Disability Dialogues

Welcome back to Season 2 of  Disability Dialogues! A podcast about co-creating inclusive healthcare and wellbeing with communities brought to you by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing at Toronto Metropolitan University. If this trailer sparked something in you, don’t let it stop here. Visit  ⁠torontomu.ca/cerc-health-equity⁠  and check out our Knowledge M...

Ontario’s crisis response system often relies on police as the first point of contact for people experiencing mental health or substance-related distress. This approach can criminalize individuals instead of addressing the deeper issues—such as poverty, housing insecurity, and discrimination—that shape many crises. Community-led crisis models offer a different path. By centering lived experience,...

AI moderation often fails marginalized groups, especially disabled women and girls, because existing datasets ignore their lived experiences, leading to missed abuse, over-censorship, and reinforced bias. Researchers advocate for co-created, intersectional datasets and contextual AI that understands nuance, intent, and transparent explainable systems to build trust. Addressing data scarcity, bias,...

The voices of Youth lend an important addition to community research, in every stage from design to dissemination. Centering co-design, training, accessibility, and lived experience ensures marginalized voices are included and systemic barriers are addressed. This approach builds confidence and trust while creating tangible impacts on policy, practice, and community wellbeing. In this episode of D...

Current disability supports in Canada keep people surviving, not thriving. Thriving means more than financial security — it includes wellbeing, belonging, autonomy, and growth. Policies must shift from deficit-based to person-centered, expanding real financial supports, ensuring accessibility, and valuing all forms of participation, guided by the voices of people with disabilities. In this episode...

While digital technologies promise empowerment and inclusion, they also introduce new risks—especially for those at the intersection of gender and disability. Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) is abuse carried out through digital tools, disproportionately affecting women and girls with disabilities due to reliance on assistive tech, socioeconomic barriers, and caregiver or peer...

What does it really take to make healthcare equitable for marginalized communities? For millions living with disabilities, racialized demographics and women, accessing healthcare can feel more like an obstacle rather than something helpful. It’s neither built for them nor with them in mind. Despite good intentions, many services remain inaccessible, unresponsive, and disconnected from the realitie...

Welcome to  Disability Dialogues , a podcast about co-creating inclusive healthcare and wellbeing with communities brought to you by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing at Toronto Metropolitan University. If this trailer sparked something in you, don’t let it stop here. Visit  torontomu.ca/cerc-health-equity  and check out our Knowledge Mobilization Hub to...

Content note: This episode contains discussions of suicide and medical assistance in dying (MAiD) for mental illness. This special release explores the complexities and emotional terrain of MAiD through a personal and reflective lens, inviting listeners to consider what it means to navigate life, loss, and autonomy within academic and institutional spaces.