Environment and Health Seminar Series: Environmental Health Inequalities and the Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative with Dr. Dolon Chakravartty
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About the Seminar
In Canada, many inequalities in health continue to persist and grow over time. Many of these inequalities are the result of individuals’ and groups’ relative social, political, and economic disadvantages. Such inequalities affect peoples’ chances of achieving and maintaining good health over their lifetimes. Where inequalities in health outcomes or in access to the resources that support health are systematic and can plausibly be avoided or ameliorated by collective action, they may be deemed unjust and inequitable. These inequities in health disproportionately burden people of lower socio-economic status, racial, ethnic and religious minorities and migrants.
There is widespread agreement that environmental hazards are not evenly distributed, resulting in differential exposures that are consistent with systemic inequities. Factors that contribute to differential exposure and response interact in complex ways and involve states of health and nutrition, hazardous occupations, and behaviours. They also involve disparities in access to health information and health care; delayed recognition of exposure, diagnosis, and treatment; and, hence, increased risk for developing health-related outcomes.
Structural racism and inadequate and/or discriminatory policies that tend to exist across multiple sectors, such as public health, urban planning, and environmental management, among others, contribute to settings that increase vulnerability to environmental exposures. Policies related to housing, transportation, employment, and environmental health promotion can contribute to and reinforce health disparities and reduce access to environmental benefits for subpopulation groups.
This talk will outline the ways in which systems and structures contribute to inequalities in environmental health in Canada and will provide an overview of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative.
About the Speaker
Dolon Chakravartty is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Equity Analysis Policy Research team within the Strategic Policy Branch at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Dolon works on the Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative (HIRI) and is currently working on a project on mental health inequalities in Canada. Dolon's research interests span from environmental health and health equity.