Upcoming Webinar: Supporting Evidence-Informed Action on Financial Wellbeing 

January 22, 2026
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. (MDT)
Free | Virtual

Many Canadians are struggling to cover day-to-day expenses, save money, and pay down debts. The Centre for Healthy Communities and its research partners have developed an interactive website (to be launched at the webinar) to facilitate use of evidence-informed strategies to improve financial wellbeing. This website supports targeted action on financial wellbeing across sectors.  

Join us on January 22, 2026 at noon (MDT) for a virtual webinar to learn more about the website, ways you can support the further development of the website, and actions we can all take to advance financial wellbeing in Canada.

Recording Available: Creating a Global Public Health Treaty Surveillance Platform

On October 30, 2025, the Centre for Healthy Communities hosted a webinar presented by Les Hagen, Executive Director for Action on Smoking & Health Canada. In the webinar, Les provided an overview of the development of the world’s first open-access public health treaty surveillance platform – the Global Tobacco Control Progress Hub. 

The recording of this webinar is now available.

Gardening Initiatives as an Approach to Support Children and Youth

Christina Gillies, Centre for Healthy Communities Scientist has recently co-authored two publications about how gardening initiatives can support children and youth.

Publication 1: This review looked at gardening initiatives for children and youth to see if they are designed in ways that promote health equity. While many initiatives account for factors like social connections, age, and socioeconomic status, the review found that most do not fully address barriers faced by families with fewer resources, such as transportation or time constraints. Few studies measured whether these programs actually reduce health gaps. To make gardening initiatives truly equitable, they need to involve communities in planning, remove participation barriers, and track whether they advance health equity—not just improve overall health.

Publication 2: Gardening initiatives in schools and communities can help children and youth build healthy habits that may lower their risk of cancer later in life. Children learn about nutrition, eat more fruits and vegetables, and spend more time being active. These initiatives also boost mental well-being and social connections. While gardening shows promise as a way to support cancer prevention, most studies are short-term and more research is needed to understand if these benefits last into adulthood.

Christina’s work has also been recently profiled in Folio.

Questions? Contact us here.