Recent News - Nouvelles récentes
PEHE-MIREC Consultation
In February-March 2022, the PEHE Collaboration was contracted by Health Canada to convene a two-stage consultative process to assist the Maternal Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) research team in exploring strategies to successfully engage, recruit and retain prospective parents from marginalized communities in a possible future MIREC biomonitoring cohort.
As a first phase, a PEHE-MIREC Ad Hoc Group was formed to help set the parameters of the consultative process and to provide input on a scoping review of the literature. The Ad Hoc Group was comprised of ten members of the PEHE Collaboration and several members of the MIREC research team.
As a second phase, a joint meeting of the PEHE Collaboration and the MIREC research team was held on March 8, 2022 to share relevant experiences and offer guidance on recruitment and retention of prospective parents from marginalized communities in a potential MIREC cohort study. Meeting participants reviewed initial results of a scoping review of the pregnancy cohort literature and offered observations and recommendations to inform future efforts.
To learn more, read the PEHE-MIREC Consultation Report or contact Erica Phipps at ephipps@uottawa.ca.
environmental health challenges in child care settings
As part of the Healthy Environments for Learning Day, Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (Erica Phipps ED and PEHE Co-Lead) and the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF), released results of a national survey that examined environmental health challenges within child care settings.
Nearly half of the 2,000 child care professionals who responded reported witnessing unhealthy conditions for children. More than two-thirds of respondents expressed concern about risks to children’s health and well-being posed by air pollution (indoor 64%; outdoor 69%), toxic chemicals in products (69%), a lack of access to nature (68%), and climate change (68%). And over half (53%) cited a lack of funding from government as a barrier to action to improve environmental health protection and sustainability in their program. “We need support at multiple levels to make sure that child-care settings are such that they’re promoting child health and well-being rather than being a potential source of exposure to harmful substances,” Phipps said.
To mark the Healthy Environments for Learning Day, CPCHE and CCCF launched an online information hub and checklist offering practical tips and supporting information to improve environmental health in child care programs. To further mark the day, CPCHE, CCCF and more than 40 organizations across Canada released a vision statement: Healthy and Sustainable Child Care Environments: A Vision for Canada. To learn more read the article published in the Toronto Star.
PEHE Webinars for Prenatal care providers
From October 2021 - February 2022, PEHE researchers Drs. Eric Crighton and Erica Phipps presented a series of webinars on prenatal environmental health education for obstetricians/ gynecologists, nurses, pediatricians, and others involved in reproductive care and child health in Saskatchewan, in collaboration with the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute (SPI), a PEHE partner.
You can access a video recording of the webinar here.
PEHE COLLABORATION ANNUAL MEETING
November, 2021: The PEHE Collaboration convened via zoom on November 16, 2021 for an initial look at the results of the Phase 1 Canada-wide survey of women of reproductive age and to plan for the Phase 2 survey of prenatal care providers planned for Spring 2022.
The Collaboration was delighted to welcome representatives of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, First Exposure, the Toronto-based Healthy Nail Salons Project, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and the International Society for Children's Environmental Health to the intersectoral PEHE table.
NEW PEHE COLLABORATion partners
The PEHE Collaboration welcomes three new partners: The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE); Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA); and, Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment (CANE). We look forward to working with these amazing organizations.
welcome
Welcome Teagan Gran-Ruaz, the newest student member of the PEHE Team.
PEHe collaboration kick-off meeting
A successful project 'Kick-Off' Meeting. Held at uOttawa on Nov. 21-22, 2019, the meeting brought together our national team to launch the CIHR funded PEHE Project.
Edutox video challege
The EduTOX Video Challenge is a national, bilingual youth video contest aimed at raising awareness of environmental health risks amongst youth. The EduTOX Video Challenge called on youth aged 14 to 22 to make 1-2 minute videos about toxins in our day-to-day lives, their potential health effects, and how we can avoid them. Through collaboration with various Canadian youth, education, health and environment focused organizations, including Health Canada’s Risk Management Bureau, EduTOX was a highly successful campaign that ran in 2016 and 2017. The key objective of EduTOX was to raise awareness of potential risks, and of actions that Canadian youth can take to protect their health.
The PEHE Forum
On November 20 and 21, 2014, The Sandbox Project’s Environment Working Group presented a Prenatal Environmental Health Education Forum at the University of Ottawa. Over two days of presentations and discussions, many new ideas about strategies for improving prenatal environmental health education were generated. Participants' specialties ranged from prenatal care to education to policy to toxicology, all with a similar ultimate goal: to improve the health of Canada’s children.