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Dr. Karli Elizabeth | The Wellbeing Scientist ⭐️

@thewellbeingscientist_

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(re)defining the we in wellness
🫀for systems-thinkers asking bigger questions about collective health
science, equity + decolonial knowing

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Welcome to episode one of re(defining) the we in wellness, where I explore the people, places & spaces advancing collective wellbeing.

First stop:📍Zawadi Farm, in North York Toronto ON. @zawadifarm

Zawadi means gift in Swahili and that’s what it truly felt like visiting this sprawling urban garden 👨🏾‍🌾🥬🥔🥒🥕🍅🫜🧅🧄

Dr. Karli talks with Founder & Executive Director, Jessey Njau about what regenerative agriculture and local food sovereignty has to do with collective wellbeing & responsibility we have for one another.

Jessey was born in Kenya, built a senior career in IT, and walked away from all of it to build a working farm inside a Toronto park.

He had to unlearn the stigma that farming was, as he was taught ‘the lowest of the low job.’

Stay tuned for part Il 👀 Where should I go next?

Executive producer, creative director & post-production: Dr.Karli

Videography: @lukevillemaire by @thewellbeingscientist_

Mental health is not the opposite of mental illness and today I want to make that unmistakably clear.

As a population health and wellbeing scientist, part of my advocacy involves helping us rethink mental health beyond diagnosis, stigma, or symptom checklists. This post breaks down Dr. Corey Keyes’ Mental Health Continuum a framework that fundamentally shaped how I understand mental health, flourishing, languishing, and everything in between.

The core idea is simple: You can have a mental illness and still be closer to flourishing.
You can have no diagnosis and still be languishing.

This continuum explains the “in-between” states many of us live in the fog, the flatness, the quiet stuckness we often don’t have language for. And naming that matters.

Because when we only talk about mental health through the lens of illness, we exclude so many people who are struggling but don’t meet diagnostic criteria.

This framework moved me toward mental health advocacy because it acknowledges what public health has known for decades: mental health is a spectrum shaped by our environments, communities, relationships, and the conditions we move through not just by clinical symptoms.

This diagram in the post breaks down the continuum clearly so you can see where flourishing, languishing, mental illness, and mental health actually intersect.

My hope is that it opens up a conversation rooted in nuance, compassion, and science.

If you want to be sent a link to the peer-reviewed journal article comment “ARTICLE” and I’ll DM you the link.

💗 Save this for later
💗 Share it with someone who needs gentler language for what they’re feeling
💗 Follow for more evidence-based mental health and wellbeing science by @thewellbeingscientist_

In 2026, I’m buying into:
• health beyond individualism
• rest that isn’t earned through exhaustion
• learning that’s slow, tactile, and embodied
• movement for longevity, not aesthetics
• food for pleasure, nourishment, and connection
• solitude without productivity
• experiences and community over overconsumption by @thewellbeingscientist_

You may not be the smartest in the room, but you are in a room that your ancestors could’ve only dreamed of ☁️

On a funnier note: when I defended my PhD, my son was with my parents watching me online & my dad says “mommy is a dr.now” and my son goes: “wait does that mean I can’t call her mommy anymore ??!!”

THATS DR.MOMMY TO U MY YOUNG SIR 💅😭🤣 by @thewellbeingscientist_

Comment “read” to learn more about the journal article I reference in video: “The role of health and health systems in shaping political engagement and rebuilding trust in democratic institutions” - Menon et al., 2025

Health is political. But what does that actually mean?

Health is Political is a mini-series exploring health and healthcare as the undercurrent shaping politics in ways that might not be obvious, using science, systems thinking, and decolonial perspectives.

In Part 1, I talk about the self-reinforcing feedback loop between declining health and political discontent. Evidence from across multiple disciplines shows us that people’s health and interactions with the health system inform their politics, such that, when the health of a person or community declines, they are more likely to mistrust the public institutions meant to serve them and disengage from the democratic process, including in the form of voting.

When I say political, I don’t mean which party you vote for. I mean who decides, who gets what, and whose needs count.

I come to this as a population health scientist, and as a caretaker who has watched people I love navigate the healthcare system with chronic pain and disability.

In this video:
* What “health is political” means beyond the slogan
* How poor health is linked to lower trust in public institutions and lower voter turnout
* Why health is not the primary determinant of most people’s politics
* Why trust is a health outcome

Part 2: what happens to our health when trust runs out?

Source: Menon et al. (2025), The Lancet Regional Health – Europe.

#healthispolitical #publichealth #populationhealth #healthequity by @thewellbeingscientist_

what a WILD ride 🫂💐🫶

words cannot express the gratitude, joy, love I feel looking back on my 11 year journey. I remember the feeling sitting in my first lecture in war memorial & hearing my professor talk fondly of her doctoral student- at the time it never even entered my brain as an option because I didn’t see myself as an exceptional student.

Yes doing a PhD and raising a child during the pandemic was hard. But it was the type of hard I am blessed to have chosen, or maybe it choose me?

To the people who entered my life during this phase - Kara, Sam, Cora, Jordyn, Aeryn, Shelly, Minnie, Theresa, Chelsea, Lindsay & so many more…thank you for helping me through what I didn’t realize would be a decade of my life.

And to those of you who have supported my work on here, thank YOU for supporting me in my next journey 🦋🥹🙏

Thank you @fotki.ik for capturing this beautiful moment I will forever cherish 🦋 by @thewellbeingscientist_

Comment “read” for the full Substack.

If you are a health care worker, leader, or system partner looking to learn and discuss practical strategies for workplace wellness, join me in attending , Sharing Impact: Advancing Workplace Wellness in Health Care, taking place on October 27 and 28, 2026 in downtown Toronto. Register at https://conference.yourhealthspace.ca/.

This year’s conference hosted by @cmhaontario Your Health Space program will feature presentations, panels and interactive sessions. The conference will present opportunities for healthcare organizations across the province to share practical strategies and real-world examples of workplace wellness in action. Participants will explore how workplace wellness initiatives can help address chronic workplace stress, support recruitment and retention and (ultimately) contribute to stronger organizational and system performance.

As a population health and well-being scientist, I have dedicated nearly five years to understanding what hurts and helps employee mental health and well-being at the intersection of health care and higher education. I have talked to employees, searched the literature and attended conferences.

But it wasn’t until April of last year, when I attended the Leaders Advancing Wellness symposium in Toronto, hosted by CMHA Ontario’s Your Health Space program, that my theoretical understanding of what it takes to make material change in healthcare was met by a kind of knowledge I had not had access to before: health care teams describing the challenges in their own workplaces, what they did about them, and what they learned along the way. by @thewellbeingscientist_

I believe that scent-free spaces often don’t work, not because people don’t care but because they keep wearing fragrance because they’re afraid of how they’ll smell without it.

Base Scent is a prebiotic treatment created by scientists from @futuresociety that improves odour formation before it starts at the source rather than masking your personal scent.

I use it daily, after showering on clean skin, and before deodorant or other products, as well as throughout the day after working out or errands.

Base Scent is Fragrance-free, aluminum-free, alcohol-free, and cruelty free.

#futuresocietypartner by @thewellbeingscientist_

I’m expecting……TO BECOME DR. NOT MISS 💅🌈💗

Comment “capybara” to read the full piece with further reading references for your pleasure 🪩I will DM you!

As I wrap up my PhD dissertation, I have been taking a hot moment reflecting on what I have learned about science and what it means to be a rigorous scientist.

This was a piece a wrote between research chapters that articulates what I think could help our science community and communicators offer relationship rather than harping on the old line “people don’t want to be educated.” I think we ought to have a new perspective and control what we can and the chips will fall where they may. by @thewellbeingscientist_

Wellness isn’t found in expensive smoothies or luxury spa days—it’s built through fair wages, affordable housing, clean water, mental health support, and meaningful community connections.

🌿 Real well-being comes from policies that put people and the planet first. Discover how countries like Finland, Scotland, and Bhutan are redefining success beyond GDP. It’s time we demand an economy where wellness isn’t a luxury, but a right. ✊✨

#wellbeingeconomy #communitywellbeing #decolonizewellness #economicjustice #communitycares #microlearning #socialjusticewarrior #gdpgrowth #mentalhealthawarenessmonth by @thewellbeingscientist_

We go on social media and see a curated version of this perfect lifestyle of wellness and work-life balance. But for most of us who have career & education goals, while also caring for others wellness may look less consistent and more cyclical. For over a decade my wellness was not at the forefront of my priorities, it was a practice I did when I had capacity to do so in small moments.

After getting my PhD and now that my son is in school- I have capacity to finally pour intentional time into coming home to myself. That has looked like many things: learning untold stories, visiting public third spaces, engaging in a fitness and nutrition routine that challenges my body. Most of all, I am excited to be more present in my relationships with my friends, family and get more involved in the community. I am not an events planner, but I do want to arrange an opportunity to meet some of you here in Toronto over a meal 💗 the first @wellnessmadecollective event was soooo fun & refreshing. Stay tuned 💌 by @thewellbeingscientist_

Health is Political, part II 🍓

Wellness content tells us to eat better, move more, try the matcha. But what if you can’t afford the groceries in the first place?

I sat down with @chloe4councillor at @zawadifarm in Toronto to talk about what health has to do with the grocery store, the clinic, and the people on your street. We got into:

🫜Why the cost of food is a health issue, and her idea for a publicly owned grocery store
🍆Whether the wellness marketplace is built for our health or for profit
🥕Women’s and reproductive health beyond what the market offers
🥔What cities can do locally: clinics, education programs, food boxes based on dietary needs
🧄Moving upstream to prevention, rather than meeting people at the point of crisis
🥒How the healthcare crisis is tied to the housing crisis and the climate crisis

We need personal autonomy, and we also need the systems that make healthy choices possible. Neighbours keeping each other well every day is part of that system.

What would make it easier for you to stay healthy where you live?

Part I is posted on my reels 🍅

Thank you to @lukevillemaire for filming 🫶

#healthispolitical #socialdeterminantsofhealth #foodinsecurity #publichealth by @thewellbeingscientist_