Dr. Byomkesh Talukder is the inaugural Planetary Health Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, where he works at the intersection of health, sustainable development, climate change and food and agriculture systems. He is currently project co-director in four research projects: (1) Mapping Canada’s Imported Food Supply Chains to Identify Climate Change-Related Health Risks, (2) Ecological Footprint Health Indicators, (3) Complex Adaptive Modelling of Health Impacts of Climate Change in Malawi & Paraguay, and (4) Climate Change, Salinity & Public Health in Bangladesh. His past research applies a complexity science approach to designing sustainability assessment models of food and agricultural systems in Bangladesh. Dr. Talukder also has over 15 years of interdisciplinary field and training experience, including supervising more than 2,000 emerging leaders in sustainable development programs and policy design in Bangladesh. Since 2016, he has been a Mitacs Postdoctoral Fellow at Parmalat Canada and the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University. Dr. Talukdar holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Studies (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada), a MES in Environmental Studies (Queen’s University, Canada), a MSc in Development Science (Hiroshima University, Japan), and a MSc in Geography and Environment (Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh).

By Elaine Coburn, Director of the Centre for Feminist Research

In his seminar, “Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, and Community Planetary Health in Bangladesh”, Dr. Talukder observed that if traditional medicine is concerned with health within the human body, planetary systems are concerned with external systems, including the climate, that affect people’s health. This enables a more holistic, non-linear approach to understanding complex issues, including rising salinity associated with rising seas in Bangladesh due to climate change.��

Today, the coastal areas of Bangladesh are home to more than 40 million people. It is estimated that by 2050 about 27 million people will be immediately affected by climate change, including heavily populated areas along coastal rivers. If sea levels rise by just 1.5 metres, more than 80% of people in Bangladesh will be affected since the vast majority of the population lives in a flood plain. In addition, frequent cyclones originate in the Bay of Bengal. Annually, they bring water, now heavily salinated because of rising seas, that kills all vegetation, rendering previously fertile lands barren. Combined with more than 290 dams in India and more than 100 dams in China, which aggravate penuries of water during the dry season, and Himalayan ice melt due to climate change, Bangladesh suffers from significant water shortages and increased salinity. Not only water but soil is becoming increasingly saline.

Development projects along rivers in Bangladesh, including dams, have not worked well but create waterlogging that makes agriculture impossible. In response to changing conditions, farmers have shifted agriculture to saline-water crops, like shrimp, moving away from previous staple crops like rice. If shrimp farming has created economic benefits, the decreased agricultural diversity – in dramatic decline from the 1970s to about 2014 – because of the concentration on the monoculture of shrimp, has created attendant health problems, due to food insecurity and diminished biodiversity. Shrimp feed has aggravated problems by interfering with the natural ecosystems. As mangrove forests decline, water is no longer retained by trees, making communities more vulnerable to the devastating effects of floods.��

Primary negative health impacts include the scarcity of freshwater. This is especially burdensome for women who must travel 5 to 10 km to search out fresh water. Many communities are using rainwater or open pond water for their daily household water needs. This creates communicable diseases, including skin infections, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery and ocular diseases. Hypertension increases due to salt in water and in food systems.��

Secondary negative health impacts include high rates of miscarriage among women who live close to coastal areas. Women stand in saline water for many hours a day, creating problems for women’s reproductive health, an under-investigated health concern observed by many local community groups. A lack of a diversified food given the concentration in the shrimp, creates vitamin D deficiencies, including rickets.��

Tertiary negative health impacts include the increase in breast and ovarian cancers in women. Women are harvesting drinking water in plastic containers and since plastics are unregulated, some are contaminated, which may be the cause of the increase in these cancers among women. There is increased mental health stress, especially among women, given the long distances they must travel to obtain basic needs, like water for the households. Internal migration often means a concentration of formerly rural people in urban slums, creating attendant health problems given the conditions in these slums which have weak sanitation systems.��

Overall, health inequities are increasing, especially in coastal areas.

Resolving these health impacts demands complex solutions from multiple stakeholders, everything from weather predictor systems to public health expertise. We need to listen to different stakeholders and the connections among the different challenges that they face to develop complex models that can help us understand the links among climate change, extreme weather events, internal migration and conflicts and public health, all of which are, in addition, gendered. This means taking into account biodiversity, vector-borne disease and the causal relationships among these different factors to create data beyond current tendencies to work in silos. Dynamic modelling is required if we are to develop scenarios, forecasting and support local communities and other stakeholders in developing community-based interventions to salinity and to enable monitoring to understand the present and better predict future health impacts. 

But modeling is not enough. We need interventions that take into account complex systems to support the government of Bangladesh’s 100-year delta plan, as the state seeks to ensure the sustainability of ecosystems for better livelihoods and intergenerational health in Bangladesh. We must prepare for different futures, knowing that if we do not take action now on climate change we will not be able to adapt to climate change in the future. We need to adapt today and we need to do this for many reasons, including for the health of people like those living in coastal areas of Bangladesh who are already being affected in their everyday life by climate change, especially rising sea levels and increasing salinity of coastal waters.��

Related Work

Talukder, B., Ganguli, N. & VanLoon, G. W., (2022). Climate Change Related Foodborne Zoonotic Diseases and Pathogens Modelling. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 100111.

Talukder, B., Ganguli, N., Matthew, R., VanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W., & Orbinski, J. (2022). Climate Change-Accelerated Ocean Biodiversity Loss & Associated Planetary Health Impacts. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 100114

Matthew, R., Chiotha, S., Orbinski, J. & Talukder, B. (2021). Research note: Climate change, peri-urban space and emerging infectious disease. Landscape and Urban Planning, 218, 104298.

Talukder, B., Ganguli, N., Matthew, R., VanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W., & Orbinski, J. (2021). Climate change‐triggered land degradation and planetary health: A review. Land Degradation & Development 32 (16), 4509-4522.

Talukder, B., vanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W., Chiotha, S. & Orbinski, J. (2021). Health Impacts of Climate Change on Smallholder Farmers. One Health, 100258.

Talukder, B., Matthew, R., Bunch, J. M., vanLoon, G. W., Hipel, K. W. & Orbinski, J. (2021). Melting of Himalayan Glaciers and Planetary Health. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 50, 98-108.

Talukder, B., van Loon, G., Hipel, K. W., & Orbinski, J. (2021). COVID-19's Implications on Agri-food Systems and Human Health in Bangladesh. Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, 100033.

Talukder, B., Blay-Palmer, A., & Hipel, K. W. (2020). Towards Complexity of Agricultural Sustainability Assessment: Main Issues and Concerns. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, 100038.

Talukder, B., & Hipel, K. W. (2019). Diagnosis of Sustainability of Trans-Boundary Water Governance in the Great Lakes Basin. World Development, 129, 1-12.

Talukder, B., vanLoon, G. W., & Hipel, K. W. (2018). Energy Efficiency of Agricultural Systems in the Southwest Coastal Zone of Bangladesh. Ecological Indicators, 98, 641-648.

Talukder, B., Hipel, K. W., & vanLoon, G. W. (2017). Developing Composite Indicators for Agricultural Sustainability Assessment: Effect of Normalization and Aggregation Techniques. Resources, 6(4), 66.

Talukder, B., Saifuzzaman, M., & vanLoon, G. W. (2016). Sustainability of Changing Agricultural Systems in the Coastal Zone of Bangladesh. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 31(2) 148-165.

Talukder, B., Nakagoshi, N., & Shahedur, R. M. (2009). State and Management of Wetlands in Bangladesh. Landscape and Ecological Engineering, 5(1), 81-90.

The post Preparing for Healthy Futures in Bangladesh in a World of Climate Change appeared first on Research & Innovation.

is a podcast about academic research and why it matters. Join podcast host (professor of Accounting at Schulich School of Business) for a special 10-part series featuring extraordinary researchers and creators at �첥��Ƶ and their innovative methodologies and approaches. A new episode is launched every month.

Podcast or Perish is supported by �첥��Ƶ’s Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation in partnership with Schulich School of Business.

Episodes:

, of �첥��Ƶ’s Osgoode Hall Law School, holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Law & Justice. Her work examines the problematic jurisdictional reality that shapes the transition to a green economy, as Canadian mining companies seek to develop resources on land belonging to the First Nations.

 of �첥��Ƶ studies motherhood from a profoundly feminist perspective. Deconstructing the taken-for-granted, culturally normative image of mothers has led her to publish over 20 books on mothering. Her most recent work explores the inordinate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mothers.

, of the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, studies the impact that the core beliefs and values of teachers have on classroom practice. She talks here about the emotional experience of online learning and how this has affected teachers and students during the pandemic.

, Chair of the Department of Dance at �첥��Ƶ, is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries capture the beauty of motion and the dreams of possibility among dancers in the Philippines. His work is gorgeous and human, with carefully framed images and haunting, evocative soundtracks.

, Canada Research Chair in Supply Chain Management at the Schulich School of Business, is a leading expert on the subject of supply chain disruptions. His research on quality management, mass customization, and supply chain relationships has helped supply managers and public policymakers minimize disruptions.

, of the School of Health Policy & Management in the Faculty of Health, studies the emotional, psychological, and contextual factors that shape how healthcare workers do their jobs. Her research has helped thousands of oncologists and neurosurgeons understand how they process grief and how their emotional connection to patients influences life-or-death decisions that they face every day.

, James and Joanne Love Chair in Environmental Engineering at Lassonde School of Engineering, studies emerging contaminants in wastewater. She creates the techniques to identify new pollutants such as pharmaceutical compounds that are hazardous at extremely low concentrations, and then eliminate them in ways that contribute positively to the ecosystem.

The post Podcast or Perish appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The Schulich Executive Education Centre (SEEC) and the Krembil Centre for Health Management and Leadership announced a partnership to enhance and enrich Schulich’s executive/continuing education for the healthcare sector. The new partnership, announced Dec. 6, will create relevant, cutting-edge, evidence-based development paths for people in the healthcare industry at any stage in their careers. 

The , established in September 2021 and located at �첥��Ƶ’s Schulich School of Business, was made possible by a generous $5-million donation from the Krembil Foundation and Schulich graduate Robert Krembil (MBA ’71, Hon LLD ’00). The facility is a leading hub of education, applied research and industry outreach and will help expand Schulich’s reputation as an international thought leader in health sector strategy, transformation, and organizational leadership. 

SEEC has established itself as a leading provider of executive education programs aimed at the healthcare sector, with customized, needs-based executive education for physicians, dentists, clinicians, healthcare practitioners and non-medical staff in the healthcare industry. 

“SEEC and the Krembil Centre share a common mission to cultivate and advance high-performance leadership,” said Detlev Zwick, dean of the Schulich School of Business. “This exciting new collaboration that will result in additional successful executive and continuing education programs for healthcare professionals.” 

For more information on SEEC’s programs for healthcare professionals, visit:

The post New partnership gives boost to Schulich’s continuing education for healthcare sector appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Predicting the success of cancer treatment strategies is paramount for clinicians to provide the highest standard of care to patients. While predicting these treatment outcomes is a difficult science, Lassonde School of Engineering Professor  has been making significant progress in doing just that.

Sadeghi-Naini, an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department and York Research Chair in Quantitative Imaging and Smart Biomarkers, has been working in concert with clinicians from Sunnybrook Hospital to improve the standard of care for cancer patients.

Brain metastases, a cancer in the brain resulting from a primary cancer in another part of the body that has spread, represent an underdeveloped yet critical area in cancer treatment. While whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) is a treatment option, it is associated with negative side effects such as cognitive dysfunction. This is what has triggered a paradigm shift in radiotherapy, moving towards more precise irradiation of tumors known as stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT).

A recently published study in  entitled, “” by Sadeghi-Naini and his team has outlined a methodology to predict how patients will respond to SRT based off of standard-of-care imaging. Clinicians can use this information, at pre-treatment, to facilitate the best plan for patients.

Using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Sadeghi-Naini’s team can predict whether a patient’s tumor is likely to be controlled by SRT or if the treatment is likely to fail.

“All patients undergo MRI and CT as part of their standard-of-care treatment planning,” explained Sadeghi-Naini. “Therefore, this method has the benefit of not requiring anything additional from the patient side, but it has the potential to improve their treatment plan.”

These images are acquired prior to the treatment and, through quantitative analysis, the morphology and heterogeneity of the tumor can be characterized. Specifically, Sadeghi-Naini is concerned with quantifying the heterogeneity within the tumor site and its surroundings as these varied features are shown to strongly correlate with treatment outcomes. His machine learning (ML) models have demonstrated improved accuracy and sensitivity compared to existing methods.

Current medical practice for evaluating treatment outcomes revolve around clinical follow-ups post-treatment, but if the treatment is not successful, as it is for at least 20 per cent of all patients, this process poses a major issue. With clinicians knowing the likelihood of treatment success in advance, they can make more informed decisions and potentially improve the rate of successful outcomes for patients.

“The features identified with machine learning (ML) algorithms are not easily interpreted by clinicians and, at a glance, individuals can only describe them in terms of heterogeneity,” said Sadeghi-Naini. “Using ML, we can differentiate these features and create a model with statistics that we can provide to clinicians to enable them to make the most informed decision possible.”

Going forward, Sadeghi-Naini is aiming to acquire data from larger cohorts of patients to further optimize and validate these methods. While his model is already a major improvement from existing methods of prediction, his team is investigating other ML solutions such as deep learning approaches to enhance the model.

Working within this interdisciplinary field is a long journey of practice, as the jargon and terminology varies drastically between medicine, engineering and computer science. Sadeghi-Naini has worked with clinicians for years and currently holds a cross appointment as a scientist at Sunnybrook Hospital. The willingness of his collaborating clinicians to work closely with him has allowed students from Sadeghi-Naini’s team to gain unique experiences working with clinicians and in clinical environments.

“My students have the opportunity to spend time regularly at [Sunnybrook] hospital, acquiring the data, observing the processes and working directly with clinicians,” said Sadeghi-Naini. “These worlds of engineering and medicine are very different, so this is a great opportunity for students to see how interdisciplinary projects are run and learn from both perspectives.”

The post Lassonde professor advances research in predicting cancer treatment outcomes appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The study, published in the journal��Sociology of Health & Illness, considers progress to reduce health inequalities through public policy action is difficult in Canada, and though researchers and advocates provide data on the sources of these inequalities and means of reducing them, it does not provoke action.

Conducted by researchers from �첥��Ƶ and Ontario Tech University, the study states the causes of health inequalities – particular groups in Canada coming to sicken and die due to their living and working conditions — have been neglected by governing authorities. Despite numerous studies suggesting public policies that would address these causes, little if anything is being done.

In this inquiry, researchers examined whether polemics and anger mobilization – usually absent in health inequalities research and advocacy – could influence Canadian governing authorities to address health inequalities through public policy action.

Usually, terms such as health inequalities, health inequities and adverse health outcomes are used to describe these processes. To move the health equity agenda forward, the research explores the potential use of high-valence terms – such as structural violence, social death and social murder – to force government to understand, and act upon, the sources of health inequalities

“We conclude by outlining the potential benefits and threats posed by polemics and anger mobilization as means of promoting health equity.

Previous studies show there are two primary approaches taken by Canadian researchers and advocates to create impetus for action: providing statistical data that reflects the extent and sources of health inequalities; and, documenting the lived experiences of those encountering these adverse health outcomes. It has also been reported that researchers who undertake critical analysis of the structures and processes contributing to adverse health dispute the view that providing information to governing authorities will, by itself, provoke action.

“In this paper, therefore, we explore the value of making explicit the adverse health effects of what the World Health Organization (2008) terms ‘a toxic combination of poor social policies and programmes’ by adding terms such as structural violence, social death and social murder to health inequalities discourse,” the study states.

The researchers are documenting the frequency of use of terms such as structural violence, social death and social murder in the academic literature as well as in mainstream and social media, and will investigate the reactions these terms elicit from researchers, advocates and students.

“These inquiries will help determine whether polemics and anger arousal are productive ways of provoking public policy responses to health inequalities or, instead, lead to the dismissal of researchers’ and advocates’ arguments, thereby creating an additional barrier to reducing health inequalities. Evidence of initial success in Canada would see the placing of health inequalities on the public policy agendas of governing authorities,” the study states.

Read the study��.

The post Research examines use of anger mobilization to reduce health inequalities causing illness and death appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Researchers at �첥��Ƶ’s Stem Cell Research Group in the Faculty of Health studied the role of a protein called p107, which they uncovered to be a key and fundamental component of the cellular metabolism network during cell division. The results provide a conceptual advance for how muscle stem cells in vivo and in vitro use energy to divide.

These findings on the role of the p107 protein have been published in the journal��Nature Communications, and show it can manipulate the energy generation capacity of mitochondria, which results in a direct reduction of cell division. The p107 protein expression is found in most dividing cells and the findings now identify a potential universal cellular mechanism that could have implications for studies on cancer cell proliferation and stem cell fate decisions.

Corresponding author Anthony Scimè, a �첥��Ƶ associate professor and leader of the Stem Cell Research Group, Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology in the Faculty of Health, and his team say p107, a protein in the retinoblastoma (Rb) family, accomplishes this by sensing the overall energy requirements of muscle stem cells. It blocks energy production from the main source, known as the mitochondria, by repressing mitochondrial-encoded gene transcription. This reduces the production of ATP or energy in the cell by limiting electron-transport-chain-complex formation. The findings provide a conceptual advance for a universal mechanism for how cells regulate energy production to control cell division, which might include cancer cell division.

“This was really a very novel finding because no one suspected that: a) this historically known cell cycle protein would be involved in regulating metabolism; and b) that it would do it by actually entering into the mitochondria and downplay the ATP or energy produced,” said Scimè. “We found that if we sustained the levels of the protein p107 only in the mitochondria, we were able to stop the cell cycle and stop the cells from dividing. ATP output, controlled by the mitochondrial function of p107, is directly associated with the cell cycle rate.”

During the study, researchers looked at muscle stem cells and used a multitude of experimental techniques and methods involving molecular, cellular and whole-body applications. Different types of stem cells can be found throughout the human body and several can only differentiate into cells that belong to the same tissue or organ. In several subsequent experiments, Scimè and his team measured the amount of total energy made by muscle stem cells while they were growing in the presence or absence of p107. These experiments showed that p107-deleted muscle stem cells generated more energy than the controls. Scimè says keeping p107 from the mitochondria had the opposite effect and resulted in an increase in the number of muscle stem cells that would be available for new muscle.

These findings suggest that during the cell cycle, p107 is monitoring how much energy the cell has, and if the cell has too much it will move into the mitochondria and slow down the ATP (energy) production.

The fine-tuned function of stem cells is essential for tissue function. Muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophy, and complications such as muscle loss during aging, are associated with poorly functioning muscle stem cells. These stem cells are required to make fresh muscle that are lost in these disorders. Researchers say an understanding of how muscle stem cells work is critical to finding new treatments.

The post Novel findings on muscle stem cells could benefit cancer cell division research appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The paper, published Oct. 7, finds that the health-promoting possibilities of unionization and working under collective agreements are a neglected area among HPI contributors.

The research team – York graduate students��Jessica Muller,��Faisal A. Mohamed,��Mary Catherine Masciangelo,��Morris Komakech,��Anum Rafiq��and��Azeezah Jafry, along with York Professor����and Ontario Tech University Associate Professor Toba Bryant – explored reasons for this by drawing on an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report.

The report looks at the importance of collective bargaining and was used to identify areas for health promotion research and action.

Researchers considered 2,443 articles published in HPI since its inception and found that only 87 (3.6 per cent) mention unions, unionization, collective agreements or collective bargaining, with most saying little about their role in promoting health.

Further, the study shows that 20 articles make cursory references to unions, or refer to them as providing support and engagement opportunities for individuals, while 45 depict unions or union members as involved in a health promotion program or activity carried out by the authors or by government agencies.

The study shows that only 33 articles explicitly mention unions, unionization or collective agreements as potentially health promoting, which represents just 1.3 per cent of total HPI content since 1986.

With these findings, the paper suggests the journal can support the promotion of health research and action, and raise awareness, by:

• encouraging engagement with this article through HPI-invited commentaries;
• addressing the issue through special issues with a focus on union and labour influences on health and health-related public policy, as well as industrial relations and health; and
• creating an ongoing section dedicated to industrial relations.

Unionization and working under collective agreements appear to provide many health benefits, said Raphael. The benefits include improving the quality and equitable distribution of the social determinants of health of income through wages and benefits (Western and Rosenfeld, 2011), enhanced job security (Hagedorn et al., 2016) and better working conditions (Zoorob, 2018).

As well, enhanced wages and benefits achieved through unionization positively affect additional social determinants of early child development, food and housing security, and reduce social exclusion.

“Considering the growing influence of the corporate sector upon public policy in Canada and the declining numbers of Canadians belong to unions, refocusing on the health-promoting effects of unionization and working under collective agreements seems especially timely,” said Raphael.

To read the full study. “A bibliometric analysis of Health Promotion International content regarding unions, unionization and collective agreements,” visit��.

The post York-led paper uncovers gap in health promotion research appeared first on Research & Innovation.

<Immune Nations>��is the first multi-year research-based exhibition to specifically address the issue of vaccination from a collaborative, interdisciplinary perspective, attentive to the arts and its many roles for advocacy and political intervention. The outcome of a multi-year project that was developed prior to the pandemic (2014-17) and co-led by����(University of Alberta) with����(�첥��Ƶ) and����(University of Alberta), the exhibition explores complex issues related to the use and distribution of vaccines in the world today and the capacity of artistic research to solicit complex forms of affective engagement when dealing with difficult and divisive social and political topics such as vaccination.

Hosted at the McMaster Museum of Art, the exhibition presents features collaborative art and research projects, including original work alongside new work produced in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The panel discussions feature York’s ​Steven Hoffman, Dahdaleh Distinguished Chair in Global Governance and Legal Epidemiology, professor and director of the ; Alison Humphrey, Vanier Scholar and PhD candidate; and Caitlin Fisher, professor and director of the Immersive Storytelling Lab.

The discussions will be hosted on Zoom, and include an audience Q-and-A. All panels are free and open to the public.

Ensuring Equitable Access: Life-Saving Vaccines during COVID-19 and Beyond

Thursday, Oct. 14, 12 to 1:30 p.m.

This panel will explore the global deployment and lack of access to life-saving vaccines.

Moderator: ​Steven Hoffman, director, Global Strategy Lab

Panellists:
Annemarie Hou, appointed executive director, United Nations Office for Partnerships;
Alison Humphrey, Vanier Scholar and PhD candidate, �첥��Ƶ;
Lauren Paremoer, senior lecturer, University of Cape Town; and
John-Arne Røttingen, ambassador for global health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway.

To learn more about the panellists and to register, click .

Research-Creation and Global Crisis: Interdisciplinarity, Creativity and Collaboration

Thursday, Nov. 25, 12 to 1:30 p.m.

This panel investigates the role of research-creation in tackling pressing social and global problems.

Moderator: Natalie Loveless, associate professor of contemporary art and theory, University of Alberta

Panellists:
Ted Hewitt, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada;
Charu Kaushic, scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Infection and Immunity, and professor in the Department of Medicine, McMaster University;
Caitlin Fisher, director of the Immersive Storytelling Lab and Professor of Cinema and Media Arts, �첥��Ƶ;
Patrick Mahon, artist, curator and visual arts professor, Western University; and
​Kim TallBear, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Environment, and professor of Native Studies, University of Alberta.

To learn more about the panellists and to register, click .

Vaccine Confidence, Fear and Misinformation in an Age of COVID

Thursday, Dec. 9, 12 to 1:30 p.m.

A panel exploring the impact of misinformation on vaccination as well as ways of countering the negative impacts of misinformation in relation to public health.

Moderator: Sean Caulfield, Professor, University of Alberta

Panellists:
Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, University of Alberta;
Rachelle Viader Knowles, head of international for arts and humanities, Manchester Metropolitan University;
Dr. David Price, professor and Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University; and
Theresa Tam, chief public health officer of Canada.

To learn more about the panellists and to register, click��.

The post Research-based exhibit on vaccination features panel discussions with York experts appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Dr.��Patrick Safieh, a member of the hospital’s medical staff, is spearheading the project after his own experience in the Healthcare Leadership Development Program (HLDP) developed by SEEC in the Schulich School of Business at �첥��Ƶ. HLDP is an example of a SEEC��.

An instructor with SEEC and a lecturer at the University of Toronto, Safieh was inspired to launch a training program for medical students in the hospital’s new Family Medicine Teaching Unit to help them better understand the non-medical aspects of delivering services in a time of budget restraints and disruptive change.

“As part of my own Healthcare Leadership Development Program course work [in 2019], I designed a Family Medicine Teaching Unit at Humber River Hospital, which provides full-time core teaching of University of Toronto medical school students,” said Safieh, a facilitator in SEEC’s new . “HLDP helped with areas that I needed to accomplish goals, such as networking, presenting, negotiating and other essential skills.”

Safieh’s success in creating a teaching unit at Humber River Hospital also comes from a partnership he fostered between Humber River Hospital, the University of Toronto and various hospital departments that worked together to achieve a successful result.

“I was privileged to be involved in the genesis of this Humber River project and am proud to say that the HLDP provided the tools to get this project started. The program was instrumental in getting this project off the ground, and will benefit the hospital, physicians, and ultimately patients through improved family and emergency medicine for the community. I was able to immediately apply my HLDP learning in helping to create Humber River Hospital’s Family Medicine Teaching Unit,” said Safieh.

Safieh’s project also aims to position Humber River Hospital as a major health-care centre for the 850,000 people living in a relatively under-serviced section of northwest Toronto.

SEEC has worked successfully for more than 10 years with various health-care organizations across Canada by delivering custom versions of the Healthcare Leadership Development Program. It also offers several open enrolment leadership programs for physicians, dentists and clinicians under the Schulich Mini-MBA brand.

Participants in the HLDP receive a master’s certificate upon completion of 90 hours of study that includes:

• leadership assessment exercises;
• executive one-on-one and group coaching;
• knowledgeable faculty members that teach topics such as design thinking, complexity theory, negotiation, collaboration, and leadership and conflict resolution; and
• independent learning tailored to each participant’s personal leadership development needs.

For more on what SEEC has to offer, visit the��.

The post Schulich program inspires teaching focus at Humber River Hospital appeared first on Research & Innovation.

With a scarcity of COVID-19 vaccines in many African countries and the rise of new variants of concern, the��Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium��(ACADIC) is playing a pivotal role in providing locally nuanced analysis of data to inform public health decision making, as well as vaccination rollout strategies.

The interdisciplinary consortium is directed by �첥��Ƶ Professor  from the Faculty of Science. Also serving on the executive committee from �첥��Ƶ are: Distinguished Research Professor , director of the  in the Faculty of Science and ACADIC co-president; Professor James Orbinski, director of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research and ACADIC executive committee member; and LA&PS Associate Professor , associate director of the  and ACADIC executive committee member. ACADIC brings together an interdisciplinary team of data scientists, epidemiologists, physicists, mathematicians and software engineers, as well as AI, disaster and emergency management, clinical public health, citizen science and community engagement experts. It is leveraging big data and AI-based techniques in nine African countries, with experts from 11 different countries – Botswana, Cameroon, Canada, Eswatini, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

These techniques help identify and analyze emergent COVID-19 hotspots and outbreaks, and develop strategic, highly targeted and staged delivery plans for vaccines to priority areas. The team is also using ongoing monitoring to enhance COVID-19 testing to ensure public health interventions are equitable and effective.

Half of the world’s doses of vaccines have been secured by a handful of economically developed countries, but most African nations have received very few and continue to prepare and test their vaccination campaigns for when sufficient vaccine doses are made available.

A defining challenge is to develop local strategies that will reduce the number of COVID-19 cases, even as variants of concern circulate amidst a dearth of vaccines.

Some areas of focus for York researchers involved in ACADIC include:

• making big data and AI actionable for real-time delivery of reliable and comprehensive information to predict the spread and impact of an epidermic, and to guide governmental policies and best practice in an epidemic;
• the role of big data and AI in understanding and intervening in pandemics;
• big data, AI and COVID-19 in Africa;
• the��;
• vaccine acceptance/hesitancy across Africa;
• incorporating AI and mathematical modelling for smart vaccination rollout in vaccine-limited regions;
• clinical public health practices in epidemics and pandemics;
• intervention systems in disasters and health emergencies;
• disease dynamics and modelling;
• transferring lessons learned from mass vaccination simulation to Africa;
• disease modelling and simulation in refugee camps in Africa; and
• use of AI to model economic impacts of COVID-19 in Africa.

The post How artificial intelligence and big data are fighting COVID-19 in Africa appeared first on Research & Innovation.