthal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill University. His research program is dedicated to identifying and evaluating environmental risk factors for chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. To support this objective, Dr. Weichenthal develops new approaches to population-based exposure assessment and examines how the urban built environment influences environmental exposures at both the individual and population-level. His past studies have examined the health effects of air pollution from biomass burning, traffic, as well as the oxidative potential of fine particulate air pollution. His current research is focused on the use of deep learning models in estimating environmental exposures on both a local and global scale.

Meghan Winters  leads the Cities, Heath, and Active Transportation Research (CHATR) lab at Simon Fraser University, where she studies how cities and their design impact how people get around and connect with each other.  She is an epidemiologist interested in the link between health, transportation, and city design, and was recently awarded the prestigious Trailblazer Award in Population and Public Health Research from CIHR-IPPH, in recognition of her leadership, mentorship and innovative contributions in the field of population health. Over the last decade, she has built strategic long-term partnerships with stakeholders from diverse sectors, including health, transportation, and social planning. She has worked with municipalities across Canada to promote safe and healthy community design, influencing policies to improve infrastructure for active transportation.

Concluding Remarks

Hear from our Scientific Director about our next steps and opportunities to get involved.

12 noon PACIFIC | 3pm EASTERN

MEETING ADJOURNS:  12:15 PACIFIC | 3:15 pm EASTERN