Event Description
Dementia Prevention in Canada: Individual Risk, Collective Responsibility is a virtual panel exploring how Canada can take a more balanced, equitable, and systems-oriented approach to dementia prevention.
While evidence shows that individuals can reduce their risk through lifestyle and health-related factors, the ability to act on that knowledge is shaped by the environments, systems, and supports around them. This session reframes prevention not only as a matter of personal choice, but as a shared responsibility across healthcare systems, communities, policymakers, researchers, innovators, and public institutions.
The discussion will explore how Canadians understand modifiable dementia risk, the barriers people face when making brain-healthy choices, and lessons from other public health efforts. Panelists will also examine the role of technology, community-based interventions, aging policy, and system-level change in supporting prevention at a national level.
Attendees will gain insight into how dementia prevention can be framed in ways that are both actionable and equitable—recognizing individual agency while addressing structural realities such as socioeconomic inequality, geography, transportation, and access to care and supportive services.
Event Details
Date: June 29, 2026
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EDT
Location: Virtual via Zoom
Panelists
Dr. Allison Sekuler
President & Chief Scientist, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, and Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation; Sandra A. Rotman Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute
Dr. Samir K. Sinha
Geriatrician & Clinician Scientist, Sinai Health System & University Health Network; Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto; Director of Health Policy Research, National Institute on Ageing, Toronto Metropolitan University
Dr. Dallas Seitz
Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Professor of Psychiatry & Director, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Dr. Nicole Anderson
Senior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Hospital; Director, Ben & Hilda Katz Interprofessional Research Centre in Geriatric and Dementia Care, Baycrest; Associate Scientific Director, Kimel Family Centre for Brain Health & Wellness, Baycrest
Dr. Saskia Sivananthan
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, The Brainwell Institute
