Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty Member

Donald C Cole MSc, FRCP(C)

Research Interests

Metalevel

• Ecological public health and equity
• Healthy and sustainable agriculture interventions for human health
• Environmental or workplace intervention evaluation

Education & Training History

1973 – 78 MD, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

1987- 91 Community Medicine residency programme and Masters in Health Research Methods, McMaster University

2012-13 Core Foundations in Educational Research certificate

Other Affiliations

Member of the School of the Environment

Primary Teaching Responsibilities

• Occasional resource person – lecturer, no longer graduate student supervisor
• Member of the Research Committee, Public Health Preventive Medicine Residency Programme

Professional Summary & Appointments

Feb 99 – Present Senior then Associate Scientist, Workplace Studies, Institute for Work & Health http://www.iwh.on.ca/

2012 – Present Member, Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem Health (COPEH-Can)  http://www.copeh-canada.org/ and EcoHealth Ontario Collaborative http://www.ecohealth-ontario.ca/

Fellow, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Occupational Medicine (1990) and Community Medicine (1992)

Honours & Awards

• June 2011 Robin Badgley Award for Teaching Excellence in Public Health Sciences – open
• 2015 Vic Neufeld Mentorship Award in Global Health Research – Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research

Funded Investigator:

Parkes M, Allison S, Hallstrom LK, Harder  HG, Stephen C, Surette C, Takaro TK with Adams E, Beck L, Brisbois B, Bunch M,  Buse C, Cleary E,  Cole DC,  Cross N,  De Leeuw S, Gislason M, Greenwood M, Lemire M, Marks R, Marshall D,  Reschny J, Saint-Charles J, Vaillancourt C, Vigano J, Woollard R.  The ECHO Network (Environment, Community,  Health Observatory): Strengthening intersectoral capacity to understand and respond to Health Impacts of Resource Development. CIHR Team Grant: Environments and Health: Intersectoral Prevention Research. LOI. (CDN$49,826) & Full application (CDN$ 2,083,753) to 2024 (Co-Applicant)

Batal M, Paredes M, Sherwood SG, Rivas Mariño G, Estrella Cobo E, Cole DC, López Proaño P, Berti PR, Zinsxer K, Vallejo Rojas V.  Evaluating and bringing to scale alternative food networks to address diabetes mellitus and Hypertension. CIHR-IDRC Global Alliance for Chronic Disease Team Grant: Intervention scale-up – Hypertension and/or diabetes. 2019 Mar – 2025 Mar, CDN$ 2.5 million (Co-Applicant)

Caxaj CS, Lozanski K, Mayell S, Weiler A, Basok T, Edmunds K, George G, Hennebry J, McLaughlin J, Vosko L et al.  Partnered Research Evaluating Services with Migrants in Agriculture (PRESMA): Conditions, capacities and possibilities for effective support services for migrant agricultural workers. SSHRC Partnership Development Grants in Connection & Insight series. Mar 2022 to Mar 2025. CDN $200,000 (Collaborator)

Elton S, Byers K, van Beinum A, Ji L-J, Robinson S, Cole DC. Reimagining Resistance: A transdisciplinary approach to human-animal-environment relations and antimicrobial resistance in the dairy industry. SSHRC Imagining Canada’s Future – Ideas Lab. Mar 2024-Mar 2026 CDN$ 249995 (co-investigator)

Consultation/Service

Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers – Occupational physician

Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections – Senior Advisor

Workplace Health Without Borders – member

Representative Publications:

Book

Cole DC, Lee-Smith D, Nasinyama GW (eds). Healthy City Harvests: Generating evidence to guide policy on urban agriculture. CIP (International Potato Center)/Urban Harvest, Lima, Peru and Makerere University Press. 2008. 259 pp

Contributions to Books:

Cole DC, HortiSana Huancayo: Rossana Pacheco, Armando Alfaro, Veronica Cañedo, Willy Pradel, Gordon Prain, Mary Luz Solarzano, Bronwyn Underhill. Andean Indigenous-Mestizo Peoples, Agro-Ecosystems & Human Health: Horticulture in Peru’s Montaro Valley. In: Jeff Reading, Namaste Marsden, Rachel Link, Dinara Kurbanova and Miranda Kelly (eds). Global Indigenous Health Research Symposium Report. Papers and Presentations: Directions and Themes in International Indigenous Health Research 2008. Victoria, BC Canada: Centre for Aboriginal Health Research, University of Victoria. Pp 27-32

Orozco F, Cole DC. Tackling challenges to farmers’ health and agro-ecosystem sustainability in highland Ecuador. Ch 4 in Charron D (ed). Ecohealth Research in Practice Innovative Applications of an Ecosystem Approach to Health. Springer & IDRC, Ottawa, Canada. 2011 pp 47-58

Elton S*, Cole DC. Eating for health and the environment: Food systems analysis and the ecological determinants of health. Ch 16 In: Kevany KM, Prosperi P (eds). Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Diets.Routledge, 2022 Dec 30 Taylor & Francis London & New York (Co-A) 176-187

Peer Reviewed Journal Publications

Hau M, Cole DC, Vanderlinden L, Campbell M, MacFarlane R, Archbold J, Mee C. Application of precaution in addressing local environmental health issues: a retrospective case analysis and proposed guide. PMID:24999853  International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health 2014;20(2):174 – 184

Pradel W, Prain G, Cole DC, Mera X, Pacheco R. Towards healthier horticulture: evaluation of change in vegetable production, marketing and consumption in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes. Better Evaluation June 2013 http://betterevaluation.org/blog/mixed-methods-part2?utm_source=BetterEvaluation+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f4aa10463d-Special_edition_rubrics_14_03_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a745b98c7e-f4aa10463d-72513417 (Co-PA)

McKellar K, Yi J, Pitzul K, Cole DC. Evaluating communities of practice and knowledge networks: A systematic scoping review of evaluation frameworks. PMID: 25023411 EcoHealth  September 2014; 11(3):383-399; doi:10.1007/s10393-014-0958-3

Orkin AM, Lay M, McLaughlin J, Schwandt M, Cole D.  Medical repatriation of migrant farm workers in Ontario: a descriptive analysis. PMID:25295239 CMAJ OPEN June 2014; 2(3): E192-198; doi:10.9778/cmajo.20140014

Lam S, Leffley A, Cole DC. Applying an Ecohealth perspective in a state of the environment report: experiences of a local public health unit in Canada. PMID: 25546271 Int J Environ Res Public Health Deccember 2014;12(1):16-31; doi: 10.3390/ijerph120100016

Cole DC, Levin C, Loechl C, Thiele G, Grant F, Girard AW, Sindi K, Low J. Planning an integrated agriculture and health program and designing its evaluation: experience from western Kenya. Evaluation and Program Planning 2016 Jun;56:11-22. doi: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2016.03.001. Epub 2016 Mar 14 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149718916300581 [PMID: 27003730] (PA)

Brisbois B*, Burgos Delgado A, Barraza D, Betancourt OF, Cole DC, Mertens F, Parkes M, Saint-Charles J. Ecosystem approaches to health and knowledge-to-action: towards a political ecology of applied health-environment knowledge. Journal of Political Ecology 2017; Vol. 24: 692-715 (Co-A)

Weiler, Anelyse; McLaughlin, Janet; Cole, Donald. Food security at whose expense? A critique of the Canadian temporary farm labour migration regime and proposals for change. International Migration 2017 Vol. 55 (4) pp 48-63 doi: 10.1111/imig.12342 (Co-A)

Cole DC, Govender NP, Chakrabarti A, Sacaral J, Denning DW. Improvement of fungal disease identification and management – combined health systems and public health approaches. The Lancet Infectious Diseases Published Online July 31, 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016S1473-3099(17)30308-0 8 pp (PA)

Waheed F*, Cole DC, Ferguson G, MacLellan J, Ollson C, McCallum L. Health Impact Assessment of Transportation Projects, Plans and Policies: A Systematic Scoping Review. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 2018 (July); 71:17-25 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2017.12.002 (co-PA)

Mulligan K, Archbold J, Baker LE, Elton S, Cole DC. Toronto municipal staff and policy makers’ views on urban agriculture and health: a qualitative study. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development 2018; 8b, supplement 2: 133-156 DOI:https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08B.001 (SRA and corresponding author)

Cole DC, Parkes M, Saint-Charles J, Webb J, Gislason M, McKellar K et al.. Evolution of capacity strengthening: insights from the Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health. Transformative Dialogues 2018; 11(2): 1-21 (PA)  http://www.kpu.ca/sites/default/files/Transformative%20Dialogues/TD.11.2_Cole_etal_Evolution_of_capacity_strengthening.pdf

Julius Juma Okello, Temesgen Bocher, Jan Low, Fred Grant, Donald Cole, Haile Selassie Okuku, Aimee Webb Girard, and Carol Levin. Effects and drivers of participation in agriculture-nutrition-health interventions: Experiences from a biofortified sweetpotato project. Development in Practice 2021; 31(5): 592-605 https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2021.1907533 (Co-A)

Deaconu, A., Berti, P.R., Cole, D.C., Mercille, G., & Batal, M. Agroecology and nutritional health: a comparison of agroecological farmers and their neighbors in the Ecuadorian highlands. Food Policy 2021; 101 (102034 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102034 (Co-A)

Brisbois, Ben; Feagan, Mathieu; Stime, Bjorn; Kukoc Paz, Isaac; Berbés-Blázquez, Marta; Gaibor, Juan; Cole, Donald; Di Ruggiero, Erica; Hanson, Lori; Janes, Craig; Larson, Charles; Plamondon, Katrina. Mining, colonial legacies and neoliberalism: A political ecology of health knowledge. NEW SOLUTIONS: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy 2021;31(1):48-64 https://doi.org/10.1177/10482911211001051 (Co-A)

Brisbois B, Hoogeveen D, Allison S, Cole D, Fyfe TM, Harder HG, Parkes MW. Storylines of research on resource extraction and health in Canada: A modified metanarrative synthesis. Social Science & Medicine 2021; 277 (113899) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113899 (Co-A)

Kralt J, Cole DC. Awakening to the need for community resilience: experiences within a rural food distribution cooperative. J Critical Dietetics 2021; 5(3): 12-19

Cole DC, Needham L, Markowitz P. A food charter as a critical food guidance tool in a rural area: the case of Bruce and Grey Counties in Southwestern Ontario. Canadian Food Studies 2022; 9(1) 12-36: https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v9i1.497

Buse CG, Allison S, Cole DC, Fumerton R, Parkes MW, Woollard R. Patient- and community-oriented primary care approaches for health in rural, remote and resource-dependent places: Insights for eco-social praxis. Frontiers in Public Health (section Family Medicine and Primary Care) 26 May 2022, 1-15, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.867397

Caxaj S, Tran M, Mayell S, Tew M, McLaughlin J, Rawal S, Vosko LF, Cole D. Migrant agricultural workers’ deaths in Ontario from January 2020 to June 2021: a qualitative descriptive study. Int J Equity Health21, 98 (2022, July 16). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-022-01692-7

Sarah Elton & Donald Cole. Is a vegetable garden essential? Toronto gardens as culinary infrastructure, Food, Culture & Society 2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2022.2086786

Chris Buse, Trevor Hancock, Sandra Allison, Barbara Astle, Donald Cole, Raina Fumerton, Maya Gislason, Tim Takaro, Daniel Rainham, Courtney Howard, Rakel Kling, Shobhit Maruti, Lindsay McLaren, Emily Newhouse, Margot Parkes, Sue Pollock, Daniel Rainham, Jena Webb, Robert Woollard. Where are the ecological determinants of health? (letter) Can J Public Health 2022 Nov 18, 114, 152–153 (2023 https://doi.org/10.17269/s41997-022-00720-x

Denning DW, Cole DC, Ray A. New estimation of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) related to pulmonary TB – revised burden for India. International Journal of Infectious Diseases – Regions 2022 (Mar); 6: 7-14 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijregi.2022.11.005

Gabriel April-Lalonde, Ana Deaconu, Donald C. Cole & Malek Batal (2023).Traditional Food Consumption in Andean Ecuador and Associated Consumer Characteristics, Shopping and Eating Habits, Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 62:5-6, 308-333, https://doi.org/10.1080/03670244.2023.2264197

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