IGH Research Teams

The Gender, Violence & HIV Team: A Collaboration of the Gender & Sexual Health Initiative (GSHI)

Principal investigator: Dr. Kate Shannon
Co-principal investigator: Dr. Thomas Kerr

The Gender, Violence & HIV Team is an interdisciplinary and intersectoral team of researchers and knowledge users (policy makers, government, community partners) under the collaborative umbrella of the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative (GSHI) of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. The overarching goal is to examine how social and structural violence produce and reproduce interpersonal violence and HIV risk among vulnerable populations of sex workers and people who use drugs in Canada and globally. Informed by an ecological perspective, our GSHI team will bring together interdisciplinary research studies undertaken in Canada and the international settings of Uganda, India and Thailand which span human rights and policy analyses, social epidemiology, qualitative and ethnographic research. Through these conceptually linked projects, our specific team research objectives include evaluating criminalization policies (i.e., criminal sanctions on HIV transmission, sex work) as a form of structural violence that impacts risk of interpersonal violence and HIV; evaluating policies that reinforce stigma as a structural determinant and identifying the impact of community initiatives in countering stigma, violence and HIV; evaluating ongoing population-level 'natural experiments' (e.g., safer indoor sex work spaces, housing) on the production or reduction of structural and interpersonal violence and HIV risk. Through the GSHI team, we will develop a research and knowledge translation platform that will create synergies and address gaps in knowledge, policy and intervention on gender, violence and HIV, and thereby aim to improve the health of vulnerable populations in Canada and globally.

Contact the Gender, Violence and HIV Team:

Dr. Kate Shannon, Director
Gender and Sexual Health Initiative
BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine,
University of British Columbia
St Paul's Hospital, 608-1081 Burrard Street
Telephone: 604-806-9459
Fax: 604-806-9044
Email: gshi@cfenet.ubc.ca

Promoting Health and Preventing Violence: CIHR Team for Prevention of Violence and Victimization in Girls and Boys

Principal investigators: Dr. Marlene Moretti and Dr. Robert McMahon

The CIHR Team for Promoting Health and Preventing Violence will generate new knowledge on the role of sex and gender in relation to violence and health among young adolescent girls and boys and will evaluate an innovative and evidence-informed preventive program.

Housed within the newly established Institute for the Reduction of Youth Violence, the Team adopts a sex- and gender-based analysis and utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to better understand the factors that provide protection or present risk for young girls and boys as they transition from elementary to secondary school, a period of known vulnerability. Drawing on the multidisciplinary knowledge and experience of our Team we examine how sex and gender matter in terms of victimization, the expression of violence and aggression, social-relational, endocrine, neural, and genetic processes. By adopting an approach that integrates social-relational and neuro-biological aspects of developmental science, our Team is well positioned to understand the intersection of the multiple determinants of health as they relate to violence and victimization, and its prevention, in girls and boys during this critical developmental period.

Our Team is based on strong partnerships with community, government stakeholders and knowledge users. Together we are working to translate research into practice – and to translate practice into research – maximizing opportunities to build meaningful research programs, strong community-researcher networks, effective interventions, and informed health policy.

Contact the CIHR Team for Prevention of Violence and Victimization in Girls and Boys:

Dr. Marlene Moretti
CIHR Senior Research Chair
Professor, Department of Psychology
Registered Psychologist
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6
Email: moretti@sfu.ca

Roseann Larstone
Project Coordinator
Telephone: 778-782-4956
Email: roseann_larstone@sfu.ca

VISAGE research team (VIolence At work, according to Sex and GEnder)

Principal investigators: Dr. Stéphane Guay, Dr. Dominic Beaulieu-Prévost, Dr. Henriette Bilodeau, Dr. Richard Boyer, Dr. André Marchand, Dr. Aline Drapeau, Dr. Sonia Lupien, Dr. Stéphane Bouchard

Research coordinator: Juliette Jarvis

Our team comprises researchers from the fields of criminology, sexology, clinical and organizational psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, and management studies. We have complementary expertise in quantitative and qualitative methodologies and in subjects including violence and victimization, gender studies, post-traumatic stress prevention, workplace health and safety, and organization of services. We develop partnerships with targeted professional sectors in order to enhance clinical and organizational aspects of care for workers exposed to, or at high risk of being exposed to, serious violent acts.

We propose to study this problem from the perspectives of: a) workers who are or are at risk of becoming victims of violence, b) the organizations that employee these workers, c) union/management committees, and d) the practitioners who are responsible for primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention before and after serious incidents occur. The workplaces in which episodes of serious violence may occur are highly varied in terms of the level of risk, the gender composition of the work force, and the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention policies and procedures in place.

The objective of our proposed research program will be to develop, deepen, transmit, and share knowledge about workplace violence according to gender and type of workers, with respect to: 1) the impact of acts of serious violence not only on health but also on quality of life in the workplace, 2) the epidemiological and conceptual dimension of violence in the workplace, 3) needs for formal and informal support following episodes of violence, 4) the most effective and efficient methods of preventing violence and its consequences, and 5) the most appropriate methods of facilitating recourse and access to services.

Contact the VISAGE team:

Stéphane Guay, PhD
Director of the VISAGE research team
Trauma Study Centre, Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal
7401, Hochelaga Street, Montreal, Quebec, H1N 3M5
Phone: 514-251-4000 ext. 3084
Email: stephane.guay@umontreal.ca

Juliette Jarvis
Research coordinator
Phone: 514 251-4000 ext.3738
Email: jjarvis.crfs@ssss.gouv.qc.ca

Promoting Health through Collaborative Engagement with Youth in Canada: Overcoming, Resisting, and Preventing Structural Violence

Nominated principal investigator: Dr. Helene Berman

Co-principal investigators: Dr. Dominique Damant, Dr. Marnina Gonick, Dr. Holly Johnson. Dr. Cathy Richardson, Dr. Wilfreda Thurston

National youth coordinator: Jessica Yee

Long recognized as a sociocultural problem, in more recent years, violence has been conceptualized as a significant health concern with long-term consequences for individuals, families and communities. This Team Grant will extend this conceptualization further by exploring the complex dimensions of structural violence to which many youth in Canada are routinely subjected. The purpose of this team grant is to examine how structural violence is experienced by youth in Canada, how it influences their health, and strategies that can be used to address and prevent violence. In addition it will evaluate how collaborative engagement with youth can promote health by empowering them to address structural violence in their lives. Using participatory action research approaches, our research will be carried out by a multidisciplinary and geographically diverse team of academic and community researchers, youth, and policymakers.

Specific objectives are to: 1) Examine how structural forms of violence are defined, understood, and experienced by youth; 2) Examine, from the perspectives of youth, how structural violence shapes their health and well-being; 3) Undertake a critical and historical analysis of relevant policies to identify ways in which institutions wittingly or unwittingly contribute to the victimization or vulnerability of diverse groups of youth and the differential ways in which these policies influence them; 4) Conduct a multi-dimensional critical analysis of the ways that mass media shapes and/or reflects dominant public perceptions of marginalized youth and structural violence, how these influence their health, with particular attention to issues of identity, belonging/exclusion, and sense of self; 5) Examine how structural violence is minimized, reinforced, or enacted through interactions with various systems/institutions (e.g. child welfare, justice, health, Indian affairs, citizenship and immigration), and how these interactions influence health; 6) Evaluate the use of youth-centered participatory action research as a health promotion strategy.

Knowledge translation activities will be incorporated throughout the duration of the grant. A national conference, to be led by youth, attended by youth, researchers, and knowledge users, including policymakers and programmers will be held in the final year. Findings will be shared and discussed in innovative and more traditional ways with diverse audiences and will contribute to recommendations that organizations and policymakers can use to dismantle barriers to equality, eliminate structural violence, and promote health among youth in Canada.

Contact the CIHR Team - Promoting Health Through Collaborative Engagement with Youth:

Dr. Helene Berman
Professor and Chair of Academic Programs
Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing
Research Scholar, Centre for Research & Education on
Violence against Women and Children
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario N6A 5C1
Telephone: 519-661-2111 ext. 86578
Fax: 519-850-2464
Email: hberman@uwo.ca

Maria Callaghan
National Coordinator
Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario N6A 5C1
Telephone: 905-397-6677
Email: mcallag@uwo.ca

Team Grant on Contexts of Vulnerabilities, Resiliencies and Care among People in the Sex Industry

Principal investigators: Dr. Cecilia Benoit, Mr. Chris Atchison, Ms. Lauren Casey, Dr. Lois Jackson, Dr. Mikael Jansson, Dr. Bill McCarthy, Dr. Rachel Phillips, Mr. Dan Reist, Dr. Frances Shaver, Dr. Patricia Spittal and Dr. Kevin Walby.

The Team Grant links academic researchers and trainees from the medical, health and social sciences, and knowledge users and collaborators from regulatory agencies, health and social services, government, and the non-profit sector. Many team members have formed small cross-disciplinary research clusters previously, but this is the first time their collaboration includes such a wide representation of knowledge users and collaborators, including those from Aboriginal organizations, government, criminal justice, and the health, social welfare and voluntary sectors. We use innovative cross-disciplinary measures of violence and resiliency to study sex work and have co-developed a multi-methods program design with standardized quantitative measures and qualitative explorations.

The team will work collaboratively to: a) identify key factors linked to violence and vulnerabilities in the Canadian sex industry at systems, social, and individual levels; b) estimate the impact of gender on violence-related links between sex workers, clients, romantic partners, supervisors, regulators, and service providers; c) ensure that useful knowledge generated by the research program informs policies and practices aimed at improving the safety and health of sex workers and those they relate to at work and in their personal lives.

The research program consists of 7 interrelated projects unfolding in three stages:

• Stage 1
  • Project 1: Knowledge Exchange about Violence & Resiliency in the Sex Industry
• Stage 2
  
  • Project 2: National Survey of People Working in the Canadian Sex Industry
  • Project 3: Factors Linked to Violence & Resiliency in Sex Workers' Romantic Relationships
  • Project 4: Positioning Sex Buyers in the Nexus of Violence, Gender and Health
  • Project 5: Supervising Sex Work: Challenges to Workplace Safety and Health
  • Project 6: The Effect of Prostitution Law on Vulnerabilities, Resiliencies and Health
• Stage 3
  
  • Project 7: Ethnographic Snapshot of the Meanings & Interactions related to Violence, Safety & Health

Contact the Team Grant on contexts of vulnerabilities, resiliencies and care among people in the sex industry:

Cecilia Benoit, PhD – Nominated principal investigator
Professor of Sociology & Graduate Chair
Scientist, Centre for Addictions Research of BC
Telephone: 250-853-3132/250-721-7578
Email: cbenoit@uvic.ca
Website

iTAG (investigating Tobacco and Gender)

Principal investigators: Dr. Joan Bottorff and Dr. John Oliffe

iTAG (Investigating Tobacco and Gender) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary research team committed to developing gender-sensitive tobacco reduction and cessation interventions. Tobacco use is a significant public health issues in Canada and the differences in smoking rates between men and women are in large part a reflection of the influence of gender and social-context factors that influence tobacco use and, ultimately, interventions. The iTAG team is interested in, for example, examining how various masculine and feminine gendered practices influence smoking patterns and smoking cessation interventions, and how men- and women-centered strategies can be developed to maximize the chances for reduction and cessation.

The iTAG team, led by Drs. Joan Bottorff and John Oliffe at the University of British Columbia, has a number of projects underway including Tobacco Reduction Interventions for HIV+ Smokers; Integrating Gender Sensitive Tobacco Dependence Treatment in Women's Smoking; Young Adult Quitters Pilot Photo Elicitation study; Tobacco Reduction Among Family Members of Cancer Patients, as well as FACET (Families Controlling and Eliminating Tobacco) related studies.

iTAG is focused on building capacity for effective knowledge translation to message other health care providers, policy makers and the public and maximizing the impact of gender-sensitive tobacco reduction programs. They have received extensive media attention, published numerous journal articles, and produced evidence-based resources to support tobacco reduction.

Contact iTAG:

UBC - Vancouver
302-6190 Agronomy Road
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3
Telephone: 604-822-2581
Email: itag@nursing.ubc.ca

UBC - Okanagan
246B Fipke, 3333 University Way
Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7
Telephone: 250-807-8627
Email: joan.bottorff@ubc.ca

Promoting Health in Women Team

Principal investigators: Dr. Lorraine Greaves, Dr. Jan Christilaw, and Dr. Karin Humphries

The PhiWomen* Team is an interdisciplinary team working to reduce gender and health inequities through the advancement of effective health promotion for women. The team is incorporating theory on sex, gender, and diversity with evidence on women's health and health promotion programs. The overarching goal of the PhiWomen Team is to develop a conceptual framework to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based health promotion to improve women's health, and to guide the development of health promotion initiatives for women.

To achieve these goals, the PhiWomen Team is collecting evidence through systematic literature reviews, and developing and analyzing case studies investigating various aspects of women's health and health promotion. The team conducts community-based research, clinical research, and health services research in a range of settings to advance the framework. The Team is also using innovative knowledge translation practices to both involve and inform women, health care providers, program developers, and policy makers.

The PhiWomen Team is igniting an agenda for health promotion for women in Canada. The team is made up of academic and community-based researchers, trainees, and staff based primarily at the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women's Health, BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre, and the Provincial Health Services Authority of BC.

Contact PhiWomen:

Phoebe Long, Administrative Coordinator
Email: plong@cw.bc.ca

*Phi /pronounced "fai"/n. is a Greek letter often used to represent the golden ratio. By choosing PhiWomen for our team name, we are committing to precision and excellence in our work.

CIHR Team in Gender, Environment and Health

Principal investigators: Dr. Donna Mergler, Dr. Ellen Balka, Prof. Katherine Lippel, Dr. Karen Messing, Dr. Stacey Ritz, and Dr. Johanne Saint-Charles

Integrating gender and sex in health and environment research: development of new methodology.

It is common knowledge that boys and girls, men and women, are biologically different. Throughout their lives, they are confronted with different social expectations and their experiences lead them to interact differently with their physical and social environments. However, research in environment and health has been slow to translate these basic considerations into methodologically sound studies that adequately consider sex and gender (sex and gender).

The lack of information in this area has critical implications for population health status and health services, as well as for the design of effective, preventive and relevant intervention strategies for children, adolescents, family members involved in paid and non-paid work and the elderly.

This pan-Canadian interdisciplinary research team has been created to respond to the need for new approaches and methods that will allow us to better understand the sex and gender differences in environment and health relationships.

Main objective:

Integrate sex and gender considerations into environmental and occupational health research throughout the lifespan.

Specific objectives:

• Develop innovative and interdisciplinary quantitative and qualitative methods that integrate sex and gender considerations into environmental and occupational health research throughout the lifespan.
• Gain new knowledge that demonstrates the scientific importance of integrating sex and gender considerations into environment health research and intervention throughout the lifespan.
• Identify new research areas in sex and gender, environment and health interactions that have not yet been addressed and that are crucial for the improvement of health and the health care system.
• Initiate multi-centre and multi-disciplinary research projects to answer the research questions that arise during the initial years of the program.
• Establish and reinforce collaborations with community-based and public health partners working in environmental and occupational health in order to better understand the real-life mechanisms linking environmental health to sex and gender and to improve prevention and treatment.
• Train and mentor young researchers in the integration of sex and gender in environmental health research in order to guarantee the continued use of approaches and high standards for future creative and innovative research.
• Organize and participate in national and international scientific, public health and community-based activities to encourage the inclusion of sex and gender considerations in research, intervention and policy-making.

To achieve the goals of the team, we have established a participatory structure with partners working in the field of environment and health and a 5-year progressive research and activities plan grounded in on-going research in environment and health across Canada.

Contact the CIHR Team in Integrating Gender and Sex in Health and Environment Research:

Marie Eve Rioux-Pelletier
Coordinator of the CIHR Team in Gender, Environment and Health
Telephone: 1-514-987-3000 ext. 4757
Email: rioux-pelletier.marie_eve@uqam.ca

Mailing address
CINBIOSE
Université du Québec à Montréal
Case postale 8888, Succursale Centre-ville
Montréal (Québec) Canada
H3C 3P8

Street address
CINBIOSE
Université du Québec à Montréal
2080, rue Saint-Urbain
SB-1980 (Pavillon : Sciences biologiques)
Montréal (Québec) Canada
H2X 3X8

Gender Differences and Premature Infants - Multidisciplinary Scientist Team (MUST)

Principal investigators: Dr. Yves Tremblay, Dr. Emmanuel Bujold, Dr. Raymond Lambert, Dr. Francine Lefebvre, Dr. Gina Muckle, Dr. Bruno Piedboeuf, and Dr. Guy Poirier.

Gender Differences and Premature Infants is a group of investigators known under the acronym MUST for MUltidisciplinary Scientist Team. Currently, MUST involves researchers from a spectrum of complementary disciplines covering biomedical, clinical, and public health sectors. Members come from three faculties and two universities. The team is dedicated to translating research findings for the well-being of premature infants, parents, and society. The mandate of MUST is to convert existing and new knowledge into action to improve health and the fate of survivors born at extreme prematurity. By promoting multi and transdisciplinary research, MUST documents the question of how fetal sex impacts upon critical medical situations in cases of premature infants. The objective is to design new evidence-based guidelines in perinatology and public policy. The team has developed an integrative approach to document the role of biological sex on lung development (biomedical) and other outcomes. The team also considers the effects of counselling provided by clinicians (clinical) and the influence of risk factors on neurobehavioral outcomes with measurements at primary school age (public health). To translate research findings into reality for premature infants, the team benefits from transdisciplinary research analysis using a web-based discussion forum. MUST provides an innovative point of view in doing research and hopes to generate new knowledge, improve communication, facilitate dissemination, favour in-depth contributions of the parents in the medical decision, and promote implementation of new clinical and policy guidelines in perinatalogy.

Contact MUST:

Yves Tremblay, PhD
Director CIHR-IGH-NET: Gender Differences and Premature Infants
Room T-1-49
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec, PCRCHUL
2705, Laurier Boulevard, Québec G1V 4G2
Telephone: 418-525-4444 ext. 46158
E-book: L'influence de la prématurité et du sexe de l'enfant sur ses perspectives de santé (only in French)

CIHR Team in Perinatal Mental Health

Principal investigators: Dr. Phyllis Zelkowitz, Dr. Ian J. Gold, and Dr. Danielle Groleau

The CIHR Team in Perinatal Mental Health brings together researchers from the biomedical and social sciences to investigate how sociocultural, psychological and biological factors interact in relation to mental illness in pregnancy and postpartum. Perinatal mental health problems are not only prevalent, but also persistent, often lasting well into the first postpartum year, and recurrence rates during subsequent pregnancies are very high. However, these disorders are often unrecognized and remain largely untreated. The team is implementing an innovative research program to examine links between adverse life circumstances, hormonal and physiological risk factors and maternal mental health problems, which in turn may affect the mother-infant relationship. An additional goal is to understand health services needs and utilization patterns among women from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. The team is supported by an Advisory Committee of health professionals and community members who meet four times per year to discuss the conduct and progress of the research program, as well as its implications for clinical practice. The projects that are currently underway include a longitudinal study of individual differences in oxytocin levels during pregnancy and postpartum, in relation to psychosocial risk factors, symptoms of anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and delusions, as well as mother-infant interaction. They have also undertaken studies of the knowledge and attitudes of health care providers concerning screening and treatment of women with perinatal mental health problems, and of service needs and preferences among postpartum women with depressive symptoms. The team will also study PTSD symptoms in high-risk postpartum women and their partners.

Contact the CIHR Team in Perinatal Mental Health:

Dr. Phyllis Zelkowitz
Director of Research
Department of Psychiatry
Jewish General Hospital
4333 Cote Ste Catherine Road
Montreal, QC H3T 1E4
Telephone: 514-340-8222 ext. 5258
Email: phyllis.zelkowitz@mcgill.ca

Marie-Eve Carrier
Research Coordinator
CIHR Team in Perinatal Mental Health Institut
Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry
Jewish General Hospital
4333 Cote Ste Catherine Road, #223
Montreal, QC H3T 1E4
Telephone: 514-340-8222 ext.3308