Mind The Disruption

How do you foster healthy and just places and spaces through everyday public health work? Listen to this episode to learn from longtime environmental health officer Anita Ely about working in partnership, embedding an intentional health equity lens and creating healthy public policies to foster healthy built environments for all.  Episode guest: Anita Ely is a Certified Public Health Inspector (Ca...

What can we do to promote culturally safe places and spaces across the health system? Listen to this episode to learn about how Dr. Terri Aldred, the Academic Lead for the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health, disrupts dominant narratives about Indigeneity. Terri shares stories from her journey to become an Indigenous physician, outlines concrete actions practitioners can take to fo...

How can public health work with migrant farmworkers to ensure healthy and just housing conditions? Listen to this episode to learn about how our current system allows for unsafe housing conditions for migrant farmworkers. Kit Andres, long-time organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, shares recommendations developed by migrants themselves and opportunities for public health to be part o...

What makes a public green space healthy for everyone? Listen to this episode to hear how Dr. Nadha Hassen is disrupting the status quo through intersectional and anti-racist approaches in research and community collaborations. Nadha speaks with host Pemma Muzumdar, sharing unique insights on why public green spaces are a critical part of public health infrastructure. Episode Guest: Dr. Nadha Hasse...

Welcome back! In the fourth season of Mind the Disruption, we focus on healthy and just places and spaces.  We’ll explore topics such as the natural and built environment, belonging, a safe and secure place to call home, and cultural humility and safety. Join us as we reflect on opportunities for people in public health to work with others to create healthy and just places and spaces for everyone....

In response to rising tensions and unmet needs in its downtown core, the City of Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellbeing team and partners questioned assumptions and embarked on a journey of deep listening and co-creation of solutions with residents to cultivate connectedness and well-being. Check out this episode, featuring former RECOVER project manager Sue Holdsworth, to discover how RECOVER’s well-...

Engage Nova Scotia is working to better measure, understand and improve well-being for all Nova Scotians through a large Quality of Life survey, accessible data tools and deep community engagement. Over two episodes, you will meet multiple members of the vibrant Engage Nova Scotia team: Chief Engagement Officer Danny Graham, Outreach and Participation Lead Tammy Ewing, Community Outreach Lead for...

Engage Nova Scotia is working to better measure, understand and improve well-being for all Nova Scotians through a large Quality of Life survey, accessible data tools and deep community engagement. Over two episodes, you will meet multiple members of the vibrant Engage Nova Scotia team: Chief Engagement Officer Danny Graham, Outreach and Participation Lead Tammy Ewing, Community Outreach Lead for...

Many public health practitioners provide a range of supports focused on sexual and reproductive health. Listen to this episode to hear about how Dr. Saraswathi Vedam and her team at the Birth Place Lab are disrupting the status quo for reproductive health research in Canada by intentionally centring the voices and priorities of communities that are under-represented and excluded from health resear...

Check out this episode to learn from Chloé Cébron and Shezeen Suleman who are part of a growing movement mobilizing for the right to health care for all people living in Canada, regardless of immigration status. In this episode, Chloé, the director of policy and advocacy at Médecins du Monde, shares lessons from a successful advocacy campaign to expand health care coverage for all children living...

As Director of the Community Climate Resilience Lab, Dr. Imara Rolston recognizes that the climate crisis is a health emergency that will disproportionally impact racialized communities. Listen to this episode to hear how Imara and his team are bringing together non-profit leaders, grassroots leaders, academics, and policy makers and creating a Toronto-focused Racial Justice Climate Resilience fra...

Transcript ( PDF or download Word document ) As the National Director of Disability Without Poverty, Rabia Khedr is building a vibrant intersectional movement led by people with disabilities to end disability poverty through a new federal Canada Disability Benefit. Listen to this episode to learn from Rabia about why this benefit is so necessary and what is still needed to deliver meaningful chang...

Wendie Wilson is a mother, educator, artist, writer, community advocate and a member of the African Nova Scotian and Black Food Sovereignty working group for the Halifax region’s JustFOOD Action Plan, alongside registered dietitian Nickaya Parris. In this episode, Wendie and Nickaya provide a window into the transformative work happening to advance community-rooted food sovereignty action in Nova...

As founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) Project, Dr. Ingrid Waldron works alongside African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities to disrupt environmental racism as a necessary part of the environmental justice movement. In this episode, Ingrid positions environmental racism as an urgent health equity issue and highlights h...

Welcome back! In the second season of Mind the Disruption, we explore social movements for social justice: groups of people working together to build collective power for change. In each episode, you’ll hear from someone – a disruptor - who works with others to challenge the status quo because they have a deep shared conviction that a healthier, more just world is possible. You’ll also hear from a...

Registered dietitian Lillian Yin joins us to talk about why weight discrimination is so harmful. She shares her vision for a nourishing future of public health and nutrition, as well as practical ways to challenge weight bias and discrimination in our daily lives and areas of work.  Season 1 of Mind the Disruption was a success! We’ve decided to release bonus content from three episodes. This stan...

Season 1 of Mind the Disruption was a success! We’ve decided to release bonus content from three episodes. This standalone episode features more from former Chief Nursing Officer Heather Lokko who was a reflective guest on Episode 3 Disrupting the Status Quo in Public Health . Listen to this episode to learn about implementing health equity and anti-racism strategies at a public health organizatio...

Season 1 of Mind the Disruption was a success! We’ve decided to release bonus content from three episodes. This standalone episode features more from Medical Officer of Health Dr. Monika Dutt who was a reflective guest on Episode 1 Disrupting Gig Work . Listen to this bonus episode to learn about how public health can collaborate with worker-led organizers to advance decent work to promote and pro...

Harlan Pruden is Nehiyô/First Nations Cree, Two-Spirit, and a dedicated disruptor of settler colonialism, homophobia, and transphobia with the goal of creating better tomorrows with and for Two-Spirit communities. Listen to this episode to hear how Harlan found his purpose of creating affirming spaces for Two-Spirit people, and to explore how we as public health professionals can support decoloniz...

Paul Taylor, the former head of FoodShare and a life-long anti-poverty activist, dismantles the barriers – include fat phobia and weight bias – that constrain people’s access to food on their own terms. Listen to this episode to hear Paul’s story, learn about FoodShare’s commitment to food justice, body liberation and fat acceptance, and reflect on how public health practitioners can confront harm...

Sarom Rho is a migrant and a community organizer who unites with other migrant workers to mobilize for full and permanent immigration status for all in Canada. Listen to this episode to learn from Sarom about the ways in which immigration status, employment and health are linked, and to consider why a global approach to local public health practice matters with public health professor and research...

Samiya Abdi has trained thousands of public health practitioners to recognize the power that each of us has to do something different in the face of health inequities and injustice. Listen to this episode to learn from both Samiya and Heather Lokko – two seasoned public health professionals working at the provincial and local levels – about how to transform public health practice, teams, organizat...

Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh has been raising tough conversations about Whiteness, White Supremacy and racism for over ten years in a public health field that often insisted it wasn't ready. Listen to this episode to hear Sume’s story and then reflect on disrupting Whiteness in public health and the nursing field with public health nurses Mandy Walker and Hannah Klassen.   (00:00) Introduction (02:22) Intervi...

Jennifer Scott delivers food on her bike in Toronto and organizes with other gig workers to fight against the challenging – and often unsafe and harmful – employer practice of misclassifying workers. Listen to this episode to hear Jennifer’s story and reflect on why healthy working conditions are essential for public health with Medical Officer of Health Dr. Monika Dutt. (00:00) Introduction (02:2...

Welcome to Mind the Disruption. This is a show about people who refuse to accept things as they are. It's about people pushing for better health for all. It's about people like us who have a deep desire to build a healthier, more just world. Episodes coming in Fall 2022. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode.  Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants...