Context matters! To fully understand and meaningfully address health inequities, we need to examine their origins within the broader sociopolitical context. Shifting upstream requires going beyond risk/protective factors and social determinants of health to reach the level of systems and structures—this is the level of our societal hardware. It’s here that we can uncover the causes of the causes and the hidden engines driving inequities.
Date: Thursday, December 12, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EST
Learning objectives
The goal of this presentation is to:
- provide an orientation to concepts like hegemony, structural violence, and critical consciousness
- stimulate personal reflection
- facilitate discussion on how we can go about ‘upgrading’ our hardware in order to create a more compassionate, just, and equitable society.
Presenter
Dave Siladi grew up in former Yugoslavia and moved to Canada with his family in 1994 amidst the civil war. During his time at university, Dave studied public health while also taking part in wide-ranging health development initiatives including assisting Mennonite farmers with navigating health regulations; performing a rotation of outreach health services in underserved areas in Hyderabad, India; and organizing a youth capacity building project in Attawapiskat, First Nation. After graduating, he stepped into the role of a public health planner and played a key role in the development of the Waterloo Region Integrated Drugs Strategy.
In 2016, Dave joined the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council. Working in a role focused on research and knowledge exchange, he led a collaborative process to synthesize and mobilize knowledge about upstream prevention and underlying drivers of community safety and wellbeing. This work served as the inspiration for him to return to school in 2022 to start a PhD in public health at the University of Waterloo. In his work and forthcoming research, Dave aspires to be a joiner of threads and edges by making connections across ideas, disciplines and people.
About the organizers
The Upstream Approaches Community of Interest is a working group of multi-sectoral professionals committed to learning together about the structural determinants of health. The goals of this group are to raise awareness of the importance of upstream approaches, deepen our understanding of how upstream approaches can address health inequities, and build capacity to incorporate upstream strategies in our work.