Making the Connections Feedback

For our inaugural exhibit at Toronto’s Urbanspace Gallery, we wanted to give our audience the chance to reflect on their environment, consider ways to build a healthier city, and draw their own connections between the social determinants of health. Through a series of interactive panels, we collected feedback and found out how people are thinking about their city, their society, and their health.

Our first interactive panel posed the question “What social determinant affects you?” After considering the social determinants in their environment, audience members placed a sticker on a map of Toronto, identifying health issues in their own neighbourhoods.

Our Dotmocracy panel presented a range of real policy options that could improve our health, and which are currently being considered by decision makers. We asked our audience to vote for the policy they felt was most important for a healthier Toronto.

We encouraged our audience to apply a systems thinking perspective and make their own meaningful connections between the social determinants of health, based on their knowledge and lived experience. After writing down their ideas on tags, they placed them on our panel to map out their new connections.

Every day, people were making new connections and challenging themselves to think about how social determinants of health affect their lives. After two months of collecting feedback, we mapped out the patterns and ideas that emerged to present what our audience had to say.

A chance to listen

“I can now recognize more physical factors than mental factors that affect our health and our society.”

“The simple graphics and interactive segments were very helpful in communicating health research.”

“I learned how to bring together complex data in a structured and engaging way.”

“The exhibit showed the interconnected nature of self-organizing systems and social webs.”

A Space for Living

People mapped housing, community and neighbourhood as the most significant determinants of health in Toronto

Implementing a fair wage was considered the most pressing policy issue for our lawmakers

More than any other determinant, our audience connected their health and its determinants to income

Most people live, work or play in Toronto but the city and its neighbourhoods affect us all in different ways. Whether it’s a lack of access to health facilities, affordable housing, an isolated neighbourhood, or a shortage of healthy food options, everyone is affected by the social determinants of health.

We asked our audience to choose a social determinant that required improvement in their neighbourhood by placing a sticker on the map. Here are how many times each social determinant was identified as the most pressing in Toronto:

Our politicians have the chance to make the City of Toronto a healthier place for all of us. We identified real policy options that politicians and policymakers are currently debating. Placing a dot by their first choice, our audience voted for the policy they believed best addressed the social determinants of health. Here’s how they voted:

22: Ensure housing is affordable through a universal housing benefit for low-income households.

29: Increase the provincial minimum wage to a true living wage.

27: Give residents the power to set community priorities and allocate funding for local projects like sidewalk repairs, public art, and community garden, through a participatory budgeting process.

22: Commit to making Toronto a food secure city by supporting and funding a comprehensive food security strategy.

Our exhibit maps out the connections between the social determinants of health but there are many more. We wanted our audience to reflect on their own knowledge and experience in order to make new connections. Here are some of the ones they shared with us:

Health Care

A well paying job increases access to costly health services.

Food

High cost of rent leaves little left for food at the end of the month.

Low income leaves little money for food.

Many people do not know how to cook from scratch, which saves money and leads to healthier eating. Community kitchens can educate, feed, and build community.

Education

Being healthy enables you to attend and focus in school.

Low income can determine what neighbourhoods we live in, which provide varying levels of education standards.

Housing

Housing provides a safe, secure community for children to play.

High rent means unaffordable housing for some families.

In suburban neighbourhoods, there are fewer forums for connection with your neighbours, especially if you work or go to school elsewhere in the city.

Neighbourhood

Making sure students are in a safe environment means learning in a positive environment.

Neighbourhoods provide a great place to eat and drink.

Doctors do not ask patients: Where do you live? Where do you work? These two questions are key if we wish to identify toxic substances handled at work or found in our neighbourhoods.

Education increases our chances of good employment, which in turn, increases our chances of a good income.

Income

A high cost of rent for poor quality housing in Toronto eats up income.

Income provides money for you and your family’s health care.

Low income creates differences amongst the people we live with. Judgments are passed on one’s living standards, which can lead to racism, class differentiation and sexism.