Building Wellbeing Societies & Communities:
Registration Now Open

The Public Health Association of British Columbia is proud to host the 2025 Summer Institute, a virtual event that will explore what it means to build a Wellbeing Society—one that prioritizes people, planet, and future generations. Drawing inspiration from the World Health Organization’s Geneva Charter for Well-being (2022), this year’s Institute invites public health professionals, researchers, academics, policymakers, and advocates to reimagine the role of public health in shaping a fairer, healthier, and more sustainable world.

The 2025 Summer Institute offers more than dialogue—it is a space for strategic thinking, systems exploration, and cross-sector collaboration. Through keynote discussions, facilitated conversations, and interactive sessions, attendees will reflect on how the public health field can lead in co-creating communities that are just, regenerative, and deeply rooted in wellbeing. Join us as we imagine—and begin to build—a future in which public health is a driving force for societal transformation.

Summer Institute Details

Dates: June 25th, 2025
Venue: Online via Zoom
Price: $40 +GST
Member/Student/Retiree Price: $30 +GST

Think Piece

PHABC is pleased to share the #PHSI25 Think Piece, authored by Dr. Trevor Hancock in collaboration with Dr. Lindsay McLaren. Download it now:

Scientific Program Committee Co-Chairs

Dr. Trevor Hancock

Retired Professor & Senior Scholar School of Public Health & Social Policy, University of Victoria

Associate Member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies
University of Victoria

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and health promotion consultant. In ‘retirement’ he has started a new NGO, Conversations for a One Planet Region, to explore and popularise these ideas locally; works with Doctors for Planetary Health in BC; is the interim Convenor of the emerging Canadian Coalition for Planetary Health and a Wellbeing Society, and is a member of the IUHPE’s Global Working Group on Waiora Planetary Health.

Dr. Lindsay McLaren

Professor
Department of Community Health Science, University of Calgary

Research Associate
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Lindsay McLaren PhD is a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary where her scholarship and teaching focus on social determinants and political economy of health. Lindsay is past-president (2014-18) of the Alberta Public Heath Association and currently serves as Senior Editor for the Canadian Journal of Public Health.