BC Environmental and Occupational Health Research Network

Streetcars: The Missing Link?
September 29, 2010 – Vancouver, BC
The Olympic Line - Vancouver’s 2010 Streetcar demonstration project held during the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games saw urban streetcars return to Vancouver for the first time in almost half a century. The project proved extremely popular and has ignited the idea of reinvesting in streetcars as part of a broader sustainable transportation system for the City of Vancouver and the entire Metro Vancouver region.

Streetcars: The Missing Link? brings together decisions makers, academics, and community leaders to explore, discuss and debate the potential role of streetcars as a critical link within the transportation system and the idea of bring streetcars back to Vancouver.

Environmental Health 2011 – Resetting Our Priorities in Salvador, Brazil will be held from February 6 – 9, 2011 The international conference is chaired by Prof. Ellen Silbergeld of Johns Hopkins University and Prof. Jerome Nriagu of the University of Michigan.

More information, including abstract submission, is available here.

Calling all planners, developers, architects, transportation professionals, massage therapists, physicians, counsellors, energy healers, spiritual leaders, and you! Participate in one of the most exciting and integrative conferences of the year – “Healing Cities” – Day 3 of the larger “Gaining Ground” summit, held in Vancouver in early Oct.

There is an emerging desire and need for people in all these professional fields to be talking and determining new ways to move forward in designing and planning our urban living spaces so that they can be healed, and also BE healing places for all of us to inhabit. This combination of perspectives grounds, in a very concrete way, the great work so many of us are doing in our planning, healing and spiritual practices and personal journeys. Imagine that - a city, a community that heals. This day of conference will help us learn how and explore new ways to approach this task. We certainly don’t have all the answers or even all the questions, and we need your input!

Healing Cities is taking place in Vancouver on October 7. Mark your calendar or just go ahead and register!

Environment Canada updated results of the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) initiative. Key findings at the national level are as follows:
Air quality:
Exposure to ground level ozone levels has increased in Canada 13% between 1990 and 2007. There were no significant changes in exposure to fine particulates for the period 2000-
2007.
Water quality:
The majority of rivers and lakes in Canada have fair or better water quality. Of the sites monitored, 82% rated freshwater quality as “excellent”, “good” or “fair”, and 18% rated freshwater quality as “marginal” and “poor”.
Greenhouse gases:
Canada’s 2008 greenhouse gas emissions decreased 2.1% from 2007 levels.
Protected areas (new this year):
Canada has protected 9.4% or 939,993 square kilometers of its land as of mid-2009. About 0.6% of its marine territory has been protected. There has been an increase of approximately 81% of the overall area protected since 1990.
For all of the updated information, link to the CESI indicators site here.

Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey: Healthy Aging The Canadian Community Health Survey focuses on the health of Canadians aged 45 and over by examining the various factors that have an impact on healthy aging, such as general health and well being, the use of health care services, social participation, and work and retirement transitions. The data were collected from December 2008 to November 2009, and about 30,900 individuals aged 45 years and older in the provinces were interviewed. The data are now available through the Statistics Canada website

A First Nations environmental health guide, Your Health at Home, was also launched to provide useful information and practical tips for First Nations to keep their homes safer and healthier.
More information on the First Nations guide can be found here

The Government of Canada launched a four-year public education campaign to help make Canadian families more aware of the environmental health risks around them. As part of the campaign, Hazardcheck, a guide that provides simple advice that Canadians can take to keep their homes safer and healthier for themselves and their children.
For more information on the guide, please visit the website

The federal government recently decided to eliminate the mandatory long-form census in favour of a voluntary survey. This is an unfortunate news for occupational and environmental health researchers and those working in occupational and environmental health surveillance as it will prevent access to quality data about the state of the Canadian population for a wide range of relevant indicators. Arguably, a voluntary long form would result in a non-representative sample of the Canadian population and therefore would be of limited value for generalisable research. A reduction in information about the Canadian population, in turn, restricts knowledge available for all kinds of resource allocation and policy decisions, including those related to occupational and environmental health.

Those wishing more information about this issue can refer to recent media articles:
• Globe & Mail
• CBC
• Toronto Star

If you wish to voice your opinion about this decision, you can take part in a web petition, which has been started to protest this move to make the long census form voluntary. It can be found here .
Also, the Digital Economy Consultation federal website has a voting poll to save the Census (note registration is required). Click here for more details.

BCEOHRN members who were disappointed to learn that BCEOHRN is no longer able to provide WebEx service will be pleased to learn of a free alternative.

If your team is interested in free web conferencing, explore Dim Dim (desktop sharing) and Skype (audio):

Dimdim.com

Skype.com

New BCEOHRN Mentorship Special Interest Group!
Workplace Bullying SIG

This Special Interest Group is created to seek participation and initiate discussion from researchers, students and professionals interested in the topic of workplace bullying and to find solutions for the problem of workplace bullying. Workplace bullying is a leading cause of ill health and reduced safety and well-being for people on the job in all sectors and at all levels of employment in the province. In health science related fields these include study of people who bully and the effect their behaviour has on targets, on bystanders, and on the workplace environment overall in terms of physical and psychological illness, absenteeism, disability, return to work obstacles, and the potential for violence. As well as study in these areas, there is a need for data, diagnostics, and metrics to measure the negative effects and then the effectiveness of remedies.

Details: Workplace Bullying SIG webpage

In September a paper newsletter and flyer for the AGM being held in November in Vancouver was mailed to select groups and members. Mailing a paper newsletter is part of BCEOHRN’s communications strategy, aimed at raising awareness of the Network and its operations by encouraging recipients to post these materials for others’ interest. BCEOHRN materials are printed using water-based inks on recycled content paper to reduce their environmental footprint.

BCEOHRN endeavours to reduce its impact on the environment to the greatest extent possible through all of its operations: by encouraging the use of web-based technologies to reduce carbon emissions created by travel; by reducing the use of paper and encouraging members to likewise do so; and by managing events and meetings using green principles.

For BCEOHRN’s green tips, download "Going Carbon Neutral for HoPNs" (pdf).