The concept of Planetary Health focuses on the ways that human-caused disruptions to the Earth system affect human health.
Health leadership in 2025 means integrating environmental considerations into evidence-based medicine, including the evidence syntheses and clinical guidelines that inform decision-making, to ensure a sustainable, resilient and effective healthcare practice that benefits present and future generations.
This web clinic, presented by Denise Thomson, Co-Director of the Cochrane Planetary Health Thematic Group, and Dr Thomas Piggott of the GRADE Planetary Health Group, focussed on methods guidance for considering planetary health in synthesis and guideline development work. The session was delivered in December 2025 and below you will find the recording, together with the accompanying slides to download [PDF].
Presenter Bios
Denise Thomson, MA MBA PhD(c), is a Co-Director of Cochrane’s Planetary Health Thematic Group, which is focused on applying the tools of evidence synthesis and knowledge translation to supporting decision-makers, and is also a Vice-Chair, North America, for Health Systems Global’s Thematic Working Group in Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Health Systems. She has worked for over twenty years in the areas of health promotion and health-services research, particularly focused on knowledge translation and implementation science. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alberta in Canada, studying how Canadian health systems are responding to the health impacts of climate change.
Dr. Thomas Piggott (pronouns he/him) started with former Peterborough Public Health, now merged as Lakelands Public Health in December 2021. In his position as MOH/CEO of a local public health unit in Ontario, Dr. Piggott brings experience working at various levels of public health in Canada and internationally. Prior to Peterborough, Dr. Piggott worked as MOH and VP lead for Population/Rural & Remote Health in the northern region of Labrador and as a field doctor with Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dr. Piggott completed medical training, residency in Public Health and Preventive Medicine and his PhD in Health Research Methods at McMaster University. He is involved in research on guideline methods, health equity and planetary health, active teaching, involved in clinical work in emergency medicine and a father of young children.
