HEAL 2022 Conference Website

HEAL 2022

Join us at the 2-day live and virtual HEAL 2022 Conference to experience an inspirational forum for knowledge transfer, scientific debate, and community-wide conversations about research and policy priority setting on human health, climate and environmental change solutions in Australia.

It involves researchers, policy makers, health practitioners, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, community members, charities, businesses and other stakeholders from across Australia and neighbouring countries in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. This highly innovative conference has a hybrid multi-node format, which will stimulate debate, provide in-person interaction and networking opportunities for participants in eight nodes covering all Australian jurisdictions, as well as an enhanced online experience for virtual participation from Australia and overseas.


We look forward to welcoming you to HEAL 2022.



Professor Sotiris Vardoulakis
Australian National University


Associate Professor Veronica Matthews
UCRH, University of Sydney

HEAL 2022 Conference Co-Chairs


Principal Funder
The HEAL National Research Network for Healthy Environments and Lives is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Special Initiative in Human Health and Environmental Change (Grant APP2008937).

Conference Themes

  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and knowledge translation for building resilience to environmental change
  • Health system resilience to environmental change and sustainability
  • Bushfires, air pollution, heatwaves, and other extreme events, and their impact on physical, mental, and community health
  • Food, soil and water safety and security in a changing environment
  • Biosecurity, COVID-19 and emerging Infections in the context of environmental change
  • Urban health, built environment and nature based solutions
  • Rural and remote health
  • Clean energy solutions for healthy environments and lives
  • At-risk populations, early life effects and life-course solutions
  • Data and decision support systems for environmental health applications
  • Science communication, citizen science, and risk perception
  • Planetary health equity
  • Environmental change and health in the Asia-Pacific region
  • Climate change and mental wellbeing

To register your attendance and learn more about the Healthy Environments and Lives Conference,
please click the buttons below.


Conference Programme

 Day 1

Wednesday 23rd November
12.00 AEDT
18.00 AEDT
Welcome to Country
Conference Welcome
Opening Address
Plenary Session – invited talks
Breakout Sessions – regional panel discussions
Face-to-face networking
End of Day 1

 Day 2

Thursday 24th November
12.00 AEDT
18.00 AEDT
Welcome to Country
Opening Address
Plenary Session – invited talks
Breakout Sessions – thematic panel discussions
Award Presentation
Concluding Remarks
End of Day 2
2022 Plenary Speakers
Day 1
Assoc Prof Linda Payi Ford
Senior Research Fellow at the Northern Institute, College of Indigenous Futures, Education & Arts at Charles Darwin University
Prof Sotiris Vardoulakis
Director of the Healthy Environments And Lives (HEAL) Network and Professor of Global Environmental Health at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University
Prof Anne Poelina
Co-Chair of Indigenous Studies Nulungu Institute Research at University of Notre Dame and Adjunct Professor at the College Indigenous Education Futures, Arts & Society at Charles Darwin University
Prof Raina MacIntyre
Head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute and member of the WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Composition Technical Advisory group and WHO SAGE Smallpox and Monkeypox Working Group
Dr Nick Watts
Chief Sustainability Officer of the NHS, Leader of the Greener NHS Team, and Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Health of the University College London
Prof Petra Tschakert
Professor of Geography and Global Futures in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University and Coordinating Lead Author of the 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report
Dr Janine Mohamed
CEO of Lowitja Institute, Australia’s National Institute for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Research.
Prof Kristie Ebi
Professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington
Day 2
Assoc Prof Veronica Matthews
Associate Professor at the University Centre for Rural Health at the University of Sydney and Co-leader of the Centre for Research Excellence in Strengthening Systems for Indigenous Health Care Equity
Prof Eugenie Kayak
Consultant anaesthetist at Austin and Alfred Health and Convenor of the DEA’s National Sustainable Healthcare Special Interest Group
Prof Mark Patrick Taylor
Chief Environmental Scientist at EPA Victoria and Honorary Professor of Environmental Science and Human Health at Macquarie University
Prof Kristin Aunan
Research Director for the Climate Impacts Group at CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway and Project Coordinator of EXHAUSTION and ENBEL
Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum
Head of the Climate Change and Health unit at WHO Headquarters and Lead Author of three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports
Dr Donald Wilson
Associate Dean Research, College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Fiji National University
Francyne Wase-Jacklick
Deputy Secretary for Health, Ministry of Health & Human Services, Republic of the Marshall Islands
To learn more about the HEAL 2021 conference, please click the below button.
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