Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Aboriginal and rural women are among the most vulnerable members of Canadian society and are particularly vulnerable to health impacts associated with the extractive industry (EI) such as increased substance abuse, prostitution, and domestic and community violence - impacts that are often linked to the influx of a transient workforce. Yet, these impacts remain largely unidentified and unmitigated in Canadian federal and provincial EIAs. In British Columbia (BC), EI project proponents, impact assessors, reviewers, and communities themselves have open access to robust digital health and spatial datasets. These datasets can be used to identify areas and populations vulnerable to EI impacts during the EIA process, as well as track conditions over time to evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation measures. This presentation details the results of a systematic narrative review of provincial EIAs that reveals how impacts related to community violence, violence against women, and associated drug and alcohol abuse are captured in EIAs in BC; and what follow-up measures are prescribed to address them. Further, it will discuss opportunities for integrating existing health and spatial datasets and web-based GIS tools to enhance the current EIA processes and applied mitigations measures through a case study in Northern BC. This research is part of the Extractive Industry and Community Health Project funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.