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Researcher dialogue event
The NCCDH and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Population and Public Health partnered to host a strategic dialogue with 31 researchers to explore how research can contribute to understanding and acting on the structural and social determinants of health. The event was designed as an interactive conversation with researchers and thought leaders who critically consider intersecting systems of power and oppression, population health and the policies that drive health equity.
This strategic researcher dialogue is one of several inputs into NCCDH’s fourth environmental scan, A different kind of health equity: Creating conditions for action on the structural determinants of health (NCCDH, 2025) and whose purpose is to identify opportunities for the NCCDH to support, lead and influence transformative public health action on the structural drivers of health inequities. Other inputs into this scan include a scoping review of the literature, an online survey and a range of strategic conversations like this researcher dialogue.
Main dialogue themes
Key themes emerging from this strategic conversation include:
- Knowledge and concepts related to the ecological determinants of health and planetary health need to be deeply incorporated across all research disciplines and topics.
- There is a need to understand power and apply critical thinking to this work.
- Indigenous knowledge systems and scholars are desperately needed in research and policy, and they need to be meaningfully engaged.
- Broader engagement is needed with civil society and radical thinkers from a systems perspective (ecological, economic, social, political) to cultivate the necessary “both/and” thinking for this work, and to prevent the next generation of researchers from perpetuating a false dichotomy between the economy and the environment.
The overarching message from dialogue participants is the need for transformative change in how research is undertaken in order to meaningfully address the structural determinants of health. They shared the following quote from Nicole Redvers to illustrate the kind of change required: “We cannot solve complex problems from the same worldview that created them in the first place, as it will continue to perpetuate a disconnect between us and the planet as ‘relatives’” (“The determinants of planetary health,” 2019).
Use this resource to
- Facilitate discussion on ways in which research agendas, research funding priorities and knowledge translation programs can be shaped to advance meaningful action on the structural and social determinants of health
- Build interdisciplinary action-oriented research programs on the structural and social determinants of health
Related resources
Let’s Talk: Determinants of health
Reference
National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. (2024). Opportunities and challenges for moving upstream: Summary of a researcher dialogue to explore how research can contribute to understanding and acting on the structural and social determinants of health. Antigonish, NS: NCCDH, St. Francis Xavier University.