Historically, scientific research has been conducted without legitimate engagement with or, in many cases, at the expense of Indigenous communities. To reconcile research relationships, there is growing recognition of the need to engage with Indigenous nations throughout the research process and to pursue questions that are valued by those who live on and care for the lands where research is occurring. An area of shared interest is the health of wildlife and ecosystems; many communities depend on wildlife for sustenance and livelihoods, and, thus, threats to wildlife health extend to impact food security, culture, and wellbeing. Through two days of relationship-building and dialogue with Akisq’nuk First Nation members who live in and outside of community we plan to 1) identify Nation priorities for wildlife health and Indigenous food sovereignty research, 2) develop an engagement protocol guiding future research, and 3) co-create knowledge products describing these priorities for use by the Nation, the research team, and the Wildlife Health Program (Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship). This project will serve as a basis for future community-driven research efforts and inform provincial wildlife health programs.
Research Location: Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
Advancing sexual health equity in BC through intersectoral collaboration across education and healthcare
Schools are a critical site for ensuring Sexual Health Education (SHE) in BC; however, recent increases in anti-SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) organizing threaten youth’s access to 2S;LGBTQ+ affirming SHE. This project brings together an intersectoral advisory group which includes a range of partners working in SHE, health promotion, service delivery, and related areas. We will establish an advisory group to identify research priorities for working across the otherwise siloed sectors of education and sexual healthcare. Together, we will co-create a research agenda that aims to strengthen and support access to 2S;LGBTQ+ affirming sexual health education. Throughout the project we will leverage opportunities for intersectoral learning and lay the groundwork to subsequently develop a range of KTE materials to support sexual health education policy and practice. This project brings experts together to facilitate knowledge sharing across sectors, identify research-informed strategies to improve sexual health education, and co-create future applied research opportunities to ultimately generate resources to support professionals in delivering 2S;LGBTQ+ affirming SHE.
“Safety Lenses”: An Exhibition from the Community Voices on News Coverage of Police Violence Project
This proposal supports two phases of an art exhibit that brings attention to police violence as a source of public health inequity. Policing practices in Canada have long caused disproportionate harm and can extend to secondary health impacts caused by media exposure to violence. For over two decades, public health scholars in the U.S. have used a public health framing to improve understandings of health outcomes of, and the data that is collected on, police violence. This data is vital to track policing impacts, so if Canadians hope to understand the health outcomes related to police violence, Canadian health scholars will need to advocate for better information tracing and a public health approach to police violence. This proposal will support a community co-created art exhibit that examines health impacts of media exposure to police violence. The show will feature co-created works, an interactive mural, an infographic public report on the health impacts of police violence, a workshop, and a panel discussion with public health scholars. The in-person art exhibit will take place at Gallery Gachet in Fall 2024, the eight (8) subsequent presentations will share the findings to health and media scholars throughout B.C. and Ontario.
From Data to Dinner Plates: Empowering Equitable Transitions to Healthy and Sustainable Diets through Behavioural and Data Sciences
This research program aims to tackle the challenge of improving the overall health of the Canadian population, focusing on nutrition. The approach involves using methods from behavioral and data sciences. The study will investigate how small, non-economic encouragements (nudges) and financial incentives can influence people to make healthier and more sustainable food choices over the long term. For example, placing healthy food options prominently at the checkout is a type of nudge. The research involves creating an underlying technological infrastructure, connecting it with data from a grocery store loyalty card program, and analyzing how nudges and economic incentives affect shopping habits over time. The analysis will consider their impacts on total food intake, nutrients consumed, and the environmental impact of food choices. Additionally, the research will examine these influences across different socioeconomic groups to understand and address nutrition disparities. The ultimate aim is to offer practical insights for policymakers and businesses to promote fair, healthy, and sustainable diets.
Addressing inter-individual variability in aging: linking lifestyle factors to the brain and behaviour
Cognitive decline is associated with a variety of neurodegenerative disorders and is increasingly prevalent in Canada’s aging population. One of the most effective means to counteract cognitive decline is to maintain or enhance cognitive reserve. Lifestyle factors have been shown to impact cognitive reserve, but this impact varies highly across individuals. Most investigations into the effects of lifestyle factors on behavior and neural function do not capture this inter-individual variability and produced mixed, difficult to reproduce findings. This research aims to reduce this variability by clustering the population into sub-types based on their susceptibility to lifestyle changes before investigating the causal relationships between lifestyle factors, behaviour and neural function. The identified causal relationships will serve as promising targets for future clinical interventions in sub-types of our aging population that can limit the effects of cognitive decline and lower the rates of neurodegenerative diseases. In addition to the classical means of knowledge translation, this research will be shared through public presentations held by the Institute of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology at Simon Fraser University.
A chemical biology approach to uncovering modulators of a Parkinson’s disease-linked protein
Enzymes are biological machines which facilitate crucial processes in the human body. A reduction in the function of a given enzyme, sometimes brought about by an alteration or “mutation” to the underlying genetic code, often results in disease. In Parkinson’s disease (PD), a mutation in the GBA1 gene can cause earlier disease onset and rapid motor decline. Furthermore, the enzyme glucocerebrosidase (GCase) that is encoded by GBA1 is less active in PD patients regardless of whether they have a defective GBA1 gene. We hypothesize that GCase is altered or “modulated” by other proteins within the cell. My first goal in this project will be to create improved ways to measure the activity of GCase in live human cells. Previous work has shown that “ratiometric fluorescence sensors” – small molecules which light up when processed by a target enzyme – have high efficacy towards this end. The activity of a large library of existing drug candidates will then be tested for their ability to modulate GCase. Changes measured in GCase activity within cells treated with these drug candidates will help identify these aforementioned unknown “modulators”, thus revealing new insights into the mechanisms of PD and opening new therapeutic approaches.
Enhancing Canada’s Capacity to Respond to Complex One Health Issues Through Communications and Collaboration
A holistic, collaborative approach that addresses the interconnections of human, animal, and environmental health (‘One Health’) is increasingly recognized as necessary for the management of ongoing and emerging health threats. This requires effective knowledge sharing and communication strategies between government agencies and One Health practitioners (e.g., physicians, veterinarians, and environmental scientists). Using a community-engaged approach, we will describe the scope of One Health issues in two Canadian provinces – British Columbia and Ontario – and review how One Health information is currently shared. Through engagement with a diverse community of stakeholders in academia, government, and practice, we will assess information and policy needs, priorities, and possibilities within local contexts and explore how One Health Communication strategies can be deployed and sustained at a regional level. By combining One Health systems science and communications research, this project will improve our ability and capacity to provide relevant and timely information related to human, animal, and environmental health and mitigate emerging health threats in Canada.
Understanding and exploiting the role of phagocyte mechanobiology in anti-tumor immunity
Cancer is the leading cause of mortality in British Columbia. Whereas the immune system has long been recognized as an effective protection against infections, recent breakthroughs have demonstrated that the immune system also has the capacity to control cancer progression. Thus, cancer immunotherapies are being developed as a new type of treatment that acts by boosting the natural capacities of the immune system and directing it to destroy tumors. Amongst the different types of cells composing the immune system, professional phagocytes have the unique capacity to eliminate cancer cells by engulfing and digesting them. Subsequently, they are able to activate other immune cells, called lymphocytes, to mount an immune response specifically directed against the tumor. However, new evidence suggests that mechanical cues and physical constraints prevent phagocytes from using their anti-tumor potential. The goal of this project is to understand how phagocytes sense, respond and utilize mechanical forces to overcome physical constraints, with the aim to harness these mechanisms to develop more effective cancer immunotherapies.
Youth.hood: Mobilizing research to achieve healthier built environments for youth in under-resourced neighbourhoods
Our proposal will extend the reach of research findings from Youth.hood—a community-engaged research project exploring how built environments shape social connectedness and health for youth living in under-resourced areas. Youth.hood grew out of the success of our long-standing collaboration (SFU Health Sciences/Urban Studies, South Vancouver Neighbourhood House) to uncover social infrastructure gaps in South Vancouver: inequities that effectively disadvantage the health and resilience of residents. Youth.hood findings tell a compelling story of the role that social infrastructure plays in connectedness, cultural identity, and resilience, and how a lack of active transportation infrastructure, neighbourhood upkeep, and quality youth-friendly spaces create barriers to wellbeing. Our proposal will mobilize findings with an aim to advance healthier built environments for youth in South Vancouver, and inform broader dialogue and practice on planning of healthier cities with and for young people. Through tools and engagement activities co-designed and co-delivered with community, our proposal promises to achieve impacts at multiple levels—including environmental, policy, and practice—in Vancouver, and for city building more broadly.
Undertaking the co-design of climate distress services for young people in British Columbia
This proposal aims to facilitate a new partnership between the Green Technology Education Centre (GTEC), the Mental Health and Climate Change Alliance (MHCCA/SFU), and youth and young adults, aged 16-24. Leveraging this partnership, we will convene and collaborate with youth to inform the development of potential GTEC campus- and digitally-based interventions for climate-related distress. The convening and collaboration activities will include two multi-stage focus groups and ongoing meetings between GTEC and MHCCA researchers. Each focus group cohort will consist of 6-12 young people, recruited through the MHCCA and GTEC professional networks and advertisements on Twitter and Facebook. Each focus group will be interviewed twice to: 1) Explore current reactions to climate change and 2) Develop ideas about educational and support services that GTEC can offer to support young people. These focus group interviews and ongoing meetings between GTEC and MHCCA team members will be leveraged to develop a CIHR project grant proposal that will aim to develop, pilot, and evaluate an intervention for climate change related distress among young people, aged 16-24.
Team members: Arden Henley (Green Technology Education Centre); Linda Thyer (Green Technology Education Centre); Andreea Bratu (UBC – School of Population and Public Health).
End of Award Update – November 2024
Results
The project’s findings vividly highlighted the emotional toll of climate change on young people, including heightened anxiety, feelings of uncertainty about the future, and a sense of betrayal by societal leaders. These insights provide a clear picture of the mental health challenges faced by young individuals in the context of climate change, informing the development of targeted support services.
The project underscored the need for enhanced education on climate change and its impacts, as well as the importance of community-based programs. By advocating for the integration of climate education into school curricula and the establishment of supportive community initiatives, the project paves the way for more informed and resilient young populations.
The project’s collaborative approach has set a precedent for future community-academic partnerships aimed at addressing complex societal issues like climate change. This model of cooperation ensures that interventions are both evidence-based and closely aligned with community needs and perspectives.
The project’s work in designing and planning specific interventions, such as professional development courses for service providers and peer-to-peer support networks, offers a blueprint for practical strategies to combat climate distress. These planned interventions, once implemented, could serve as models for similar initiatives worldwide.
Impact
The “Repairing the Social Contract” project has made significant strides in integrating the mental health impacts of climate change into the broader conversation on health care in British Columbia, catalyzing a shift towards recognizing and addressing climate distress among young people. By uncovering the profound emotional and psychological effects of climate change on youth and advocating for targeted educational and support services, the project has laid the groundwork for more informed, compassionate, and effective health care responses.
Potential Influence
The “Repairing the Social Contract” project is poised to influence human health and health care significantly in British Columbia, and potentially on a national and international scale, by pioneering a holistic approach to integrating climate change into mental health care strategies. As the project develops targeted interventions and disseminates its findings, it is likely to inspire health care policies and practices that acknowledge and address the psychological impacts of climate change, encouraging a shift towards more resilient public health systems. Additionally, by serving as a model for collaborative, community-engaged research, the project could influence global health care paradigms, promoting the incorporation of environmental factors into mental health considerations and treatment protocols.
Next Steps
We are launching an intervention series provincially to help communities act on these findings, supported by a $1.8 million dollar investment.