Contact
Professor, School of Public Health
- sherilee@ualberta.ca
Overview
About
Sherilee Harper is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and Health in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. Her research investigates associations between weather, environment, and health equity in the context of climate change, and she collaborates with partners across sectors to prioritise climate-related health actions, planning, interventions, and research. She was a Lead Author on two United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports; served on the Gender Task Group for the IPCC; Lead Author on Health Canada's 2022 Climate Change and Health Assessment; and Co-chaired the Government of Canada's Health and Wellbeing Advisory Table for the National Adaptation Strategy. She is currently an IPCC Vice Chair (WGI).
Degrees
PhD, University of Guelph
MSc, University of Guelph
Keywords
- climate change and health risks
- climate change and health adaptation
- community-led research; community-based, participatory research
- social and environmental epidemiology
- mixed (qualitative and quantitative) research methods
Research Service
- Vice Chair (WGI), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC)
- Lead Author on the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (AR6-WG2)
- Gender Task Group for the IPCC
Courses
SPH 557 - Hot Topics in Climate Change and Health
Climate change and health is a rapidly emerging field with exponentially increasing research outputs and expanding areas of practice. Climate change topics increasingly demand the public's attention, including news headlines, local to international policies, images of increasing extreme weather events, climate strikes, government election platforms, and increasing international reports on climate change impacts. Climate change is a hot topic! Alongside this rapid pace of climate change developments is the urgency for health action and immediate attention. Therefore, this course explores the health dimensions of hot topics, emerging themes, and current events in climate change as they occur in real time around the world. Through the discussion of current global to local issues at the climate-health nexus, students will deepen their understanding of climate change and health research, policy, and practice. Discussion, teamwork, and projects will enable the application of climate change and health theory to real time climate change and health theory to real time climate change events. Prerequisite: SPH 556.
Scholarly Activities
Research - Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC)
Ended: 2021
Funded by CIHR Team Grant
IHACCFeatured Publications
Conevska, A., Ford, J., Lesnikowski, A., Harper, S.L.
Climate Policy. 2018 January;
Wright, C.J., Sargeant, J.M., Edge, V.L., Ford, J.D., Farahbakhsh, K., Shiwak, I., Flowers, C., Gordon, A.C., RICG, IHACC Research Team (Berrang-Ford, L., Carcamo, C., Llanos, A., Lwasa, S., Namanya, D.B.), Harper, S.L.
Science of The Total Environment. 2018 January; 618 (15):369-378
Zavaleta, C., Berrang-Ford, L., Ford, J., Llanos-Cuentas, A., Carcamo, C., Ross, N., Lancha, G., Sherman, M., Harper, S.L., IHACC Research Team
PLoS ONE. 2018 January; 13 (10)
Flynn, M., Ford, J., Pearce, T., Harper, S.L., IHACC Research Team
Environmental Science & Policy. 2018 January; 79
Ford, J.D., Sherman, M., Berrang-Ford, L., Llanos, A., Carcamo, C., Harper, S.L., Lwasa, S., Namanya, D.B., Marcello, T., Maillet, M., Edge, V.
Global Environmental Change. 2018 January; 49