Keynote: Dr. Ojistoh Kahnawahere Horn
Ro ti kenh shon tah tie: Indigenous Voices in the Decision Making for the Health of the Planet
Dr. Ojistoh Kahnawahere Horn, a Bear Clan Mohawk/Haudenosaunee family physician from Kahnawake and Akwesasne, shared how intertwined systems—land, water, politics, and medicine—shape health in her border-straddling community. Grounded in both clinical practice and traditional knowledge, she explored the layered impacts of pollution, energy infrastructure, and jurisdictional conflict on individual and community wellbeing. Her work in Akwesasne offers a lens through which to understand broader health and environmental challenges facing Indigenous communities across Turtle Island.
Panel Sessions
Morning Sessions
This panel explored participatory and community-based approaches to addressing the mental health impacts of the climate crisis. By centring lived experience and promoting agency, panelists illustrated how experiential knowledge can inform more responsive mental health interventions and climate adaptation and mitigation strategies that are rooted in hope, connection, and justice.
From Climate Distress to Collective Action: Participatory Approaches for Mental Health and Well-Being
- Swelen Andari: Building Climate-Resilient Futures with Youth by Adapting an Active Hope Intervention
- Sophia Bryan-Carbonell & Sarah Merghani: Scaling Climate Mental Health: Evaluating the Impact of University-Based Climate Cafés
- Siqi Xue: Lived Experience with Climate Change among Women with Mental Illness: Understanding Service Needs and Potential Interventions
This panel explored how health policy, education, and practice can be transformed by engaging with more-than-human perspectives. Through case studies spanning infectious disease, surgical practice, and climate adaptation, panelists discussed the need to reconsider interspecies relationships, everyday habits, and embodied ways of knowing.
Sustainability in Everyday Life: Building Practical and More-than-human Consciousness to Change Policy and Practice
- Sonia Meerai & Chizuru Nobe-Ghelani: Sensing Invisibilities: Revisioning Communication Across the More Than-Human to Transform Health Policy, Practice, and Education
- Antonia Di Castri: Climate Action and Infectious Disease Prevention: Posthuman Provocations from a More-than-literature Review of Tick-borne Disease Prevention
- Dr. Colin Sue-Chue-Lam: Unsustainability is What People Do: The Case for Surgical Practice as Social Practice
This panel explored the potential of community-engaged research to advance climate and health equity. Panelists explored good practices for how researchers can collaborate with communities to co-produce knowledge, elevate local voices, and contribute to community goals.
Community Engaged Research
- Amy Wright: Living Strong: A Community Engaged Approach
- Kassandra Drodge: Stories of Transition: Building Energy from the Ground Up
- Ayan Mohamed & Nadha Hassen: Sparking Change: A Community-engaged Evaluation of an Urban Greenspace Program for Health Equity
Early Afternoon Sessions
This panel explored innovative, evidence-based strategies to reduce the environmental harms of care by showcasing projects using data-driven approaches, inter-professional collaboration, and behaviour change models to cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce waste, and lower costs—while maintaining clinical safety and efficiency.
Reducing Environmental Harms of Care
- Alina Zgardau: Optimizing the Head & Neck Minor Dissecting Surgical Tray: QI Initiative to Reduce Costs & Carbon Footprint
- Hilalion (San) Ahn: Sustainable Scopes: Potable Tap Water as a Cost-effective Eco-friendly Alternative
- Michelle Sheojung Shin: Evaluation of Waste & Disposal Practices in the Bronchoscopy Suite
- Elisabeth Perlikowski: Not all Operating Room Garbage is the Same: The Impact of Properly Sorting Biohazardous Waste
- Mike Apostol: Biodegradable PPE: Why Greener Isn’t Always Better
- Susan Deering: Sunnybrook’s Nitrous Oxide Journey
- Elaine Ng: Greening the Operating Room: Experience at a Tertiary Care Pediatric Hospital
As the health impacts of climate change intensify, there is a growing imperative to integrate planetary health into health professional education. This panel explored how educators and learners are advancing climate-responsive curricula across disciplines, from medicine to pharmacy to health administration. Through diverse approaches to curriculum development, competency frameworks, and student-led advocacy, panelists discussed opportunities to embed sustainability, equity, and environmental accountability into health education and prepare future leaders for a climate-resilient future.
Planetary Health Education
- Jocelyn Bonti-Ankomah: Identifying Planetary Health Competencies to Guide the Integration of Planetary Health within Pharmacy Curriculum
- Genny Ng: Advancing Climate Change Education with the Planetary Health Report Card
- Marlee Vinegar: Development of Planetary Health Learning Modules for Family Medicine Residents and Teachers at U of T
As climate change increasingly affects health and well-being, healthcare systems must adapt to meet emerging challenges. This panel explored discussed how to recognize climate-related health risks, identify those most vulnerable, and strengthen cross-sector collaboration to build more resilient, equitable, and sustainable models of care.
Care in a Changing Climate
- Franca Ursitti: Peel Public Health’s Heat Vulnerability Index
- Jessica Cuppage: Older Adult Care in a Changing Climate
- Samantha Green & Anushen Selvasegar: Protecting communities from extreme heat
Late Afternoon Sessions
As artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in health care, its environmental and ethical implications demand greater scrutiny. This panel took a critical look at the hidden climate costs of AI, questioning assumptions about innovation, efficiency, and value. Panelists explored how health systems can navigate the tradeoffs of AI adoption while ensuring sustainability, equity, and transparency.
Climate Costs of Health AI
- Chris McIntosh: ML, Carbon, and Healthcare: The Not so Hidden Costs
- Bettina Kemme: Opportunities for building sustainable data science pipelines: A systematic approach
- Muhammad Mamdani: Impact of AI in Health
This panel will feature emerging research from trainees examining the complex relationships between climate change, environmental exposures, and human health. Presentations highlighted how climate-related factors influence health outcomes, healthcare utilization, and equity.
Climate & Health Trainee Research
Chloe DesRoche: Sex-specific Associations of Short-term Environmental Exposures with Utilization of Medical Imaging in the Emergency Department
Felipe Castillo: Sex-specific Associations of Long-term Air Pollution Exposure with Coronary Artery Stenosis on Cardiac CT
Eray Yilmaz: Projections of Future Heat-related Emergency Medical Imaging Demand under Climate Change Scenarios
Mariam Farooq: A Systematic Review of Gendered Impacts of Extreme Climate Events on Women Living in Poverty
Mehnaz Munir: The Effects of Exposure to Air Pollution on Obesity and Ectopic Fats: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Salima Kerai: Extreme Temperatures and Child Wellbeing: Evidence from Pakistan
Sarah Jarvis: Environmental Impacts of Recommended Diets for Cardiometabolic Health
This panel explored practical strategies to use quality improvement and implementation science methodologies to advance environmental sustainability in healthcare. Through case-based discussions and real-world examples, panelists shared approaches to engaging patients and clinicians in environmentally responsible choices and implementing system-level approaches to support sustainable practices.
Bridging the Gap: Quality Improvement & Implementation Science
- Sarah Ward: Increasing the Environmental Sustainability of Canadian Operating Rooms: An Evidence Informed Guideline
- Mandy Lam: Improving Environmental Sustainability by Decreasing Inhalational Anesthetic Emissions in Pediatric Surgery – A Quality Improvement Study
- Stacey Butler: Choosing Green: Conversation Aids for Integrating Environmental Awareness into Inhaler Prescriptions
Posters
| Presenters | Poster title |
|---|---|
| Aly Muhammad Ladak | Environmental Sustainability in Radiology: Switch from Paper-Based to Digital Outpatient Appointment Communication |
| Anastasia MacDougall | Scaling Unit-Level Recycling Success across The Ottawa Hospital |
| Anna De Jong | Climate Cafés as a Space for Navigating Climate Emotions: A Scoping Review |
| Caitlin Roy | Pharmacy and Planetary Health Research Project and Publication Repository |
| Abdelrahman Said, Caroline Kinnear, Peter Pasceri, Guoliang Meng, Wei Wei, James Ellis, Seema Mital | Implementing Sustainable Lab Practices through the My Green Lab Program at SickKids |
| Carolyn Houlding | Conservation and Sustainability Focused Group on an Inpatient Clinical Mental Health Program: Impact, Acceptability, Feasibility |
| Charmi Shah | Extending the Life of Anesthesia Breathing Circuits: Safety Considerations and the Urgent Need for Consensus Guidelines in Canada |
| Darius Baginskis, Sydney Schultz, Genny Ng | Building the Case for Climate-Informed Healthcare Leadership: Lessons Learned from the PHRC Healthcare Management Pilot |
| Diego Rada Rojas | Endotoxins and Environmental Factors Associated with Childhood Asthma in Canada |
| Erin Flanagan, Mariya Bezgrebelna, Renée Rosenmann, Katie Upham, Sean A. Kidd | The Role of Landlords in Shaping Housing Responses to Climate Change and Health Equity |
| Gregory Ryan Gismondi | There Is No Planet B: Streamlining Operating Room Sustainability Project through Machine Learning in Pediatric Surgery |
| Harshit Gujral | Why EVs must Replace—Not Supplement—Existing Gas-powered Vehicles for Meaningful Public Health Benefits |
| Helena Teng | Developing an Environmental Sustainability Strategy for North York General Hospital |
| Huy Nguyen | A Comparison of Climate Change Adaptation Plans in Canada with a Focus on Poverty and Homelessness |
| Japleen Thind, Megan Abbott, Susan Deering | From Waste to Workshop: ReSuture – A Pilot Initiative Repurposing Suturing Supplies for Medical Education |
| Katie Cameron | Examining the Connection Between Sustainability and Employee Well-Being |
| Kyobin Hwang | Evidence-Based Strategies to Reduce the Environmental Impact of Ophthalmology: A National Toolkit for Sustainable Eye Care |
| Leanne Lacap, Jolly Noor | Women in the Midst: An Analysis of the Intersectionality of Climate Change, Poverty and Health in the Canadian Print Media |
| Leslie Solomonian, Samantha Green, Jacqueline Avanthay-Strus | Adaptation and Mitigation to the Planetary Health Crisis from within Primary Health Care: A Scoping Review |
| Lisa Blank | Integration of Sustainable Food in Healthcare Institutions in Ontario: A Grey Literature Scoping Review |
| Lola Oyefeso | Environmental Inequity as a Health Burden: A Scoping Review of Pollutant Exposure Among Indigenous Populations in Canada |
| Lorraine Maze dit Mieusement | Biodegradable Glove Product Review and Implementation |
| Nalia Shaikh, Lourdes Dela Cruz, Pauline Wolak, Maria Henin | An Initiative Evaluation – “Gauze for Gaza”: Exploring Healthcare Worker Attitudes toward Medical Waste Reclamation for Humanitarian Aid |
| Marilia D’Souza | Critically Mapping the Evidence on the Role and Impact of Plastics in the Context of Health Products and their Packaging |
| Mauriene Tolentino | Advancing Equity through Climate Resilience: Teachings from Community Initiatives in the GTA |
| Michael Montess, Daniel Buchman | Why Mental Health Ethics and Public Health Ethics Approaches are Needed to Address the Impacts of the Climate Crisis on Health Care |
| Michaela Hargitai, Joonsoo Sean Lyeo, Nicholas Spence | Climate Change Education for Vulnerable Populations in the Global North: A Scoping Review |
| Ashley Khan, Preetama Badyal, Hamza Alsaied, Nour Abdelrahman, Oana Birceanu | The Environmental and Health Risks of Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance in Water Systems |
| Remziye Zaim | Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance for Sustainable Health Systems |
| Samantha Unger | Pulse Check: What is the Environmental Impact of Medical Devices Used in Cardiovascular Care? |
| Sharleen Kemunto Nyakundi | Clinicians at the Frontline: Driving Climate-Resilient Healthcare for Communities |
| Sherry Du | Mosquitoes Prefer Laying Egg Rafts in Road-salt Polluted Habitats |
