CPHS Fellows 2011-12

John Paul Catungal|Mariana Ferraz Duarte|Anna Durbin|Ryan Hum|Arif Jetha|Arie Molema|Rebecca O'Neill |Emma Richardson|Jacob Shelley|Diego Silva|Max Smith|Max Smith|Halla Thorsteinsdottir|Melinda Vandenbeld Giles|

John Paul Catungal
Lupina Research Associate

Biography: John Paul (JP) Catungal was born in the Philippines and raised in Vancouver BC. After graduating with a B.A. Honours in Geography and Sociology from Simon Fraser University in 2006, he moved to Toronto to pursue graduate studies, acquiring an M.A. from the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto in 2007 and continuing in the Ph.D. program in the same department.
JP maintains a broad interest in the co-production of space and social differentiation. His dissertation work explores the emergence and continued importance of ethno-specific AIDS organisations as a way to theorise the political-geographic articulations of the race-sexuality-health nexus. He is also affiliated with the Cultural Economy Lab, where he is engaged in an on-going collaboration with Dr. Deborah Leslie to examine the socio-economic implications of ‘creative city’ theories and policies. Finally, JP is also interested in the lived experiences of Filipino immigrants in Canadian cities, particularly relating to violence and care. He is a founding member of the Kritikal Kolektibo, a network of scholars interested in Filipino-Canadian studies, and is on the editorial team for an anthology on Filipino lives in Canada. His publications on these topics have appeared and are forthcoming in geography and urban studies journals and as chapters in edited collection.
In what little spare time he has, JP also works as a relief supervisor for a local queer youth organisation and is an active member of the University of Toronto Qu(e)erying Religion group.

Project Title:
Making (A) Difference: The Political Geographies of Ethno-Specific Organising and Social Service Provision in Toronto's HIV/AIDS Sector

The emergence of HIV/AIDS as a public concern in the 1980s facilitated the formation not only of new knowledge apparatuses, governmental practices and health geographies (e.g., pharmaceutical research, health surveillance and hospice facilities), but also of new sites for the politicisation of social difference. In multicultural cities where much of the relatively new but established HIV/AIDS sector has rooted, further innovations have emerged to deal with the importance of ethno-racial difference for outreach, education, advocacy and programming. My dissertation explores one such innovation: the emergence and contemporary work of ethno-specific HIV/AIDS service organisations (E-ASOs), organisations whose work focuses on specific ethno-racial populations.
Starting with the assertion that the work of E-ASOs is located at the complex nexus of racial, sexual and health politics, my dissertation examines how Toronto-based E-ASOs engage in the politicisation of ethno-racial difference within the sector and more broadly. It compares and contrasts the histories and contemporary practices of three E-ASOs in Toronto (Asian Community AIDS Services; Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention; and Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention) and their political relations to the HIV/AIDS sector. Through a combination of archival work, interviews and textual analysis, my research pieces together what could be called the ‘socio-spatial mediation of racialization’ in the sexual health sector. It does so by looking into what I call the “racial geo-governmentalities of E-ASOs”, or the assemblage of socio-spatial discourses, practices and processes through which social service providers, public health officials, the state and E-ASO participants themselves come to know racialized subjects and spaces as the ‘target populations’ of sexual health work.

Mariana Ferraz Duarte
Lupina/OGS Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Mariana Ferraz Duarte is a doctoral candidate in the Social Science and Health program in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She has a degree in agricultural engineering, a specialization certificate in environmental health education and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Sao Paulo. She has a strong interest in community-based research and strategies that can contribute to capacity building of marginalized communities in order to take action to improve their health and well-being. Her work in Brazil was primarily in community-based initiatives in academic institutions and non-governmental agencies where she developed, implemented and evaluated programs utilizing principles of health promotion and adult education. She has facilitated diverse participatory planning processes and developed successful outreach campaigns and partnerships with the public sector and community organizations. Mariana has substantial experience in community-based research in environmental and urban health, healthy city initiatives and women’s health intervention research.

Project Title:
The Contribution of Social and Environmental Dimensions of the Neighbourhood to the Well-Being and Health of Elderly Immigrant Women in the City of Toronto

Mariana is interested in understanding how the social and environmental dimensions of neighbourhood contribute to the autonomy, well-being and health of elderly immigrants in the city of Toronto. Her interest is specifically in the role of the natural and built environments (public spaces, parks, street, etc.) and neighborhood social organization (neighborhood social cohesion, norms of social support, and engagement in local institutions).

Although there is extensive literature on the topic of healthy aging, the emphasis is placed on seniors as an undifferentiated group, with limited understanding of the multidimensional factors associated with healthy aging, well being and independence of elderly immigrant and refugee populations, which represent a significant and rapidly growing segment of Toronto's population.

Mariana's research will take two forms: a literature review, and fieldwork in community settings. The literature review will include relevant aspects of social critical theory, intersectionality theory, immigration and health, healthy aging, health and place. In terms of fieldwork, She will apply qualitative methods, specifically community-based research and tools such community asset mapping, community dialogues and photo voice. The qualitative data will be analyzed using a grounded theory approach.

Anna Durbin
Lupina Junior Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Anna Durbin is passionate about reducing inequalities related to use of mental health services through research in Ontario. As a researcher Anna aims to inform public policy with evidence that has a strong theoretical foundation and a high degree of empirical rigor.
She is a doctoral candidate in the health service research stream in Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (HPME) at University of Toronto. In spring 2010, Anna was awarded a Doctoral Award from Canadian Institute for Health Research for 3 years. She also recently won the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR) student essay competition for the best doctoral submission.
Anna earned her Masters of Public Health (MPH), Community Health & Epidemiology at Dalla Lana School of Public Health at University of Toronto. Anna graduated in June 2007 with Bachelor of Arts with Specialized Honours in Psychology, from the Faculty of Health at York University.
Anna is interested in mental illness and treatment responses, largely due to the high prevalence of mental disorder, the burden of disease, and the challenges associated with providing equitable access to appropriate mental health care. Accordingly, her doctoral dissertation will focus on mental disorders and use of mental services across immigrant sub-populations. She has also studied the implications of different physician reimbursement models on delivery of primary mental health care. Specifically, Anna is interested in variation in access and quality of primary mental health care services for different model types.

Project Title:
Mental Health Care Service Patterns for Immigrants in Ontario: Examining the Influence of region of origin, time in country and socioeconomic inequalities

Despite the numerous stressors associated with pre and post migration, on average new immigrants have better health profiles, including mental health, than the Canadian-born population (“the healthy immigrant effect”). Over time health status may decline and converge with long term residents. Little is known about immigrants' service use patterns for mental health care.
Immigrants, often face barriers and circumstances that affect health status and health care use (such as language, health beliefs, economic and social disadvantage). Understanding the role of financial disadvantage is particularly important since immigrants to Canada are more likely than the general population to live in poverty. Financial disadvantage has both been associated with increased risk of many mental disorders and is an often cited barrier to accessing mental health care in Canada.
I will examine variation in mental health service use for psychotic and distress/mood disorders among groups of immigrants with different regions of origin and different time in Canada. Variation related to immigrant visa class (i.e., economic class versus family reunification class versus refugee) will also be examined.
Immigrants will be identified by using a database managed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, formerly known as Landed Immigrant Data System (LIDS) that will be linked to other administrative data sources. This data source contains information collected at the time of application for immigrants who arrived in 1985 and forward in time until 2009.

Ryan Hum
Lupina Junior Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Ryan Hum is a doctoral student in the Centre for Global Engineering at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and enrolled in the Collaborative Program in Dynamics of Global Change at the Munk School of Global Affairs. He has an eclectic background with Bachelor degrees in chemical engineering and biology and a Masters in design. Prior to coming to the University of Toronto, Ryan worked in policy development for the Government of Canada at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Most recently, Ryan was a Director of the Sustainable Mining and Materials Policy where he was responsible for strategic policy, intergovernmental affairs and environmental assessments. His research interests relate to applying engineering and biological methods to analyze changes in global health. He is also a CIHR Fellow in Public Health Policy and is a sessional lecturer in engineering and public policy.

Project Title:
Kinetics of the Preston Curve: Exploring the dynamics of change in Global Health

Global life expectancy has increased over the last century, driven mostly by inexpensive technologies, such that at any given level of income, more survival can be purchased today than in the past. For my doctoral studies, I have applied a new empirical model to re-analyze the relationship between health and economic development. Using a biochemical analogy that GDP per capita is catalyzed into greater survival, I re-interpret the “Preston Curve” and demonstrate a marked divergence between children and adults (and between high income and low/middle income countries for adult survival). Child survival is getting cheaper but adult survival is becoming more costly. My research will further study country-specific conditions that might elucidate determinants of health that could make adult and child survival more affordable in low- and middle-income countries.

Arif Jetha
Lupina Senior Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Arif Jetha is a PhD Candidate in Health and Behavioural Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. He received his MSc in Health, Community & Development at the Institute of Social Psychology in the London School of Economics & Political Science. His research interests focus on the social, psychological, environmental and health-related determinants to the participation of people living with chronic physically disabling health conditions in different domains of life including employment and physical activity. Arif has collaborated with scientists from institution across Canada including the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University of Saskatchewan, McMaster University and the University Health Network and has been involved in several large-scale studies on people living with spinal cord injury. Arif holds a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Frederick Banting & Charles Best Canadian Graduate Scholarship and has just completed a CIHR Fellowship in Public Health Policy.

Project Title:
YHES! Young Adult, Health and Employment Study

Extensive research finds that employment has a number of important benefits contributing to quality of life and positive social and health outcomes of people living with disabling health conditions. Studies also find that indirect costs of living with a disability (i.e. lost productivity) are high and may be 2 to 4 times greater than the direct health care costs. Despite the importance of studying employment, little is known about the process of finding and maintaining a job as a young person transitions to adulthood with a physical disability. YHES! The Young Adult, Health & Employment Study (www.yhes.ca) is a cross-sectional online survey of 450 Canadian young adults, ages 18 to 30 years who are diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and spinal cord injury. YHES! aims at understanding how young adults living with physical disabilities who are employed differ from those not employed in terms of health factors (e.g., type of disability and extent of health problems), work history and perceived potential to be employed, psychosocial perceptions and demographic factors (i.e. age, education and relationship status). YHES! will also examine the employment experiences of young adults with a disability who are employed in terms of the type and nature of work activities, workplace interactions and policies, and perceptions of working. The results of this study will inform a critical social determinant of health facing young people living with physical disabilities. Moreover, examining the employment experiences of this age group can provide insight into early employment outcomes faced by disabled people and identify specific problems and needs that could be addressed in interventions to help disabled young people gain employment and remain employed throughout their adult life.

Arie Molema
Lupina/OGS Doctoral Fellow

Biography: A medical anthropologist by training, Arie Molema is a second year PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He focuses his research on truth commissions, with a primary interest in the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada. Broadly speaking, this research explores the role of discourses and practices of healing in truth commissions, examining how healing intersects with approaches to history, memory, and ethics, and how it might be reinforced by the promotion of rights, justice and restitution. Arie has previously conducted research in Bolivia, focusing on the incorporation of indigenous medicine into the health care system, and in Zimbabwe, examining transitional justice and psychosocial healing programs. He holds an M.Sc. in Global Health and Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, and an Honours B.A. in International Development Studies and Anthropology from the University of Toronto. Arie is equally committed to applied work outside the academic setting, and has worked at Oxfam-Québec, the International Development Research Centre, and the Youth Assembly at the United Nations on a variety of programs and initiatives, including HIV/AIDS prevention, tobacco control, health equity, and youth leadership.

Project Title:
The Political Work of ‘Healing’: Memory, History and Rights in the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Over 25 truth commissions have been implemented worldwide since the early 1970s, and in many of them, discourses of ‘healing’ have played a prominent role. Truth commissions commonly urge survivors of political violence to heal, thereby, so the formula goes, healing the nation. While such formulas carry an undeniable rhetorical appeal, truth commissions have generally been less committed to pursuing a comprehensive socio-political analysis of why political violence occurs and what concrete forms of restitution are required to promote a legitimate healing for survivors. In their eagerness to close difficult chapters of national history, truth commissions often fail to recognize that political violence creates enduring inequalities, and as such, is not a past history but a present reality requiring appropriate policy action. Arie’s doctoral research aims to provide an ethnographic study of the recently launched Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, analyzing how the commission chooses to represent Residential Schools to the Canadian public, and examining the forms of restitution it makes available to Residential School survivors. In so doing, Arie hopes to provide a detailed argument for the need to integrate multiple forms of justice and concrete rights provisions in truth commissions in order to promote healing, including health rights (to culturally specific mental health services) and broader political, economic and cultural rights (to material redress and action on the social determinants of health, and to self-determination).

Rebecca O’Neill
Lupina/OGS Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Rebecca is a fifth year direct-admit doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. She is co-supervised by Dr. Daniel Bender and Dr. Steve Penfold. As a cultural historian, her research deals with the history of food, nutrition and health in 20th century North America. Specifically, she studies school lunches in Toronto and New York City between 1940 and 1980.

Rebecca holds two prior degrees from Queen’s University: She graduated with distinction from her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in 2006 and from her Bachelor of Education (Concurrent) in 2007. Her experiences teaching in high schools peaked her interest in the relationship between food and education and the role of nutrition and health as a factor in student success. Rebecca is a 2011-2012 Lupina/OGS Doctoral Fellow.

While primarily occupied with historical questions related to food and nutrition, Rebecca maintains an active interest in current food movement debates. This interest is reflected in her review article, “‘You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto’: Applying the Tools of Food History to the Food Movement Dialogue”, which was published in the spring 2011 issue of the Radical History Review.

Project Title:
Food for Thinking: School Lunch and the Cultural Construction of ‘Brain Food’ for Children in New York City and Toronto, 1940 - 1980

Rebecca’s research uses the school lunches that were eaten in New York City and Toronto between 1941 and 1980 as a lens to examine the historical development of “brain food” (foods that are understood to help children learn) and the promotion of a specific set of nutritional values for children. Her dissertation explores the social, cultural, and economic factors that shape nutrition policies and food choices for children.

The lunches consumed in Canadian and American schools had a profound impact on wider societal eating habits and attitudes, public health, and public policy. The project approaches school cafeterias as sites of conflict and negotiation between parents, lunch workers, and the state, all of whom were attempting to stake a claim over access to food and nutrition education in schools while demanding increased accountability and involvement. Rebecca treats cafeterias as highly charged social spaces where issues of class, gender and race are reflected in children’s meals and in doing so reveals how long-term eating habits and understandings of food were shaped and cemented.

Rebecca’s dissertation examines the lunches that were sent to school from home as well as those provided by schools. This enables her to focus on food choices in the family by examining the cultural and economic factors that contributed to the choice of particular foods for children. She also examines how governmental and school information relating to nutrition combines with ethnic/folkloric traditions to shape family attitudes about food. In contrast, studying the lunches provided by schools reveals the role of the state in shaping definitions of “wholesome” nutrition and setting standards for student health while simultaneously attempting to disseminate nutrition education and family health advice to parents through their children.

Emma Richardson
Lupina Junior Doctoral Fellow

Biography:
Emma is a doctoral student in the Health and Behavioural Science program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Her research with and about adolescent indigenous girls from rural Guatemala builds on experience working for the United Nations Population Fund in Guatemala and Honduras as well as the World Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture, a Canadian NGO and the United Nations World Food Program in Nicaragua. She participates in the Global Health Program at the University of Toronto and enjoys research that contributes closely to better programming, advocacy and policy in international development.
Emma completed her MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics as a Commonwealth Scholar and received the Morehead Scholarship for her undergraduate education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Economics and International Studies with a focus on Latin America. Originally from Toronto, Emma currently holds a Best and Banting Doctoral Award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. She also continues to work as a consultant in program evaluation and for the United Nations System Staff College, supporting the strategic planning of United Nations country offices.

Project Title:
Reaching girls when it counts: Understanding the health and well-being impacts of investing in indigenous, adolescent girls from rural Guatemala

The multiple facets of discrimination facing adolescent, indigenous girls from rural areas in Guatemala stem from historical patterns of exclusion and violence and can result in severe social isolation, late school enrolment (if any), early school drop-out and entry into paid and unpaid work, as well as early first marriage and pregnancy. One way to begin to address these oppressive structures is through action on key components of the social determinants of health, including education and health services access. My research will assess the impacts of such efforts by the Population Council to create, at the community level, safe spaces for girls to form clubs and receive training, recreational activities, as well as accompaniment by mentors and peers in their most important life transitions.
This mixed-methods study will evidence which health and well-being related variables are affected by the program, such as greater educational attainment, sexual and reproductive health knowledge, self-esteem, access to health-related services, later marriage and first birth age (which can affect maternal health). This research is important for understanding how an early investment in indigenous girls at the local level may help to turn the tide of historical oppression in Guatemalan society and improve key social determinants that lead to better health outcomes, particularly in the area of sexual and reproductive health.

Jacob Shelley
Lupina Senior Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Jacob began his academic career in theology, receiving an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Theological Studies from Conrad Grebel University College. He received his Bachelor of Laws from the University of Alberta in 2007. During the course of his LLB, Jacob worked as a research assistant with the Health Law Institute, University of Alberta. During this time he had the opportunity to publish and present at numerous conferences. Upon completion of his LLB, Jacob enrolled in the Master of Laws program at the University of Alberta. Under the supervision of Professor Timothy Caulfield, with advisement from Dr. Kim Raine (Centre for Health Promotion Studies), Jacob successfully defended his thesis in 2009. Entitled, A Normative Framework for Public Health Law, it contends that public health law is consistent with the normative theories of rule of law and liberty. In 2010, Jacob entered the Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) program at the University of Toronto. Under the supervision of Professor Trudo Lemmens, Jacob's research is examining the concept of public health law, examining in particular where public health law fits within the legal taxonomy. Most importantly, Jacob is married to Leia Minaker, a PhD candidate with the School of Public Health, University of Alberta, and they have three beautiful little girls: Jordan, Marley, and Evelyn.

Project Title:
The Promise of Private law for Public Health

This project demonstrates the promise of private law for public health through the case study of obesity. It contends that a better understanding of the role of private law in public health will strengthen public health law. It proceeds in three main parts. The first part examines how current public health law scholarship conceives of law through an examination of the dominant approaches to public health. Particular attention will be paid to the role of private law in these approaches. In addition, specific theories, such as those concerning indirect regulation, will be examined. After identifying and assessing key themes that emerge, the second part examines a specific case study: obesity. It begins by reviewing specific recommendations for legal interventions to address obesity, and identifies some of the perceived strengths, weaknesses, and uncertain areas of these legal responses. It then examines howprivate law might be used to address obesity, identifying and analyzing specific private law interventions in tort, contract, and property. This will be followed by a discussion of some of the main challenges that will be encountered. The final part argues that public health law should be reconceptualized so as to better include private law. It will articulate private law’s role in public health law, and suggest that public law might be considered as a remedy to private law’s failure to address public health issues. It will conclude by identifying the future of the reconceived public health law, including some of the challenges and limitations that can be expected.

Diego Silva
Lupina Senior Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Diego S. Silva, MA, is a Doctoral Candidate at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and is a member of the Collaborative Program in Bioethics at the Joint Centre for Bioethics. He received his BA and MA in philosophy from the University of Toronto. His primary research interests attend to the moral implications of policy and practice in the public health and mental health systems in Canada and abroad. Diego is currently a research assistant with the Canadian Program of Research on Ethics in a Pandemic (CanPREP) and is the ethics consultant for the At Home/Chez Soi project at the Mental Health Commission of Canada. He holds a Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Project Title:

Exploring Conceptualizations of Harm: The Case of Tuberculosis and Persons with Severe and Persistent Mental Illnesses

Tuberculosis is an airborne bacterial pathogen that flourishes in settings with poor air circulation and is highly communicable among populations that rely on congregate living, e.g. persons who use homeless shelters or group homes. Persons with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI), who are often homeless and suffer from other co-morbidities, are therefore at higher risk for the development of tuberculosis. Antitubercular medication is used to treat patients and, along with voluntary respiratory isolation, help prevent the spread of disease. However, antitubercular drug regimes are arduous and complicated, thus compliance is often compromised, particularly among those who are in positions of social or physical vulnerability. However, since tuberculosis poses a threat to the public’s health, non-adherence to treatment can lead to legal repercussions, including involuntary detention and treatment.

Given the competing and complex treatment needs of tuberculosis patients with SPMI, an ethical tension currently exists between branches of Canada’s health care system. Driven by a communitarian ethical foundation, which is often willing to sacrifice the good of an individual for the good of many, public health’s goal of arresting the spread of TB is in direct competition with the goals of the mental health system, which aims to empower persons living with SPMI by advocating for their liberty and autonomy.

For my doctoral research, I use a mixed methods approach to compare and evaluate how public health and mental health stakeholders reconcile differing ethical foundations and objectives in regards to the treatment of tuberculosis patients with SPMI in Ontario.

Maxwell Smith
Lupina Junior Doctoral Fellow

Biography: Maxwell Smith is a second year doctoral student studying public health sciences at the University of Toronto. He is also a student of the Collaborative Program in Bioethics and the Collaborative Program in Health Services and Policy Research, and is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellow in Public Health Policy. He received an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Bioethics and Cognitive Science from the University of Toronto, a Master of Science in Bioethics from Union Graduate College & Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and a Certificate in Health Law from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. Max’s research interests are predominantly in the field of public health ethics, where he focuses on the moral foundations of public health emergency preparedness and response. Currently, Max is a research assistant with the Canadian Program of Research on Ethics in a Pandemic (CanPREP). In the past, Max has worked in the department of bioethics at Mount Sinai Hospital, the Center for Bioethics and Clinical Leadership at Union Graduate College and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and has contributed to the development of ethics infrastructures within several community-based health care agencies in the Greater Toronto Area. His PhD research explores the ethics of planning and responding to public health emergencies, such as influenza pandemics.

Project Title:
The Moral Foundations of Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response: In Pursuit of Social Justice and Health Equity or the Greatest Health Benefits for the Greatest Number?

Significant interest has recently emerged in the area of public health emergency preparedness and response, largely as a result of events like Hurricane Katrina, SARS, and the presence and threat of influenza pandemics. Such emergencies have demonstrated that our preparedness and response efforts can sustain and even create health inequities. While scholars have developed ethical frameworks to guide our efforts in emergency response (largely based on frameworks found in other public health domains), it has not been made clear whether the moral foundations of public health emergency response are similar to quotidian public health. Thus, in the pursuit of developing ethical frameworks for public health emergency preparedness and response it is important to analyze and compare the moral foundations of public health emergency response with the moral foundations of quotidian public health, and ask: Are the similarities or differences justified? On what grounds? As humanitarian disasters and infectious disease outbreaks continue to present significant public health challenges around the world, often affecting individuals and populations unequally, there is an impetus to enhance our understanding of the moral foundations of our preparedness and response efforts to ensure that they promote the equal and just consideration and treatment of individuals and populations. It is hoped that this research will enhance our understanding of whether public health emergency response adequately considers the social determinants of health, social justice, and health equity, and suggest how ethical frameworks can be improved in order to promote these values.

Halla Thorsteinsdottir
Lupina Senior Reserach Associate

Biography:Dr. Halla Thorsteinsdóttir is an Associate Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Halla has for the last 10 years been actively engaged in global policy research on health innovation in developing countries. Her current research focuses on the role of collaboration in health innovation, examining collaborations of scientists and entrepreneurs, and both South-South collaboration and Canada’s collaboration with developing countries. A further area of current research is regenerative medicine innovation in the emerging economies of Brazil, China and India. Halla’s research has been published in high-impact journals such as Nature Biotechnology,Nature Genetics, and The Lancet, and been covered by media such as the Economist and the Financial Times. She is the leading author of the book South-South Collaboration in Health Biotechnology: Growing Partnerships Amongst Developing Countries.(Forthcoming in co-publication between IDRC & Academic Foundation).
Halla completed her doctoral studies in Science and Technology Policy in 1999 at SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Prior to that, she completed a master’s degree in Development Economics from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Halla is the recipient of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Genetics Maud Menten New Principal Investigator Prize (2005-2006) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, New Principal Investigator Award (2007-2012).

Project Title:
Promoting Health through South-South Collaboration

The research will examine how developing countries can jointly promote global health through their South-South collaboration. It will draw on a recent large-scale research project on South-South collaboration in health biotechnology. Increasingly, developing countries are signing agreements in various fieldsto encourage their trade, economic development and to promote their quality of life. Many of these agreements prioritize collaboration in health and/or biotechnology. The expectation of the agreements is that the collaboration will lead to increased economic development, build capacity in developing countries to address problems, strengthen innovation potentials and promote global health. Yet, while information on South-South trade is readily available, little is known about how to meet the other expectations listed above. The objective of this research is to examine to what extent South-South collaboration in the health biotechnology fieldcontributes to health in developing countries,andto gain an understanding of the factors that cultivate and influence it. Key findings of the previous research indicate that South-South research collaboration has a relevance to local health problems in developing countries and results in increased availability of relatively affordable health products in those countries. Northern governments, such as Canada and international or philanthropic organizations should therefore target South-South collaboration as a means of promoting development and to encourage global health. The research will,also, include a focus on the pros and cons of Canada promoting health and development through a South-South-North collaboration model and discuss some strategies on how this can be accomplished.

Melinda Vandenbeld Giles
Lupina/OGS Doctoral Fellow

Biography:Melinda Vandenbeld Giles is a PhD candidate in social/cultural anthropology at the University of Toronto. She completed her MA degree in social anthropology at York University and her BA honours in social anthropology at the University of Calgary. Her research involves exploring the intersection between homelessness, health and public policy. She is currently doing fieldwork with mothers and their children living in Ontario motel rooms.
In addition to her academic research, Melinda is also a reporter for the on-line magazine Dispatches International where she is writing a four-part series titled “All Our Voices” about the increasing prevalence of families experiencing homelessness in Ontario. Melinda’s articles appear in the MIRCI (Motherhood Initiative for Community Involvement) summer 2011 journal and The 21st Century Motherhood Movement edited collection. She is currently editing an anthology titled Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism to be published in summer 2013 by Demeter Press.

Project Title:
Motel Families in Ontario: The Intersection between Neoliberal Imaginings of the Canadian “Family,” Public Policies and Lived Realities

Melinda’s research focuses on the issue of families experiencing homelessness in Ontario; specifically, the intersection between homelessness, health and dominant discourses impacting public policy initiatives regarding homeless mothers.She is currently doing ethnographic fieldwork with 25 mothers who are experiencing homelessness in Ontario, specifically mothers living with their children in the Lido motel and Gateway Inn in Toronto and the Stardust motel in Ottawa. Melinda also works withsocial workers, nurses, shelter workers and Children’s Aid workers. Based on research thus far, “homeless families” are predominantly a mother and her child/children. Therefore, Melinda’s primary research focus is mothers. Melinda’s research involves in-depth interviews and participant observation with a diversity of individuals who work within the social welfare system. By integrating the macro and the micro, the individual voices of homeless mothers can be positioned within the larger societal system that structures and influences their daily life. Such a holistic, multi-sited methodological approach enables examining the intersection between societal discourses and material realities, identifying the physical and mental health effects of public policy initiatives regarding homeless mothers and their children in Ontario.
Melinda’s research contributes to the anthropology of neoliberalism and homelessness, investigating connections between political/economic dominant discourses regarding the welfare state, social policy and public health initiatives. Her research also contributes to the anthropological literature in kinship and maternal studies concerned with analyzing Euro-American forms of kinship, examining constructions of the “Canadian family” and “good mothering” and resultant material effects in terms of public policy-making. Finally, her research has an applied significance for public-policy makers and individuals working within the fields of social welfare and public health in Canada.