Voices for Health Equity 2.0
A UBC Health and Public Scholars Initiative event, presented by UBC Connects at Robson Square
About the Event
The Voices for Health Equity event took place on February 26, 2026 to showcase the groundbreaking work of leading and emerging public scholars and innovators in the health equity space. The event fostered connections and dialogue among diverse partners in health, exploring how we can work together to advance health equity.
Through thought-provoking presentations, attendees gained insight into innovative research and impactful initiatives driving change in health systems and communities. This event provided a platform to raise awareness about critical health equity issues, highlighted interdisciplinary approaches, and inspired collaborative solutions for a more equitable future.
Watch the event videos!
Event Summary
Event Speakers
This event featured diverse speakers who captured the concept of health equity from their distinct disciplines and perspectives.
Opening Remarks by Derek Thompson
Derek K Thompson - Čaabať Bookwilla | Suhiltun is from the diitiidʔaaʔtx̣ - Ditidaht First Nation, one of fourteen Nuuchahnulth communities along the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
Derek is the Director, Indigenous Engagement for the UBC Faculty of Medicine, and he brings over 30 years of experience working with First Nations organizations and communities across the province and country to achieve wellness through health and related services.
His mission is to foster trust and mutual respect amongst students, staff and faculty in an effort to create an understanding of the commitments made by the Faculty of Medicine to strengthen the relationship with Indigenous peoples and communities.
Alexa Norton on Prescribed Safer and Regulated Drugs in BC
Dr. Alexa Norton is a mixed-methods researcher whose work is focused on evaluating clinical and community-based substance use interventions. She is a postdoctoral fellow with the Road to Recovery at Providence Health Care, an innovative new model to transform substance use care in BC. Her doctoral work, completed in 2025, examined the evolution of prescribed safer supply in BC. Alexa was born and raised in Treaty 8 Cree and Dene territory (Grande Prairie, AB) and lives on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC).
From emergency measure to political lightning rod: Lessons from prescribed safer supply.
Amid ongoing debates about the toxic drug crisis and public health responses, Dr. Alexa Norton traces how prescribed safer supply shifted from an emergency measure to a controversial public issue.
Her talk unpacks the forces that shaped the current landscape — from evolving public narratives to the strategic use of information and misinformation — illustrating how these dynamics have often obscured real-world experiences and influenced policy decisions and public perception. Her work offers insight into the broader implications for health equity, evidence‑informed practice, and the future of harm‑reduction strategies.
Amin Adibi on the Intersection of Racism, Algorithms, and Lung Testing
Amin Adibi is a research scientist and a Ph.D. candidate at UBC, working on bias and fairness in algorithms used in pulmonary medicine. Amin was raised in the mountains of Western Iran and finished a Master of Science in biomedical engineering at the University of Calgary, before moving to the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh in 2015. He is a co-organizer of the Machine Learning for Health Symposium, a senior collaborator of the Global Burden of Disease study, and an advisory committee member for the Global Lung Function Initiative.
Of Racism, Algorithms, and Lungs: The Missing Voices
In this talk, Amin Adibi traces the history of how lung function testing was weaponized to justify slavery and racial hierarchies throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and how its legacy continues to shape medical practice today. Even as health care organizations have moved to change race-specific practices, patients and equity-denied communities have been largely left out of those decisions.
Drawing on case studies from a range of health care contexts, Amin explores how well-intentioned decisions can create new harms when patient and community voices are excluded and highlights the lessons this history holds for promoting a more equitable use of algorithms, including AI tools, in health care.
Logan Burd on Métis Youth Life Promotion and Upstream Suicide Prevention
Logan Burd, MPH (she/her), is Métis and a proud Citizen of Métis Nation British Columbia. Logan lives on the traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Peoples and is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Community Engagement, Social Change, and Equity theme at the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus. Her doctoral research explores how Métis youth conceptualize life promotion and how Métis youths’ understandings can inform upstream youth suicide prevention. She is a Graduate Fellow in the Equity Science Lab, co-directed by Dr. Sana Shahram and Dr. Katrina Plamondon and the Research Coordinator for the CLARITY Collaborative. Logan is grateful to be a youth member of the Ooma La Michinn Youth Leadership Kinship circle, the Atooshkayahk aansaamb chi kiikayhk committee (working together to heal), and the Métis Health and Wellness Experience circle, hosted by Métis Nation British Columbia.
Centering Métis Youth Voices: Reimagining Youth Suicide Prevention
Grounded in her doctoral research and community-based work, Logan Burd explores how including youth voices and knowledge in upstream youth suicide prevent and life promotion efforts can increase equity and inclusivity. Her talk examines the limitations of past and current suicide research, both in general and as it relates to Métis youth, highlighting how dominant approaches have often overlooked Métis-specific experiences, strengths, and ways of knowing.
By centering Métis youth voices, Logan illustrates how upstream suicide prevention and life promotion can shift towards a more culturally responsive and community‑driven practice, re-framing the work from a focus on risk and deficit to one grounded in connection, culture, and life promotion.
Meaghan Thumath on Building Trust in Systems During Complex Health Emergencies
Dr. Meaghan Thumath is a Canadian clinician scientist working to reduce health inequities and strengthen community resilience during public health emergencies. An Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and a member of the World Health Organization’s Emergencies Programme, she has led outbreak and humanitarian responses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Haiti. In Canada, Dr. Thumath has served as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Executive Director of Public Health for the B.C. Ministry of Health, and Senior Practice Leader and Street Nurse at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Internationally, she has advised WHO, UNAIDS, the Global Fund, and the World Bank on reducing health inequities across more than 25 countries.
A Trudeau Scholar and graduate of the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Dr. Thumath leads UBC’s HERO Lab (Health Equity and Resilience in Outbreaks) and works as the Director of Strategy and Public Health Planning for the Office of the Chief Medical Health Officer at Vancouver Coastal Health.
Advancing Health Equity When Systems Are Under Pressure: Building Trust During Complex Health Emergencies
Advancing health equity requires trust-ready systems designed to engage communities with transparency and accountability, especially during health emergencies. Investing in trust can reduce disparities in long-term health outcomes, strengthen community-institution relationships and lead to a better, more equitable recovery.
Drawing on risk communication and community engagement frameworks and public health outbreak experience locally and in DRC and Jamaica, this talk explores how trust can be intentionally built, measured, and protected when uncertainty is high.
Rachel Stern and Katherine White on the Experiences of Older Adults in Extreme Heat
Rachel Stern
Rachel N. Stern (she/her) is a geographer and researcher, focused on extreme heat, housing justice, and aging. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Geography at UBC, co-supervised by Mohammed Rafi Arefin (Geography) and Leila Harris (IRES). Her research focuses on seniors’ experience of extreme heat in rental and co-operative housing in Vancouver, specifically using interviews, focus groups, and written methodologies to better understand the politics of indoor heat. Her work is community-engaged and she works closely with a number of organizations, including the South Vancouver Seniors Network. More broadly, Rachel is interested in the role of memory politics, storytelling, oral histories, and arts-based methodologies in understanding experiences of extreme heat and climate change. Her work is supported by the UBC Public Scholars Initiative, funding the “Sensing Heat” project, her collaboration with co-researcher and fellow Ph.D. Candidate, Katherine White.
Katherine White
Katherine White is a PhD Candidate at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, where she previously completed her MSc in Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. Her work examines the impacts of extreme heat on older adult health, with a focus on issues of health equity. Katherine recently completed a CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship with the Government of Manitoba where she quantified the increased rate of mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat and identified the individual and neighbourhood characteristics of those most at risk.
The Sensing Heat Project: Understanding Older Adults’ Lived Experiences of Indoor Heat through Interdisciplinary Social Science and Public Health Approaches
Vancouver is increasingly contending with the threat of extreme heat, with events such as the 2021 heat dome disproportionately affecting the elderly, disabled, and economically marginalized. As academics, planners, and policy-makers seek to understand the health equity dimensions of extreme heat, it becomes increasingly important to understand how lived experiences connect with technological approaches to heat. The Sensing Heat project, co-created by Ph.D. candidates Rachel Stern (UBC Geography) and Katherine White (UBC SPPH), uses temperature sensors, weather journals, and interviews to explore older adults’ experiences of indoor heat. In this presentation, we will highlight initial insights from this project. We will discuss how our project participants experience indoor heat, understand, and relate to temperature as a measure, and form their daily lives and routines around heat within their homes. This project contributes to new interdisciplinary methodologies for health equity by exploring how lived experiences of heat can be documented and planned for in more just ways.
Zeba Khan on Youth Access to Period Pain Care
Zeba Khan is a proud Bangladeshi and PhD student based in Vancouver. Her doctoral research explores how youth navigate access to care for period pain. Zeba is also the founder of Free Periods Canada, a grassroots non-profit advancing menstrual equity through youth-led education, policy advocacy, and systems-level engagement.
She is passionate about community-driven research, with a focus on improving access to care for equity-deserving populations. Through both academic and community channels, Zeba is committed to reshaping how health systems respond to the needs of young people and those who menstruate. Zeba is an award-winning scholar and community advocate, and holds the prestigious Vanier and Killam doctoral scholarship.
Period Pain Is Real Pain: Co-designing a Digital Tool with Youth to Advance Period Health Equity
Globally, up to 95% of people who menstruate experience period pain, and for many, it is a monthly challenge that disrupts daily life, school, and work. While over‑the‑counter medicines and self‑care help most people manage, period pain can sometimes signal something more serious and limited access to clear information often prevents people from seeking support.
In this talk, Zeba Khan tells the story of creating the youth‑focused website and social media campaign Period Pain is Real Pain, exemplifying how sharing health information in an accessible, trustworthy way can advance health equity. She highlights how co‑designing tools and resources with communities and people with lived experience can empower young people to understand their symptoms, advocate for their health, and access the care they need.
Dialogue Session
After the presentations, we invited all attendees into an inclusive, interactive space with discussion stations focused on various health equity themes to spark reflection and idea‑sharing.
Event Partners
This event was hosted by UBC Health and the Public Scholars Initiative (UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies), and presented by UBC Connects at Robson Square.
See highlights from the first event
Learn more about the Public Scholars Initiative Health Equity Stream!