Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

The World Health Organizations estimates that 12.6 million people die worldwide every year due to environmental factors such as climate change or air pollution. This is supported by research that provides extensive evidence on the health impacts of the so-called 'ecological determinants of health' - the air that we breathe, the water that we drink or the food that we eat. However, this evidence is often not considered sufficiently when political decisions about environmental regulations that would improve these health determinants are being made. This is partly because researchers mostly rely on ineffective knowledge translation strategies to influence decision makers such as politicians. This doctoral research program seeks to change the way we conduct knowledge translation in the health sciences with the goal to more successfully influence policy. More specifically, this research will draw on insights from the field of political science where more effective strategies have been developed and apply them to the issue of ecological determinants of health and environmental policies. The goal is to provide researchers and funding agencies with the tools to create and foster new and innovative political knowledge translation strategies in order to improve both the health of humans and the health of the planet.