TB and Planetary Health: Social Science Perspectives – World TB Day Webinar 2026
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
- Time: 8:00 am - 9:00 am
Location
- Online
- Register for call-in details
The theme of World TB Day 2026 – ‘Yes! We can end TB!’ – is a bold call to action and a message of hope, affirming that it is possible to get back on track and turn the tide on the TB epidemic, even in a challenging global environment. With decisive country leadership, increased domestic and international investment, rapid uptake of new WHO recommendations and innovations, accelerated action, and strong multisectoral collaboration, ending TB is not just aspirational – it is achievable.
The Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research is excited to cosponsor this World TB Day webinar with the SSHIFTB & Athena Institute on Monday, March 24, 2026, 8 am EST/ 1 pm SAST/ 2 pm CET.
Please see below for information about the speakers and topics:
In 2024, WHO disseminated its first analysis framework of climate change and TB. This initiated a new era in TB care and prevention. TB, an ancient disease, has been resilient over the centuries. In this talk, we will look at the effect of climate change on TB risk factors and health system preparedness, with focus on India.
Karuna Devi Sagili – Independent Consultant
Dr Karuna D Sagili is a biomedical and public health researcher working at the intersection of global & public health research and advocacy, with a focus on health system strengthening through operational/implementation research, synthesising evidence through systematic reviews, undertaking strategic policy advocacy, and providing technical support to national health ministries. She brings over 18 years of experience in infectious disease research, from a biosocial perspective and has published over 50 scientific papers. She has experience in quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research and systematic reviews. She led the operational research component of the largest civil society grant by The Global Fund (Project Axshya) for over 9 years, ensuring successful completion and impactful evidence-based policy advocacy. She also led systematic reviews in partnership with the Cochrane Collaboration. As a coordinator, facilitator and mentor, she accelerated operational research training in India, Asia and Africa in collaboration with WHO/TDR to strengthen national health programs.
Planetary health is her growing area of interest, especially climate change and its impact on health. She conducted a literature review on the effect of climate change on TB in India.
Her passion is to see lives transformed and individuals live to their fullest.
Carol Devine will speak about SeeChange’s work with Inuit communities and partners in Nunavut responding to the disproportionate tuberculosis (TB) epidemic across Inuit Nunangat. By the 1950s, at least one-third of the Inuit population in Canada was infected with TB, and thousands were sent south for treatment, without consent. Since 2018, SeeChange has supported Inuit-led initiatives addressing TB while recognizing the intergenerational harms and mental health impacts of colonial-era TB evacuations. Carol will highlight a novel program developed in response to Inuit Elders’ recommendations, in which healing visits brought TB sanatorium survivors and youth together to support intergenerational healing, knowledge transfer, and efforts to eliminate TB today. She will also briefly touch on SeeChange’s collaborative scoping review examining TB, climate change, and One Health in the highly climate-impacted circumpolar region.
Carol Devine – SeeChange Initiative
Carol Devine is social scientist, researcher, and writer. She is Chief Operating Officer of SeeChange Initiative, a social purpose organization in Canada that supports communities in their health responses, their way. With Inuit Elders and youth from Nunavut, SeeChange co-led an Intergenerational Healing Journey to a former TB Sanatorium in southern Ontario, recognizing the impact of colonial-era TB evacuations on the survivors, their families, and communities, and how acknowledging this difficult and complex history can contribute to healing, TB awareness, and prevention today. Carol is co-author of Exploring the intersection of Tuberculosis, Climate Change and One Health from a Community Response Perspective: A Rapid Scoping Review and Context Analysis with partners at SSHIFTB, Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research (DIGHR), York University, and University of Toronto.
Carol is a Community Scholar at DIGHR, York University, an International Fellow of The Explorers Club, and a member of the Humanities and Social Sciences Working Group of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). She was Lead of Humanitarian Action on Climate and Environment (HACE) Initiative of Médecins Sans Frontières Canada (MSF) and of Climate Smart MSF, a large-scale project of MSF’s Transformation Investment Capacity to support this global medical humanitarian organization’s decarbonization. Carol represented MSF at COP23 in Egypt on humanitarian responses and nature-based solutions, and was the Canadian liaison for MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign.
This talk is about studying air and amorphous risk. As the warming climate drives people indoors, the diversity of organisms suspended in indoor air has become a source of creative inquiry. Lots of new techniques are helping us to appreciate how alive the warming air is. This talk is about how we engage health care workers and people with TB in conversations about things in the air they cannot see. Many groups are trying to capture the TB in indoor air before it captures us. Ellen will share how our group is trying to co-design sustainable machines to remove bioaerosols using locally manufactured, simple tech. We will describe our challenges in honest co-design, from overcoming informational asymmetries to forging meetings of the minds.
Ellen Mitchell – Institute of Tropical Medicine
Ellen M.H. Mitchell, PhD is a Public Health Fellow in the unit of Mycobacterial and Neglected Tropical Diseases led by Professor Epco Hasker at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp since October 2019. Prior to that, she worked at KNCV TB Foundation for ten years. Ellen started out squarely in the Social Sciences frame studying ethnography and politics of public health during her training at Oberlin (’91) and Tulane (‘95, ‘01) and as a Fulbright in Ecuador (’98). Over time she has gravitated toward a version of social epidemiology that mixes tools and hybrid strategies for solving TB problems. Ellen is happiest working in multidisciplinary, multi-country teams to tackle questions about TB risk – not only who and where, but why and what are we doing about it. This has led her to dig into TB stigma, active case-finding, TB mortality measurement, gender, and invite some re-thinking of TB orthodoxies. She has a thing for shiny new ideas, tools, and methods.
