Homepage Feature – The HEC Lab

SMART Displacement: Place-Based Policy and Praxis Labs

m1-agency — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:40:40 +0000

(SMART = Systems Mapping and Policy Redesign for Adaptation and Resilience Transformation)

This is an international project proposed to use a decolonial planetary health framework that integrates artistic, place-based, digital approaches to redesign systems and policies for climate disasters and displacement.

The goal of the project is to move away from deficient, top-down, reactive climate displacement policy approaches to ones that centers planetary health and equity-denied communities’ expertise. The team wants to connect their lived and living experiences with real-time, place-based data. From there we will redesign decision-making systems for equity, justice, and resilience using community-driven arts-based methodologies and sciences to create digital twin platforms that will enable pre-disaster climate displacement policies that are respectful and resilient.

Funding Source: New Frontiers in Research Fund (Notice of Decision: August 2026)

Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health

m1-agency — Fri, 24 May 2024 18:45:40 +0000

Drivers of the triple planetary crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution) are colonialism, capitalism, extractivism, globalization, and racism, underpinned by policies, systems, and structures that reinforce these worldviews. For collective futures that sustain all planetary life, we must respond with urgency and creativity across political and epistemic boundaries toward reconciling the damage we have done to the planet’s health, our health, and the health of all our relations. Led by co-directors, Dr Castleden and Dr Hōkūlani Aikau, the aim of this three-year proof-of-concept project is to demonstrate how place-based evidence for Indigenous-led resurgence can be synergized across “Island” sites to create an “Archipelago” of transformative change for planetary health. For more details, check out IndigenousPlanetaryHealth.ca. Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

View Website

Indigenous Environmental Health Risk Assessment (IEHRA)

m1-agency — Fri, 24 May 2024 18:36:03 +0000

The IEHRA project, led by Dr Diana Lewis, explores the community health impacts of living near oil and gas extraction (Mikisew Cree First Nation, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Fort Chipewyan Métis Nation) and a landfill site (Oneida Nation of the Thames). Through a community-engaged process and informed by our previous research with Pictou Landing First Nation (Lewis et al., 2020, 2020a, 2020b), we are developing culturally relevant, gender inclusive, Indigenous-led frameworks that respond to these different community contexts, ecologies, and industrial experiences. For more details, check out Indigenera.ca. Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

View Website

Climate Change Displacement and Public Health

m1-agency — Fri, 24 May 2024 18:30:49 +0000

Extreme weather events, including wildfires, floods, heatwaves, droughts, atmospheric rivers, hurricanes and other storms, displace millions of people around the world every year. These events displace hundreds of thousands of people in Canada, cost tens of billions of dollars, and exacerbate a wide range of health inequities, disrupt homes, livelihoods, education, community cohesion, and have direct and indirect impacts on health and well-being. Yet, little empirical work has explored the specific effects of climate displacement on health in Canada. Led by Dr Castleden, this project explored the public health effects of recent displacements in British Columbia, particularly within equity-deserving populations (see Report). We are now developing a nationwide project; contact the HEC Lab if you are interested in learning more and getting involved. Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

CCDH Final Gathering Report