Spotlight: Justin Turner, MOT, Reg. OT (BC)

Justin Turner is a PhD student in the Rehabilitation Sciences Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Before embarking on his PhD journey, Justin received his Master of Occupational Therapy degree from UBC and practiced as an occupational therapist in hospital-based and community mental health practice settings in Prince George, British Columbia. Now, two and half years into his five-year PhD program, Justin is using his occupational lens to explore the intersection between occupation, environment, and resilience as it relates to experiences with wildfires among Indigenous peoples.

Inspiration: Connecting with Indigenous Roots

For as long as he can remember, climate change has been a conversation in Justin’s community. Growing up as an Indigenous person (specifically as a member of the Métis Nation), Justin has always understood the importance of the land for Indigenous ways of being and cultural occupations. However, Justin has also recognized the adverse impact of climate change on the occupational routines and roles of Indigenous peoples as natural disasters, particularly wildfires, threaten the ecosystems to which Indigenous people tie their identities. As an occupational therapist working in a hospital in Northern British Columbia, Justin noticed evidence of environmental impacts on patient health, anecdotally observing that more people were admitted to the hospital for breathing problems, strokes, heart attacks, and related incidences during wildfire season when air quality was poor. His climate concern continued to grow when a record heat wave killed hundreds of people in British Columbia, including some of Justin’s clients who had been receiving community mental health services. Through these experiences, he witnessed the significant impact of climate on service providers, researchers, and clients and how climate has a particularly adverse effect on Indigenous communities. He decided to pursue his PhD to combat this inequity, hoping to develop skills in research, teaching, and leadership to leverage towards collaboratively developing health service and education opportunities for underserved communities. Through his program, he connected with Dr. Pat Camp, PT, PhD, a clinician-scientist and associate professor with joint academic appointments at UBC in the Department of Physical Therapy and the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation. Dr. Camp is a lung health research specialist who recognizes how Indigenous peoples are more susceptible to health consequences of wildfire smoke, and this work spurred Justin’s doctoral project.

Current Work: Exploring the Experiences of Indigenous Communities

Justin recognizes how Indigenous communities are disproportionately threatened by the climate emergency and the value of Indigenous ecological knowledge, authority, and responsibilities to traditional lands and waters in developing effective climate action. However, Indigenous perspectives have been historically excluded from conversations around mitigative and adaptive efforts. To combat this historic debarring, in his PhD pursuit, Justin seeks to understand how Indigenous communities can foster resilience in the face of events that cause occupational disruption, recognizing that “occupation is the key to fostering resilience.” More specifically, he examines the lived experiences of the 2018 wildfires (the worst in British Columbia’s modern history) among First Nations people in northern British Columbia to develop improved disaster policies that incorporate Indigenous needs and values. His research is part of a collaborative and policy-oriented project initiated by Carrier Sekani Family Services, a First Nations-led organization providing healthcare, social services, and research support to First Nations people in British Columbia's northern interior region. The research project’s title is “Wildfire Smoke and Emergency Planning for First Nations People Living with Lung Disease in Remote and Rural British Columbia,” and it is funded by a project grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, held jointly between CSFS and UBC. Within this partnered research project, qualitative data is collected through interviews with emergency response providers and sharing circles with First Nations community members. In this way, Justin’s lab sets a key example for community-based work, a proud point for Justin who shared, “The most rewarding part of my work is that it is so community-oriented as our research questions were spearheaded by our Indigenous partner organizations. There has been a long history of extractive kinds of work without a tangible benefit back to Indigenous communities, so I’m really proud that my lab’s research is in opposition to that history.” For others working in the community, Justin emphasizes the importance of maintaining a strengths-based mindset and engaging in open dialogues with community members to center research around community priorities. In working with Indigenous communities specifically, Justin encourages others to conduct themselves in a way that “adheres to cultural practices and values” and to consider research issues, such as climate, from multiple cultural perspectives. As an occupational therapist, Justin continues to appreciate how his background uniquely positions his approach to research, recognizing how his expertise in the interplay between people, occupations, and environment facilitates a better understanding of climate’s occupational impacts. He encourages other occupational therapists and scientists to “assert their unique lens” in answering the call to climate action.

Justin has published several articles related to his work, and a full list of Justin’s publications can be found on his LinkedIn page. To learn more about Justin’s current work and lab, visit the website for the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Research Laboratory at the University of British Columbia or stay up-to-date with Justin on Twitter through his account @OTJustinT.

 Spotlight written by Kelly Carlson, OTS