World Health Day 2022 webinar: No mental health without planetary health

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Exploring how we can get back to living in sync with nature on World Health Day 2022.

This World Health Day, join Monash University and Beyond Blue as we explore the less-understood, but critical consequences of climate change, and what we can do to manage our mental health.

When we think about the health consequences of climate change, we often focus on the physical impacts. With converging challenges like the pandemic, to bushfires and floods, there has never been a more important time to take care of ourselves and those around us.

In this webinar, we uncover the links between climate change, mental health and wellbeing, as we mark World Health Day 2022.

Join the conversation for a #HealthierTomorrow

Register to attend webinar here

Panellists

Grant Blashki

Associate Professor Grant Blashki is a practicing GP, the Lead Clinical Advisor for Beyond Blue, Associate Professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, and the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute both at the University of Melbourne. Grant joined MSDI as an Adjunct Associate Professor in 2020.

He is Writer in Residence at Future Leaders books, Health Ambassador for the Lord Mayors Charitable Foundation, and Honorary Professor at Shenzhen Luohu Hospital Group in China. His three themes of research are mental health, environmental health and global health. He also has expertise Genetics in Primary Care, Artificial Intelligence in Health Care, and Primary Health Care in China. He has co-authored over 125 peer reviewed publications and 8 books.  For the last decade he has led the University of Melbourne Masters subject Planetary and Global Health.

He has been actively engaged with community work including as The Chair of the Environmental Working Party of the World Organisation of Family Doctors, as a Board Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, as a mentor in the Al Gore Climate Leadership Project, and as a cofounder of Doctors for the Environment Australia.

Jane Fisher

Jane Fisher, Professor of Global Health, is Director of Global and Women’s Health and Head, Co-Director Planetary Health Division, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. She is an academic Clinical and Health Psychologist with longstanding interests in the social determinants of health, and healthcare participation. Her research has focused on gender-based risks to mental health and psychological functioning from adolescence to mid-life, in particular related to fertility, conception, pregnancy, the perinatal period and chronic non-communicable diseases; and on parenting capabilities and early childhood development in low- and high-income settings.

She has completed major epidemiological studies in clinical and community settings in Australia, Vietnam and Nepal, nationally funded intervention trials, and has supervised more than 50 research higher degree and postgraduate coursework candidates to completion. She is an expert technical advisor to international agencies including the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund.

Melissa Castan

Associate Professor Melissa Castan is Academic Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, and Associate Dean (Staffing) in the Law Faculty. She has also been Associate Dean (Education) and Director Equity, in the Faculty. She has over 25 years experience teaching, researching and publishing in Australian Public Law, Constitutional law, Human Rights Law, Indigenous Legal Issues and Legal Education. Melissa is National Convenor of the Alternative Law Journal, and hosts podcasts 'Law Radio' and 'Just Cases'.

Fiona Charlson

Associate Professor Fiona Charlson is a NHMRC Research Fellow at the Queensland Centre of Mental Health Research and School of Public Health, University of Queensland. She works as a psychiatric epidemiologist and health services researcher with strong experience addressing the most challenging global mental health research questions.

A/Prof Charlson leads UQ’s ‘Mental Health and a Changing Climate Transdisciplinary Impact Research Network’, which she established in 2019 in response to the growing need for an evidence base that supports adaptation and mitigation strategies which address the mental health impacts of climate change.

A/Prof Charlson’s technical expertise is highly sought after and has led to collaboration and advisory roles with a wide range of Australian and international stakeholders, including the World Health Organization, United Nations Development Program, US National Institutes of Health, and numerous government and non- government organisations.