How do you foster healthy and just places and spaces through everyday public health work? Listen to this episode to learn from longtime environmental health officer Anita Ely about working in partnership, embedding an intentional health equity lens and creating healthy public policies to foster healthy built environments for all.

Episode guest: Anita Ely is a Certified Public Health Inspector (Canada) working as a Specialist Environmental Health Officer with Interior Health in the southern Interior of BC. She began her career in more well-known health inspector roles such as inspecting restaurants, pools and drinking water systems and investigating potential health hazards. Since 2014 Anita has been focused on protecting populations at community level through the creation and implementation of healthy public policy with community partners that develops built environments that support the physical, social and mental health of community members. This inter-sectoral work is known as healthy built environments. As a 2nd generation white settler Anita is grateful for the stewardship and leadership of Secwépemc Nation on whose unceded, traditional and ancestral territory she has settled and now calls home.

Learn more:

• Healthy Communities (Interior Health)
• FACT SHEET: Supporting Health Equity Through the Built Environment (BCCDC, 2017)
• Healthy Built Environment Linkages Toolkit (BCCDC, 2018)
• Supporting Equity in Planning and Policy Action Guide (BC Healthy Communities, 2020)
• Kelowna's 2040 Official Community Plan (2022)
• How to Collaborate With Municipalities: A Practical Guide for Public Health Actors (NCCHPP, 2020)
• How to Equity in Municipalities (Plamondon & Shahram, 2024)
• A tool to assess alignment between knowledge and action for health equity (Plamondon, 2020)
• Let's Talk: Determinants of health (NCCDH, 2024)

Episode credits: This episode was produced by Rebecca Cheff and Pemma Muzumdar (NCCDH). Mind the Disruption is hosted by Pemma Muzumdar and led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Artwork by comet art + design. Special thanks to Bernice Yanful and Carolina Jimenez for contributing to the development of this season.

What can we do to promote culturally safe places and spaces across the health system? Listen to this episode to learn about how Dr. Terri Aldred, the Academic Lead for the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health, disrupts dominant narratives about Indigeneity. Terri shares stories from her journey to become an Indigenous physician, outlines concrete actions practitioners can take to foster cultural safety, and encourages us all to work together for a brighter future.

Episode Guest: Dr. Terri Aldred is Carrier from the Tl’Azt’En Nation located north of Fort St. James. Dr. Aldred has a Bachelor of Health Science Degree and a Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Alberta. In 2013 she completed her residency in the UBC Indigenous Family Medicine Program in Victoria. At present, Dr. Aldred is the Academic Lead for the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health, Executive Medical Director for Primary for FNHA, Family Physician for Carrier Sekani Family Services, the Indigenous Lead for the RCcBC. In 2018 she won the First Five Years in Practice Achievement award through the BCCFP, in 2021 she won the RDoC Mikhael Award for Medical Education, and in 2022 was recognized with a Rising Star UofA Alumni Award. She is passionate about Indigenous health, physician well-being, and medical education.

Learn more:

• National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health
• Indigenous cultural safety - An environmental scan of cultural safety initiatives in Canada (NCCIH, 2023)
• Understanding Indigenous health inequalities through a social determinants model (NCCIH, Loppie & Wien, 2022)
• Indigeneity is healing (Aldred, 2024)
• ‘We’re racially profiled as drunk Indians’ – experiences of Indigenous rural British Columbians accessing health care (Aldred et al., 2025)
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: 94 Calls to Action (2015)

Episode Credits: This episode was produced by Pemma Muzumdar and Rebecca Cheff (NCCDH). Mind the Disruption is hosted by Pemma Muzumdar and led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Artwork by comet art + design. Special thanks to Bernice Yanful and Carolina Jimenez for contributing to the development of this season.

How can public health work with migrant farmworkers to ensure healthy and just housing conditions? Listen to this episode to learn about how our current system allows for unsafe housing conditions for migrant farmworkers. Kit Andres, long-time organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, shares recommendations developed by migrants themselves and opportunities for public health to be part of the solution.

Episode Guest: Kit Andres is a farmworker organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, which serves as secretariat for the Migrant Rights Network, the country’s largest migrant-led coalition. Kit is a 3rd generation white settler in the Niagara region of Dish with One Spoon treaty territory. As a citizen worker, they are united with their migrant, refugee, and undocumented neighbours to win full rights, dignity, and liberation for all.

Learn more:

• Determining Health: Migrant health issue brief (NCCDH, 2025)
• Migrant Rights Network
• Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
• Decent & Dignified Housing for Migrant Farmworkers (Migrant Rights Network, 2020)

Episode Credits:

This episode was produced by Rebecca Cheff and Pemma Muzumdar. Mind the Disruption is hosted by Pemma Muzumdar and led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Artwork by comet art + design. Special thanks to Bernice Yanful and Carolina Jimenez for contributing to the development of this season. 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.