Protecting our future health
July 10, 2023
UBC researchers are on a mission to understand how biological, social, and environmental factors interact to make us more susceptible to climate change. Their findings could hold the key to better health for everyone — starting with our most at-risk communities.
A few summers ago, during British Columbia’s worst-ever wildfire season, Dr. Sarah Henderson began to receive worried messages from the families and friends of people with dementia.
“They were telling us, ‘My dad has Alzheimer’s, and he seems more confused than usual,’” she recalls. “The stories were coming from all over. At first, we weren’t sure what to make of them.”
A professor at the UBC School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) and Scientific Director of Environmental Health at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), Dr. Henderson is a leading expert on the health effects of air pollution, extreme heat and other climate-sensitive hazards in the province.
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