Department of Health & Society
🎙 Tell us about yourself?
I am an Assistant Professor in environmental health at the Department of Health and Society at UTSC. My research is focused on the development of community-based transdisciplinary research projects to assess the impacts of anthropogenic pressures on health by combining information from multiple levels of biological organization. I hold a PhD in biology with a specialization in toxicology from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique in Laval, Quebec. From 2018 to 2020, I was a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at the Université de Montreal. During my fellowship, I investigated the associations between density and proximity to oil and gas wells and birth outcomes in Northeast British Columbia. I also instigated in partnership with First Nations from the region, the first biomonitoring studies on exposure to environmental contaminants associated with unconventional natural gas exploitation in Canada. I am a collaborator and co-investigator on several other research projects on environmental and Indigenous health, including in the Arctic.
🎙 What are your research interests & what are you currently researching?
My research interests are at the nexus of toxicology, molecular biology, public and environmental health, and community-based research. I am currently implicated in multiple research projects on:
- Exposure to environmental contaminants associated with unconventional natural gas operations during pregnancy;
- Mechanisms of toxicity (e.g., endocrine disruption, oxidative stress) associated with exposure to these contaminants;
- Associations between proximity to oil and gas wells and various birth and maternal outcomes;
- The role of airborne microbes and pollutants in the inflammatory response of asthma in Northern and Southern Canada;
- Sources of exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances in Nunavik and associated health effects.
For all these projects, our lab uses an innovative participatory approach combining toxicology, molecular biology, development of cellular models of diseases; community-based research, exposure assessment, epidemiology and environmental health.
🎙 What is the significance of your current research?
The mission of our lab is to develop projects in partnership with communities living in a changing environment to assess the impacts of anthropogenic pressures on health and well-being. To investigate these associations, we are using an ecosystem approach combining information from multiple levels of biological organization. Anthropogenic pressures lead to rapid and significant changes in the environment, posing a threat to public health, especially for vulnerable populations. Several studies confirm that some communities are disproportionately affected by environmental changes. Many of these communities have expressed concerns about the potential health effects of changes in their environment, but few have received support and guidance from researchers in implementing research projects based on their observations.
Our lab highlights community knowledge as a valuable source of information in order to explore the relationships between environmental factors and health.
🎙 Any interesting insights/results so far related to your research?
To our knowledge, we published the first biomonitoring data regarding human exposure to contaminants associated with unconventional natural gas. We also published the first two Canadian epidemiological studies on health outcomes associated with proximity to this industry.
Part of our work on perfluoroalkyl substances (led by Mélanie Lemire and Pierre Ayotte at Université Laval) contributed significantly to the scientific literature on the unique sources of exposure to these substances in Nunavik and in the Arctic. We found that these substances can accumulate in country foods and in the Arctic environment. Country foods are an integral part of the culture in Nunavik and are crucial to sustaining food security and nutrition. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that country foods can be safely consumed throughout life without increasing the risk of exposure to potentially harmful contaminants.
🎙 What aspirations do you have for your research? How do you see it being utilized?
We hope that these results will provide much-needed data to better inform oil and gas-related policy development and healthcare decision-making in the context of increasing oil and gas activity. We would like to see our study results benefit a wide variety of stakeholders in the oil and gas and public health fields:
- regulatory authorities, by enabling them to better assess the adequacy of current measures to protect the health of communities where oil and gas is taking place;
- decision-makers, by enabling them to conduct more robust evaluations of oil and gas-related policy initiatives;
- communities near oil and gas operations who have expressed concerns about their health and exposure to environmental contaminants, by equipping them with timely and pertinent, evidence-based knowledge.
Our research findings regarding perfluoroalkyl substances were recently used by the Canadian delegation to successfully move forward the nomination of these substances and their precursors to the Stockholm Convention, an international environmental treaty that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants. This is a great example of how community-based research can have the potential to directly influence international policy.