Healthy Cities in the SDG Era Centre for Global Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

In September 2015, Canada and 192 other countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a global framework that is described as a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” 
In the first episode of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era, Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero will speak to two experts who are working towards achieving these goals about what the SDGs are, why they matter to Canada, and how work at the University of Toronto is helping to achieve them.  
Margaret Biggs is Matthews Fellow in Global Public Policy at Queen’s University, Chairperson of the Board of Governors for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and Vice Chair of the Canadian Partnership on Women’s and Children’s Health (CanWaCH). Ms. Biggs previously served as President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and was responsible for overseeing Canada’s international development and humanitarian assistance efforts worldwide, including Canada’s G8 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. She is an active contributor on issues related to Canada and global sustainable development. In 2018 she co-authored “A Canadian North Star: Crafting an advanced economy approach to the Sustainable Development Goals” at the Brookings Institution. Ms. Biggs is Board Chair of World University Services Canada and member of the Advisory Council for FinDevCanada. 
Dr. Joseph Wong is the Vice-President, International for the University of Toronto. He is the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He formerly held the Canada Research Chair in health, development and democracy for two terms. His research focuses on poverty and innovation, and he has an extensive background of working with the World Bank and the United Nations, and has advised governments around the world on matters of public policy.
CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. 

Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being, holds as its objective, ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages. Its targets encompass a broad range of areas, from improving maternal and child health outcomes, reducing premature death from non-communicable diseases and promoting mental health and well-being, to ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services.
SDG 3 is one of the two foundational SDGs of our series, alongside SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Throughout the series, we’ll explore the ways that these SDGs intersect with other goals, including gender equality, education, reducing inequalities, zero hunger, and climate action. This episode will feature both global and Canadian perspectives on how we can address SDG3, from community interventions to system-level approaches. 
Sujata Mishra is a PhD candidate in Health Economics, at the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto. She is a student in the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Her research focuses on community health workers in India called Accredited Social Health Activists or ASHAs in India, and their role in reducing maternal and child mortality and improving their health outcomes.
Dr. Sara Allin is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She is the Director of Operations at the North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Dr. Allin also works as a Senior Researcher with the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Her research focuses on improving health system performance in Canada and other high-income countries.
CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. 

Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, focuses on making cities and settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. This is significant, as currently half of the global population, or 3.5 billion people, live in cities today, and a projected 5 billion people, or 60% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2030. 
SDG 11 is one of the two foundational SDGs of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era, alongside SDG3: Good Health and Wellbeing. Throughout the series, we’ll explore the ways that these SDGs intersect with other goals, including gender equality, education, reducing inequalities, zero hunger, and climate action.  
Dr. Patricia O’Campo is the Interim Executive Director of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, a Scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, and Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.  She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Population Health Intervention Research and has an established program of research focused on policies and health, and how urban and social policies can ensure people are healthy.
Garrett Morgan is a doctoral student in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto working under the co-supervision of Dr. Blake Poland at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Dr. John Robinson at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Garrett is also a student in the Collaborative Specializations in Global Health and Environment and Health, at U of T. He is an urban planner and sustainable development consultant with professional experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors in rural, suburban, and urban environments in Canada and the United States. His research explores the relationships between resilience, sustainability, and equity in Toronto’s marginalized communities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. 

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities,  focuses on reducing inequality within and among countries.

There is a stark wealth gap between the richest and poorest in Canada. According to a 2020 report from the Parliamentary Budget Office, the wealthiest 0.01% percent of Canadian families have a net wealth of $654 billion, which is 5.6% of the national total. The poorest 40% of Canadian families, on the other hand, have a net wealth of $132 billion, or, 1.1% of the national total. 
This gap has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic – the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reported that Canada’s top 20 billionaries have become $37 billion richer during the COVID-19 pandemic, earning an average of $2 billion each. This has happened alongside significant job losses amongst the working class.
Toronto has one of the highest costs of living of cities in Canada. The cost of housing, food, transit, childcare, and postsecondary tuition have increased significantly over the past three decades, while incomes have stagnated. The impacts of this drastic increase in the cost of living have had unequal impacts. Racialized groups, recent immigrants/migrants, and young people living in Toronto have become poorer over time, as these groups have not experienced income increases over the past 35 years. While income inequality is an important metric to consider when thinking about inequality, it is not the only one. In this episode, our guests approach the goal of Reducing Inequality from a more critical lens. 

Dr. Roberta Timothy is an Assistant Professor in the Social and Behavioural Health Sciences Division at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, at the University of Toronto. Roberta is also co-founder and consultant at Continuing Healing Consultants, where she implements and teaches her intersectional mental health model “Anti Oppression Psychotherapy”. She specializes in the areas of intersectionality, critical human rights, and health ethics; health and race; transnational Indigenous health; and anti-oppression/anti-colonial approaches to mental health (including anti-oppression psychotherapy) and research methodology.

Amrita Kumar-Ratta is a third year PhD student in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. She is a student in the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health and South Asian Studies at U of T. Amrita’s research focuses on gendered and ethnoracial constructions of inequality, particularly on the geopolitics of marriage and fertility in Punjabi communities in Canada.

CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.

Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality, aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Its targets encompass ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere; eliminating violence against women and girls; recognizing and valuing unpaid care and domestic work; ensuring women’s participation and equal opportunities for political, economic, and public leadership; and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.   

While the scope of inequality that SDG5 seeks to address is wide-ranging, there is a glaring omission in the very description of SDG 5: while it aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, it fails to explicitly acknowledge the inequities that gender-diverse individuals and sexual minorities experience on the basis of their social identities. Further, it does not explicitly acknowledge intersectionality, and how sexism interacts and intersects with other forms of oppression like racism, homophobia, and classism, to produce different lived experiences of inequality. 

In this episode of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era, Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero speaks with two researchers that are working to improve the health and well-being of women and gender-diverse individuals with equity and intersectionality at the forefront. 
Dr. Lori Ross is an Associate Professor in the Social and Behavioural Health Sciences Division of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Lori is also the leader of the Re:searching for LGBTQ Health Team. Lori uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches in her research work, with a strong focus on integrating the principles of community-based research. Much of her research focuses on understanding the mental health and service needs of marginalized populations including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) people, in order to improve access to services for these communities.

Sireesha Bobbili is a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, U of T. She formerly worked as a Project Manager at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, where she led projects focusing on improving mental health systems, both locally and abroad, to increase access for vulnerable and marginalized populations. Sireesha conducts global health research regarding mental health and substance use, violence against women, and public health policy. 
CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. 

This episode of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era takes a different approach in thinking about the Sustainable Development Goals, by zooming out from a focus on specific SDGs, to talking about global health diplomacy, a process which is linked to many of the Goals.
Professor Ilona Kickbusch is the founder and chair of the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. Previously, she served as the head of the global health division of Yale University and held various positions at the World Health Organization. In 2016, Prof. Kickbusch was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of her significant contributions to shaping the field of global health with her practical and theoretical expertise. Currently, she is undertaking responsibilities in several distinguished boards and commissions such as the Lancet FT Commission Governing Health Futures – Growing up in a digital world, UHC 2030 and Global Preparedness Monitoring Board.
Dr. Srikanth Kondreddy is an Investigator at the Bruyère Research Institute, University of Ottawa, and a Senior Fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity, Ottawa. He also works with UN agencies and he contributes to Think 20 (T20), a policy engagement group of the G20, and has contributed to projects such as the T20 Task Force on "COVID-19 - Multidisciplinary Approaches to Complex Problems". He has research and teaching interests in global health policy, governance, and diplomacy. He is currently researching on global health governance, pandemic preparedness and response, global health security, international health regulations, and international cooperation in health.
CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.