Catherine Slavik

• PhD MPH
• Banting Fellow at University of Oregon

Background In 2010, Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, implemented its Toxics Reduction Act, Ontario Regulation 455/09 (TRA), which requires four major manufacturing and mineral processing industry groups that already report releases of pollutants federally to the National Pollutant Release Inventory to additionally track, account and report...

Objectives: The goal of this study was to leverage data from two environmental regulatory initiatives, Ontario's Toxics Reduction Act (TRA) and Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), to assess their ability to monitor trends in the use and emission of carcinogens by industry sector in Ontario. Methods: Data reported to the TRA and...

Billions of hours of YouTube content are viewed every day. Much of this content is aimed at entertainment, some of it is educational, and a considerable quantity is meant to influence or reinforce public opinion on a variety of matters, including health. Most of the content on YouTube is not created by professionals, public institutions or the trad...

Purpose of review Informing the public about environmental risks to health is crucial for raising awareness around hazards, and promoting actions that minimize exposures. Geographic visualizations—geovisualizations—have become an increasingly common way to disseminate web-based information about environmental hazards, displaying spatial variations...

Background. Wildfire smoke events are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. Children are especially vulnerable to health effects even at moderate smoke levels. However, it is unclear how parents respond to Air Quality Indices (AQIs) frequently used by agencies to communicate air pollution health risks. Methods. In an experime...

Background Wildfire smoke contributes substantially to the global disease burden and is a major cause of air pollution in the US states of Oregon and Washington. Climate change is expected to bring more wildfires to this region. Social media is a popular platform for health promotion and a need exists for effective communication about smoke risks a...

People's perceptions of control over their risk of cancer, and their perceptions of health experts' abilities to manage cancer risks, shape their beliefs about the effectiveness of expert-recommended cancer-preventive behaviors and actions. The aims of this exploratory study were to investigate the impact of individual skills and sources of health...

Purpose Canada was a major global asbestos producer and consumer. Geographic patterns of Canadian asbestos use and mesothelioma, a highly fatal cancer linked to asbestos exposure, have not been previously reported. This study summarized key trends in mesothelioma incidence by geography and time in two Canadian provinces, Ontario and British Columbi...

Introduction Les responsables de la santé publique offrent un service public important en répondant aux préoccupations du public relativement au cancer et sont souvent appelés à mener des enquêtes sur les tendances des taux d’incidence du cancer et à en communiquer les résultats aux citoyens. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous avons déterminé les p...

Introduction Public health officials provide an important public service responding to community concerns around cancer and often receive requests to investigate patterns of cancer incidence and communicate findings with citizens. In this study, we identified procedures Canadian public health officials followed when investigating reports of cancer...

Background Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, have a role in spreading anti-vaccine opinion and misinformation. Vaccines have been an important component of managing the COVID-19 pandemic, so content that discourages vaccination is generally seen as a concern to public health. However, not all negative inform...

BACKGROUND Evidence has suggested that major social media platforms, such Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have a role in spreading anti-vaccine opinion and misinformation in recent years. Vaccines are seen as an important part of managing the Covid-19 pandemic, so barriers to vaccination are an important barrier to public health. OBJECTIV...

Introduction Canada was once the world’s largest producer of asbestos, but exposure has been decreasing since the 1970’s due to restrictions on use, lower occupational exposure limits, closing of mines, and a ban in 2018. Objectives The objectives of this study were to evaluate how rates of mesothelioma in Ontario and British Columbia (BC), which...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health agencies and decision-makers have used social media to disseminate information, encourage changes to behaviour and promote community supports and resources. Their communications have served to educate the public on risks and initiate the widespread adoption of public health measures to ‘flatten the curve’...

Background: Effective communication during a health crisis can ease public concerns and promote the adoption of important risk-mitigating behaviors. Public health agencies and leaders have served as the primary communicators of information related to COVID-19 and a key part of their public outreach has taken place on social media platforms. Objec...

enCancer clusters attract considerable interest from the public, the media, and governments, and the risk communication undertaken during an investigation may impact cancer risk perceptions. This paper examined the frequency of select words on qualitative risk, quantitative risk, and cancer risk factors used in the news coverage of suspected cancer...

Governments around the world have made data on COVID-19 testing, case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths openly available, and a breadth of researchers, media sources and data scientists have curated and used these data to inform the public about the state of the coronavirus pandemic. However, it is unclear if all data being released convey anyth...

BACKGROUND Effective communication during a health crisis can ease public concerns and promote the adoption of important risk-mitigating behaviors. Public health agencies and leaders have served as the primary communicators of information related to COVID-19, and a key part of their public outreach has taken place on social media platforms. OBJECT...