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 research. Saraswathi speaks with host Bernice Yanful about how she works with others to bring the Lab’s vision for “reproductive freedom, safety, and justice for every person” to life.

Episode Guest: Dr. Saraswathi Vedam is Lead Investigator at the Birth Place Lab and professor of midwifery at University of British Columbia. Over 38 years, she has been a midwife, educator, parent, and researcher. Her scholarly work includes several community-based participatory action research projects on health equity. She worked with service users to develop new quality measures of autonomy, respect, and mistreatment in perinatal care. These accountability tools have now been applied in 65 countries at the institutional, health system, and country levels.

(00:00) Introduction

(07:07) Interview with Dr. Saraswathi Vedam

Learn more:

• The Birth Place Lab
• The Giving Voice to Mothers Study
• The RESPCCT Study: Community-led Development of a Person-Centered Instrument to Measure Health Equity in Perinatal Services (Vedam et al., 2024)
• Beyond Complacency: Challenges (and Opportunities) for Reproductive Justice in Canada (LEAF, 2022)
• Visioning New Futures for Reproductive Justice Declaration 2023 (Sister Song)

Episode Credits: This episode was produced by Pemma Muzumdar, Carolina Jimenez, Rebecca Cheff and host Bernice Yanful (NCCDH). The Mind the Disruption project team is led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Artwork by comet art + design. Sound credits: clips used from the Birth Place Lab, “talking people.MP3” by szalonegacie (CC0 1.0), “conference chatter 3.aif” by reecord2 (CC0 1.0), and “Walla_ses1.wav” by freesound (CC0 1.0). Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. NCCDH is hosted by St. Francis Xavier University and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the PHAC. 

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 in Quebec. Then Shezeen, a midwife and co-chair of the Health Network for Uninsured Clients in Toronto, reflects on using advocacy as a strategy for health equity.

(00:00) Introduction

(6:44) Interview with Chloé Cébron

(40:04) Interview with Shezeen Suleman

Episode Guests: Chloé Cébron is a lawyer in international humanitarian law and human rights and the director of policy and advocacy at Médecins du Monde Canada. For nearly 15 years, she has worked for humanitarian health organizations as a legal, policy and advocacy advisor in a dozen countries. Since 2017, she has been working for Médecins du Monde Canada and coordinates the organization’s advocacy on access to health care for migrants with precarious status in Canada. Shezeen Suleman is a midwife in Toronto, co-leading the MATCH program at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. She has worked as a midwife in the city for over 10 years and before this worked as a youth worker in neighborhoods across the city; these roots in community work inform her practice as a midwife. Shezeen also co-chairs the Health Network for Uninsured Clients in the GTA, aiming to create and maintain dignified pathways to care for people living without OHIP.

Learn more:

Precarious immigration status, precarious health: Working together to ensure healthcare for all women living in Quebec (MdM, 2023)

Bill 83: Implementation & Information (MdM, 2021)

Health Network for Uninsured Clients resources & report (HNUC, 2023)

Let’s Talk: Advocacy & health equity (NCCDH, 2015)

Does public health advocacy seek to redress health inequities? A scoping review (Cohen & Marshall, 2017)

Disrupting Migrant Work [Season 1, Episode 4] (NCCDH, 2023)

Episode Credits: Production for this episode was led by Rebecca Cheff, with contributions from Carolina Jimenez, Pemma Muzumdar and host Bernice Yanful. The Mind the Disruption project team is led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen. Artwork by comet art + design. Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. NCCDH is hosted by St. Francis Xavier University and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of PHAC.

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 framework. Through this work, they are supporting cites to reckon with historical slavery and colonialism and integrate community-driven solutions. Community outreach worker Diana Chan McNally then reflects on opportunities for public health to improve community engagement efforts.

(00:00) Introduction

(8:09) Interview with Imara Rolston

(40:49) Interview with Diana Chan McNally

Episode Guests: Dr. Imara Ajani Rolston is a social psychologist, policy maker, and Associate Professor and director of the Community Climate Resilience Lab at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Rolston has contributed to research and publications in the areas of HIV/AIDS, health promotion and community development and has advanced racial justice and urban responses to climate change with the City of Toronto. He has over 15 years of experience working across Sub-Saharan Africa with organizations including the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Oxfam Canada, and Greenpeace Africa. Reflective guest Diana Chan McNally (Dipl. CW, BFA, MA, MEd) is a frontline worker supporting unhoused people in Toronto's downtown east side. As someone with lived experience of social services and homelessness, her work focuses on human rights and equity issues for people without housing, and particularly encampments. She is an alumnus of Maytree Canada and a fellow of the McNally Project for Paramedicine Research.

Learn more:

• Climate Change Resilience Part 2: Public health roles and actions (NCCDH, 2021)
• Keeping It Political and Powerful: Defining the Structural Determinants of Health (Heller et al., 2024)
• Let’s Talk series: Community Engagement, Racism, and Whiteness (NCCDH)

Episode Credits: Production for this episode was led by Pemma Muzumdar and host Bernice Yanful, with contributions from Rebecca Cheff and Carolina Jimenez (NCCDH). The Mind the Disruption project team is led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Artwork by comet art + design. Sound credit: "Central Park Ambience.aif" by logancircle2 is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. NCCDH is hosted by St. Francis Xavier University and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the PHAC.