How interdisciplinary efforts can change the face of emergency preparedness: IHEP’s 2026 Interdisciplinary Symposium
By Parmin Sedigh, Faculty of Arts and Science Undergraduate Student
Emergency preparedness has had too narrow a focus for too long. As an undergraduate student, I have heard this sentiment from many professors and experts, and felt it firsthand. Yet, too often, the sentiment is not reflected in practice, from lectures and conferences lacking diverse speaker lineups to working groups and healthcare teams on the ground being monolithic in their expertise.
The Interdisciplinary Symposium of the Institute of Health Emergencies and Pandemics (IHEP) offered a forum to bring together varied voices and highlight the many areas where fields of expertise overlap and enhance one another. Speakers took attendees through various stages of public health emergency preparedness, focusing on where improvements are being made and where gaps remain.
Closing gaps in disability data
A key theme to emerge was data collection and the importance of collecting robust and detailed data. Dr. Fahad Razak (Unity Health), an internist, epidemiologist, and former Scientific Director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, discussed a study where he and colleagues analyzed health services utilization for those with and without disabilities during the pandemic. The study served as a catalyst for relaxing hospital visitor restrictions; for some living with disabilities, visitors serve as critical caregivers and advocates for their care. Cutting them out of care can irreparably harm patients.
Despite the importance of studies like this, data on disability not being collected remains a challenge. Wendy Porch, Executive Director at the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto (CILT), described efforts to change this. Porch explained that health administrative data in Ontario, and Canada more broadly, rivals the best such databases worldwide, but it is still lacking in critical ways.
For instance, data from the UK showed that COVID had a disproportionate impact on those with disabilities. But data like this wasn’t easily analyzed in Canada because it wasn’t being collected. In other words, we as a society can’t address “unknown unknowns.” Everything starts with having the necessary information.
Connecting fragmented health data
Another key challenge is bringing data together, as many sources remain disconnected, which limits how they can be used. Dr. Razak and his team have worked on addressing this problem through GEMINI. Administrative data is well-connected across Ontario through the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), but 99% of data generated is clinical data (data collected at hospitals), which can provide more detail in many cases. This is the data that GEMINI makes interoperable and more easily analyzable, thus providing an opportunity for foresight before health crises strike.
Predicting drug shortages
With interoperable databases in hand, the focus shifts to analysis and prediction. Professor Mina Tadrous (Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy), a pharmacist and pharmacoepidmeiologist, discussed the state of drug shortages in Canada and the need for better predictability so our health systems are better equipped to deal with these shortages. Many previous studies of this problem relied on supply chain reports provided by companies, which are often opaque and difficult to decipher. Plus, not all shortages are created equal. If a medication has a therapeutic alternative, its shortage will not be as deadly to patients compared to a drug which is unique in its ability to treat a condition.
Tadrous and his team tackled this problem by creating a predictive model for drug shortages. The model predicts the likelihood of a shortage based on “risk factors” for a drug combined with a clinical risk score provided by clinicians. For instance, antibiotics are at high risk of shortages due to the way in which planning for their stocks is performed. If an antibiotic is vital to treat a specific bacterial infection, its risk score would be quite high. Using this model, more mindful, evidence-informed plans can be undertaken.
Building trust before a crisis
Turning to implementation, the challenge is putting these insights into practice. Trust is crucial at this stage, as highlighted by Professor Chavon Niles (Temerty Faculty of Medicine), a Guyanese-Canadian researcher, scholar, educator, and advocate dedicated to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Niles walked attendees through case studies, demonstrating that trust is not just about communication. This assumes that people already trust the existing channels of communication.
Rather, how an individual does or does not receive care shapes how and whether they trust the healthcare system. Importantly, trust is not built in the midst of a crisis; it is based on what existed prior. If this trust is not built, it doesn’t matter how cutting-edge the research being performed is or its findings. The findings will never have a real impact.
Learning from system failures
Lastly, despite experts and institutions’ best efforts, failures will occur during a health crisis. How does one deal with and attempt to mitigate these organization-level failures? Professor András Tilcsik (Rotman School of Management), whose research focuses on organizations with a particular focus on inequalities, walked attendees through three reasons for these failures.
First is a focus on proximate causes. If organizations keep their focus too narrow when analyzing their previous failures, they will prepare for the last crisis rather than the next. Second, plans should not be rigid blueprints but rather flexible frameworks. There should be room for making changes throughout. Last is cross-role awareness; everyone should be aware of others’ roles, their constraints, and their expertise.
Tilcsik concluded, saying these lessons are all simple in theory but not easy in practice. This was ultimately the feeling in the air following the conference: that while some of the challenges of health emergency preparedness may be theoretically simple, they remain difficult to address in practice. If there is one way they will be made easier, it is through this interdisciplinary collaboration.