International Network for Research on Inequalities in Child Health (INRICH)

Bio: I graduated in Medicine in 1986, in the State University of Campinas, Brazil (Unicamp) and soon developed an interest in epidemiology and research methodology. I started a MSc course in Statistics in Unicamp as well, finished in 1990, under the supervision of Dr Euclydes C Lima Filho. The same year I got a scholarship from the Brazilian Research Council (CNPq) to do a PhD in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. There, I completed a MSc in Medical Statistics (1991) and a PhD in Epidemiology (1996) under the supervision of Dr David Ross, Maternal and Child Health Unit. I then joined the Dept. of Social Medicine, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil. Presently, I hold an Associate Professor post, teaching mostly biostatistics. Other posts held in this period were Public Health Area representative with Capes (Ministry of Education division responsible for post-graduate teaching) from 2005-2007 and Associate Editor with the Revista de Saúde Pública, since 2005. A full CV is available at http://lattes.cnpq.br/6249003853117061.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Post graduate

Telephone
+55 53 3284-1300

Email
abarros.epi@gmail.com

Website Address: www.epidemio-ufpel.org.br

Mailing Address: Centro de Pesquisas Epidemiológicas, UFPel, R. Mal. Deodoro, 1160 3o. piso, 96020-220 - Pelotas, RS, Brazil

Current research interests: I started my career in epidemiology studying child health and day care centres and always had a strong interest in statistical methods. Along time my worked moved on to social determinants of health, especially health inequities. But I still work on child health, as one of the principal investigators of the Pelotas 2004 Birth Cohort, where body composition and mental health are two of our main interests. I have done some methodological work, mainly with modelling of binary outcomes from cross-sectional studies. More recently, I have studied out-of-pocket spending with health and child development and cognition.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family and Individual | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Barros AJ, Matijasevich A, et al. (2010). "Child development in a birth cohort: effect of child stimulation is stronger in less educated mothers." International Journal of Epidemiology 39(1): 285-294.

Barros AJ, Matijasevich A, Santos IS, Halpern R. Child development in a birth cohort: effect of child stimulation is stronger in less educated mothers. Int J Epidemiol 2009. DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyp272.

Barros AJ, Santos IS, Bertoldi AD. Can mothers rely on the Brazilian health system for their deliveries? An assessment of use of the public system and out-of-pocket expenditure in the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort Study, Brazil. BMC Health Serv Res 2008;8(1):57. DOI: 10.1186/1472-6963-8-57.

Barros AJ, Victora CG, Horta BL, Goncalves HD, Lima RC, Lynch J. Effects of socioeconomic change from birth to early adulthood on height and overweight. Int J Epidemiol 2006;35(5):1233-8.

Barros AJ, Victora CG, Cesar JA, Neumann NA, Bertoldi AD. Brazil: Are Health and Nutrition Programs Reaching the Neediest? In: Gwatkin DR, Wagstaff A, Yazbeck AS, editors. Reaching the Poor with Health, Nutrition and Population Services. What works, What Doesn't and Why. Washington, DC: World Bank; 2005. p. 281-306. Available from: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Reaching-the-Poor/complete.pdf

Barros AJ, Hirakata VN. Alternatives for logistic regression in cross-sectional studies: an empirical comparison of models that directly estimate the prevalence ratio. BMC Med Res Methodol 2003;3(1):21. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2288-3-21.

Barros AJ, Ross DA, Fonseca WV, Williams LA, Moreira-Filho DC. Preventing acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea in child care centres. Acta Paediatr 1999;88(10):1113-8. Please see http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-7417-2008.

Bio: Clare Blackburn is an Associated Professor in the School of Health and Social Studies at the University of Warwick. She is interested in research aims to improve the social material circumstances and service provision for children and their families. She has published in the area of poverty and health, cigarette smoking in households with young children and children's exposure to tobacco smoke. With Nick Spencer and Janet Read, she is researching patterns, trends and predictors of childhood disability in the UK.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
0044 2476 524132

Email
c.m.blackburn@warwick.ac.uk

Website Address: www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/shss/expertise/blackburn

Mailing Address: School of Health and Social Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

Collaborative projects: Childhood disability and socioeconomic disadvantage: exploring patterns, predictors and trends with Nick Spencer and Janet Read. Childhood disability: measurement, prevalence and social circumstances in different national contexts with Nick Spencer, Dave Gordon, Doug Simkiss and Janet Read.

Current research interests: Research interests focus on the way that poverty and poor material circumstances shape health outcomes, health behaviour and caring routines in households with children. Current research is focusing on childhood disability: issues related to establishing the prevalence of childhood disability in the UK, the circumstances and characteristics of disabled children and their households and the predictors of childhood disability.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Which indicators?: for example, perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms) | Interventions: Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities

Selected Publications

Read, J., Blackburn, C., Spencer, N. (2009) Disabled Children in the UK: A quality assessment of quantitative data sources. Child: Care, Health and Development, early online access Sept 09.

Blackburn, C., Read, J. and Spencer, N. (2007) Can we count them? Scoping data sources on disabled children and their households in the UK. Child: Care, Health and Development, 33, 3, 291-295.

Blackburn, C., Bonas, S., Spencer, N., Coe, C., Dolan, A. and Moy, R. (2005b) "Smoking behaviour among fathers of new infants". Social Science and Medicine, 61:527-526.

N Spencer, C Blackburn, S Bonas, C Coe, and A Dolan (2005) Parent reported home smoking bans and toddler (18–30 month) smoke exposure: a cross-sectional survey. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 90: 670 - 674.

Blackburn, C., Spencer, N. J., Bonas, S., Coe, C., Dolan, A. and Moy, R (2003) ‘The effect of strategies to reduce exposure of infants to environmental tobacco smoke in the home: cross-sectional survey’. British Medical Journal: 327, 2 August: 257-261.

Bio: Tom is the Sunny Hill Health Centre/BC Leadership Chair in Child Development in the Human Early Learning Partnership and the Centre for Community Child Health Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also Co-Director of CIFAR's Experience-Based Brain and Biological Development Program and a member of Harvard University's National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. He completed his baccalaureate degree in philosophy and psychology at Stanford University and an MD at Baylor College of Medicine. He then did pediatric residency training at the University of California, San Francisco and was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Prior to his appointment at the University of British Columbia, he spent twenty years on the pediatrics and public health faculties of the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
604 827 4465

Email
tom.boyce@ubc.ca

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: 440-2206 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, CANADA

Current research interests:A social epidemiologist and developmental-behavioral pediatrician, Tom's research addresses the interplay among neurobiological and psychosocial processes leading to socially partitioned differences in childhood disease. Studying the interactive influences of socioeconomic adversities and neurobiological responses, his work has demonstrated how psychological stress and neurobiological reactivity to aversive social contexts operate conjointly to produce disorders of both physical and mental health in childhood populations. A central goal of his work is the development of a new synthesis between biomedical and social epidemiologic accounts of human pathogenesis and an articulation of the public health implications of this synthetic view.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Stress and allostatic load / Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual | Interventions: Children's rights & equity - research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities / What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Boyce WT, Ellis BJ: Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary-developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity. Development and Psychopathology 17 (2): 271-301, 2005.

Boyce WT: Social stratification, health and violence in the very young. Ann NY Acad Sci 1036: 47-68, 2005.

Boyce WT, Essex MJ, Alkon A, Goldsmith HH, Kraemer HC, Kupfer DJ: Early father involvement moderates biobehavioral susceptibility to mental health problems in middle childhood. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 45(12):1510-20, 2006.

Kishiyama MM, Boyce WT, Jimenez AM, Perry LM, Knight RT: Socioeconomic disparities in prefrontal function in children. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21(6): 1106-1115, 2009

Obradovic, J & Boyce WT: Individual differences in behavioral, physiological, and genetic sensitivities to contexts: Implications for development and adaptation. Developmental Neuroscience, 300-308, 2009

Bio: Mr. Choonara is a paediatric clinical pharmacologist who has helped develop a training programme and accreditation of a new sub-speciality. He has an interest in clinical trials. He is deputy editor of Archives of Disease in Childhood and chair of the NIHR HTA Pharmaceuticals Panel which commissions research. Mr. Choonara has been visiting Cuba each year and this has drawn him into public health and the importance of reducing inequalities.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
01332 724693

Email
imti.choonara@nottingham.ac.uk

Website Address:

Mailing Address: Academic Division of Child Health, University of Nottingham, Derbyshire Children's Hospital, The Medical School, Clinical Sciences Wing, Uttoxeter Road, Derby DE22 3DT, UK

Current research interests:

• Access to medicines for children of refugees/asylum seekers and travellers in the UK
• Comparison of child mortality rates between the UK and Sweden and any relationship between the number of medicines available
• Effect of protein energy malnutrition on drug metabolism
• Literature review of counterfeit medicines
• Collaboration with Cuba in relation to pharmacovigilance

Research priorities: Wish to explore the link between access to medicines and inequalities

Selected Publications

Sánchez Miranda D, Choonara I. Hurricanes and child health: lessons from Cuba. Arch Dis Child 2011; 96: 328-329

Alkahtani S, Sammons H, Choonara I. Epidemics of acute renal failure in children (diethylene glycol toxicity). Arch Dis Child 2010; 95: 1062-1064

Oshikoya KA, Sammons HM, Choonara I.. A systematic review of pharmacokinetics studies in children with protein-energy malnutrition. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 2010; 66: 1025-1035

Barennes H, Choonara I. Breast feeding and drug therapy in neglected diseases. Arch Dis Child 2010; 95: 222-223

Bio: Jailson B. Correia is research director at the Instituto de Medicina Integral Professor Fernando Figueira (IMIP) and an associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil. Dr Correia is also a researcher for the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil (CNPq). He graduated in Medicine at the University of Pernambuco (1993) and completed his paediatrics training at IMIP (1996). He obtained a Masters degree in Tropical Paediatrics (1998) and a Ph.D. degree (2005) at the University of Liverpool (UK). Following his return to Brazil, he has been leading a range of national and international collaborative studies on child health. He has ever since been running the redevelopment of a fast growing research center, with a strong emphasis on research capacity building as a driver for local development.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+55 81 21224702

Email
jcorreia@imip.org.br

Website Address: www.imip.org.br

Mailing Address: Instituto de Medicina Integral Prof. Fernando Figueira, Diretoria de Pesquisa, Rua dos Coelhos, 300, Boa Vista, Recife - PE, CEP 50070-550, Brazil

Current research interests: Dr Correia has developed interests on epidemiological and translational studies on infectious diseases of children from underprivileged settings, with special emphasis on the role of the socioeconomic status on the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases. His current projects include active surveillance of pathogens causing severe acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea and meningitis in children from the poor suburbs of Recife. He is also co-chair of the IMIP/Recife Longitudinal Studies Working Group.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Regional studies (within countries) | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities? | Other: Role of the socioeconomic status on the burden of infectious diseases.

Selected Publications

Gurgel RQ, Correia JB, Cuevas LE. Effect of rotavirus vaccination on circulating virus strains. Lancet. 2008 Jan 26;371(9609):301-2

Nakagomi T, Correia JB, Nakagomi O, Montenegro FM, Cuevas LE, Cunliffe NA, Hart CA. Norovirus infection among children with acute gastroenteritis in Recife, Brazil: disease severity is comparable to rotavirus gastroenteritis. Arch Virol. 2008;153(5):957-60.

Nakagomi T, Cuevas LE, Gurgel RG, Elrokhsi SH, Belkhir YA, Abugalia M, Dove W, Montenegro FM, Correia JB, Nakagomi O, Cunliffe NA, Hart CA. Apparent extinction of non-G2 rotavirus strains from circulation in Recife, Brazil, after the introduction of rotavirus vaccine. Arch Virol. 2008;153(3):591-3.

Batty GD, Alves JG, Correia JB, lor DA. Examining life-course influences on chronic disease: the importance of birth cohort studies from low- and middle- income countries. An overview. Braz J Med Biol Res. 2007; 40:1277-86.

Correia JB, Hart CA. Meningococcal disease. Clin Evid. 2004;(12):1164-81.

Bio: Gary Evans is the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology, Cornell University. He is a developmental and environmental psychologist.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
607 255 4775

Email
gwe1@cornell.edu

Website Address:

Mailing Address: Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4401, USA

Current research interests: The environment of childhood poverty: what role do psychosocial and physical risk factors, particularly as the accumulate, play in the adverse impacts of childhood poverty on human development. I am also interested in stress as a model for how poverty impacts child development.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty), Stress and allostatic load | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies, Root cause analysis to inform policy change.

Selected Publications

Evans, G.W. (2004). The environment of childhood poverty. American Psychologist, 59, 77-92.

Evans, G.W., Gonnella, C., Marcynyszyn, L.A., Gentile, L., &Salpekar, N. (2005). The role of chaos in poverty and children's socioemotional adjustment. Psychological Science, 16, 560-565.

Evans, G.W., &Kim, P. (2007). Childhood poverty and health: Cumulative risk exposure and stress dysregulation. Psychological Science, 18,953-957.

Evans, G.W. & Schamberg, M.A. (2009). Childhood poverty, chronic stress, and adult working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 6545-6549.

Bio: He has continuously been engaged as a teacher at universities since 1976. The main themes for his teaching has been; medical sociology, social epidemiology and public health.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+46 101037517

Email
tomas.faresjo@liu.se

Website Address: www.twincitiesr.se

Mailing Address: Dept of Medicine and Health, Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linkoping University, SE-58183 Linkoping, Sweden

Current research interests:

• The importance of the social environment for health.
• Intergenerational and epigenetic studies.
• International comparisons of health.
• Child health equity studies.
• New measurement of stress exposure and its application i health care.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Stress and allostatic load, Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty, Regional studies (within countries) | Interventions: Children’s rights &equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation

Selected Publications

Karlén J, Faresjö T, Ludvigsson J. Could the social environment trigger for the induction of diabetes-related autoantibodies in young children? (Submitted manuscript to Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 2010)

Karlén J, Frostell A, Ludvigsson J, Theodorsson E, Faresjö T. Measuring cortisol in hair for retrospective detection of exposure to serious life events. (Manuscript under revision, BMC Public Health, 2011)

Wennerholm C, Grip B, Nilsson H, Rahmqvist M, Honkasalo M-L, Faresjö T. Prevalence of coronary heart diseases in different social environments – the Twincities. International Journal of Health Geographics, 2011, 10:5.

Faresjö T, Faresjö A. To match or not to match in epidemiological studies – same outcome but less power. Int J Environ. Res Public Health 2010, 7; 325-332.

Faresjö T, Rahmqvist M. Educational level a crucial factor for good perceived health in the local community. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 2010; 38: 605-610.

Bio: Dr David Gordon is Professor of Social Justice and the Director of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research (see www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/) at the University of Bristol, UK. Professor Gordon is an international recognised expert on poverty and inequality research and has written and edited over a hundred books, papers and reports on these subjects. He is a member of the UN Expert Group on Poverty Statistics (Rio Group) and contributed to its recent ‘Compendium of Good Practice in Poverty Measurement’. Professor Gordon has acted as an external expert for the European Union Working Group on Income, Poverty and Social Exclusion and was a scientific advisor to the European Union/Latin American Network 10 - Fight against Urban Poverty. Professor Gordon advised the United Nations Department for Economic & Social Affairs (UNDESA) on poverty and hunger issues amongst young people (aged 15 to 24) and contributed to the 2005, 2007 and 2009 World Youth Reports. He recently completed working with UNICEF on its first ever Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities which will be published during 2009.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+44(0)117 9546761

Email
dave.gordon@bristol.ac.uk

Website Address: www.bristol.ac.uk/sps/aboutus/sps-staff-details/gordon/

Mailing Address: School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol , 8 Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TZ, United Kingdom

Collaborative projects: Several projects on child disability and health inequalities with colleagues at Warwick University.

Current research interests: Social and distributional justice, social harm, scientific measurement of poverty, child poverty and human rights, childhood disability, crime and poverty, area-based anti-poverty measures, the causal effects of poverty on ill health, and rural poverty.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to define poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Regional studies (within countries) / Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities

Selected Publications

Subramanian. S.V., Nandy, S., Irving, M., Gordon, D., Lambert, H. and Davey Smith, D. (2006) The mortality divide in India: the differential contribution of gender, caste and standard of living across life course. American Journal of Public Health 96, 818 – 825.

Nandy, S., Irving, M., Gordon, D., Subramanian. S.V. and Davey Smith, D. (2005) Poverty, child undernutrition and morbidity: new evidence from India. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 83, 3, 210-216.

Hutchison, T. & Gordon, D. (2005) Ascertaining the prevalence of childhood disability. Child Care, Health and Development, 31 (1), 99-107.

Gordon, D., Nandy, S., Pantazis, C., Pemberton, S. and Townsend, P. (2003) Child Poverty in the Developing World, Policy Press: Bristol.

Shaw, M., Dorling, D., Gordon, D. and Davey Smith, G. (1999) The Widening Gap: health Inequalities and Policy in Britain. Bristol, The Policy Press.

Bio: to follow

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+31-10-704 34 05

Email
e.hafkamp@erasmusmc.nl

Mailing Address: Department of Public Health / Generation-R, Room AE-003, Erasmus MC, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Collaborative projects: CHICOS.

Current research interests: Early detection of asthma symptoms in preschool children. Socioeconomic inequlities in asthma (symptoms) in children.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty

Selected Publications

to follow

Bio: Jody Heymann is the Founding Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy, the WORLD Global Data Centre, and the Project on Global Working Families. An internationally renowned researcher on health and social policy, Dr. Heymann holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy. She has authored and edited over 150 publications. Deeply committed to translating research into policies and programs that will improve individual and population health, Dr. Heymann has worked with leaders in North American, European, African, and Latin American governments as well as a wide range of intergovernmental organizations including the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, and UNESCO. Central to her efforts are bridging the gap between research and policymakers, and Dr. Heymann's research has been presented to heads of state and senior policymakers around the world. She has worked closely on the development of legislation with the US Congress as well as with UN agencies on the implications of her team's results for global policy.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+ 1 514 398 1300

Email
director.ihsp@mcgill.ca

Website Address: http://www.mcgill.ca/ihsp/

Mailing Address: Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University, 1130 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A3

Current research interests: Examining how social policies and programs affect population health, welfare, and economic outcomes. Particular attention will be paid to the impact on the worst off.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Intergenerational influences | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities / What works in reducing child health inequalities? | Other: Health Policy, Social Policy, Poverty Policy, Children, Health Outcomes, Social Determinants, Working Conditions.

Selected Publications

Heymann SJ with Barrera M. Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder: Creating Value by Investing in Your Workforce. Harvard Business Press. Forthcoming.

Heymann SJ and Earle A. Raising the Global Floor: Dismantling The Myth That We Can't Afford Good Working Conditions For Everyone. Stanford University Press. 2009.

Heymann SJ. Forgotten Families: Ending the Growing Crisis Confronting Children and Working Parents in the Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Heymann SJ, Hertzman C, Barer M, and Evans R, eds. Healthier Societies: From Analysis to Action. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Heymann SJ. The Widening Gap: Why Working Families Are in Jeopardy and What Can Be Done About It. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

Bio:

• 1984 MD: Karolinska Institutet
• 1990 PhD: Karolinska Institutet
• 2002 Certified specialist in child and adolescent medicine
• 2005 Adjunct professor in paediatric epidemiology, Uppsala university
• 2008 Adjunct professor in paediatric epidemiology, Nordic School of Public Health
• 2008 Research associate Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS)

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
46-8-55553169

Email
anders.hjern@socialstyrelsen.se

Website Address: www.chess.su.se / www.nhv.se

Mailing Address: Centre for Epidemiology, National Board of Health and Welfare, 106 30 Stockholm, Sweden

Collaborative projects: Perinatal health and inequity

Current research interests: Migration and child health / Inequality and perinatal health / School as a mediator of socio-economic inequalities in child health / Health of adoptees and foster children

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Social into the biological and epigenetic / Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to define poverty / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual | Interventions: Children's rights & equity - research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation / What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Hjern, A. Lindblad, F. Vinnerljung, B. Suicide, psychiatric illness and social maladjustment in intercountry adoptees in Sweden. Lancet. 2002 10;360(9331):443-8.

Hjern, A. Wicks, S. Dahlman, C. Social adversity contributes to high morbidity in psychoses in immigrants - a national cohort study in two generations of Swedish residents. Psychological Medicine 2004 Aug;34(6):1025-33.

Ringbäck-Weitoft, G. Hjern, A. Haglund, B. Rosén, M. Mortality, severe morbidity, and injury in children living with single parents in Sweden: a population-based study. Lancet 2003; 361: 289-295.

Ostberg V, Hjern A. School performance and hospital admissions due to self-inflicted injury: a Swedish national cohort study. Int J Epidemiol. 2009 Oct;38(5):1334-41. Epub 2009 Jun 25.

Wallby T, Hjern A. Region of birth, income and breastfeeding in a Swedish county. Acta Paediatr. 2009 Nov;98(11):1799-804. Epub 2009 Sep 3.

Bio: Lennart Köhler (Sweden) pediatrician. Head of Child Health Services in a Swedish county, Professor of Social Pediatrics at the Nordic School of Public Health, Göteborg, Sweden. Dean 1978–1995. Founder and Secretary General of the European Society for Social Pediatrics (ESSOP) 1977-1987, Honorary President from 1987. President of Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) 1987-1989.

Temporary adviser to WHO in public health and child health. Member of the Advisory Board of the WHO Kobe Centre, Japan, 1996-2001. Member of the Editorial Boards of Child: Care, Health and Development (London); European Journal of Public Health (London); International Journal of Health Sciences (Groningen); Developmental Period Medicine (Warsaw).

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Postgraduate researcher

Telephone
+4631693976

Email
lennart@nhv.se

Website Address: www.nhv.se

Mailing Address: Nordic School of Public Health, Box 121 33, SE-402 42, Goteborg, Sweden

Collaborative projects: ESSOP-with Nick Spencer

Current research interests: Main research interest in child health and well-being. Major studies of children’s health in the Nordic countries, several studies on Child Health Indicators in in Sweden, Greenland and EU. Some 250 publications in Child Health and Public Health.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Stress and allostatic load | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Regional studies (within countries) | Interventions: Children's rights & equity - What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Rigby, Michael, Köhler, Lennart, Blair, Mitch &Mechtler, Reli. Child Health Indicators for Europe. A priority for a caring society. European Journal of Public Health 2003;13 (3 Supplement):38-46

Pedersen, C. Reinhardt, Madsen Mette, Köhler Lennart. Does financial strain explain the association between children’s morbidity and parental non-employment? J Epidemiology and Community Health 2005;59:316-321

Berntsson Leeni, Köhler Lennart, Vuille Jean-Claude. Health, economy and social capital in Nordic children and their families: a comparison between 1984 and 1996. Child: Care, Health and Development 2006;32:441-451

Köhler Lennart. Health indictors for Swedish children. A contribution to a municipality index. Save the Children, Stockholm 2006

Niclasen Birgit &Köhler Lennart. Core Indicators of Children’s Health and Well-Being at the Municipal Level in Greenland. Child Indicator Res 2009; 2:221–244

Bio: Dr. Michael S. Kramer is James McGill Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill University Faculty of Medicine. He has been a National Health Research Scholar and National Health Research Scientist of Health Canada’s National Health Research and Development Program (NHRDP), a Chercheur-boursier senior (senior research scientist) of the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ), and a Distinguished Scientist of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). He has been principal investigator on several large, multicentre epidemiologic studies and randomized trials in the general area of maternal and child health. A member of four expert committees of the U.S. Institute of Medicine, in 1997-98 Dr. Kramer served as President of the Society of Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research. From 1995-2001, he chaired the Steering Committee of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System and until May 2003, chaired the Institute Advisory Board of CIHR’s Institute of Human Development and Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH). He currently serves as IHDCYH’s Scientific Director. He has received operating grant support from the Medical Research Council (now CIHR) of Canada, NHRDP, NIH, FRSQ, and the March of Dimes.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
514-412-4400 Ext. 22687

Email
michael.kramer@mcgill.ca

Mailing Address: 2300 Tupper Street (Les Tourelles), Montreal (Quebec) H3H 1P3, Canada

Collaborative projects: Socioeconomic Disparities in Preterm Birth: Causal Pathways and Mechanisms - A Prospective Study of Psychosocial Factors Influencing Women's Responses to a Stressful Birth Outcome

Current research interests: The causes and prevention of preterm birth and intrauterine growth restriction, the determinants of fetal and infant mortality, the long-term child health effects of breastfeeding, and maternal, fetal, and neonatal consequences of increasing obstetric intervention.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Social into the biological and epigenetic / Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Kramer MS. Determinants of Low Birth Weight: Methodological Assessment and Meta-Analysis. Bull WHO 1987;65:663-737.

Kramer MS, Séguin L, Lydon J, Goulet L. Socio-economic disparities in pregnancy outcome: why do the poor fare so poorly? Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol 2000;14:194-210.

Luo Z-C, Kierans WJ, Wilkins R, Liston RM, Mohamed J, Kramer MS for the British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency. Disparities in birth outcomes by neighborhood income: temporal trends in rural and urban areas, British Columbia. Epidemiology 2004;15:679-686.

Luo Z-C, Wilkins R, Kramer MS for the Fetal and Infant Health Study Group of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System. Effect of neighbourhood income and maternal education on birth outcomes: a population-based study. CMAJ 2006;174:1415-1420.

Kramer MS, Wilkins R, Goulet L, Séguin L, Lydon J, Kahn SR, McNamara H, Dassa C, Dahhou M, Masse A, Miner L, Asselin G, Gauthier H, Ghanem A, Benjamin A, Platt RW for the Montreal Prematurity Study Group. Investigating socio-economic disparities in preterm birth: evidence for selective study participation and selection bias. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol 2009;23:301-309.

Bio: Lucie Laflamme is a professor in injury epidemiology and prevention at the Department of Public Health Sciences of the Karolinska Instituet where she was employed in 1995. She has a PhD in Industrial Relations from Laval University, Quebec, Canada and did a postdoc at the Swedish National Institute of Occupational health in 1988-90.

Her current research is about social inequalities in injuries as well as injury determinants and consequences in low and middle income countries. She leads the research group named ISAC (Injuries’ Social Aetiology and Consequences), based at the Division of Global Health at the Department of Public Health Sciences.

She has been part of various national, European and international task forces on injury prevention, including as temporary advisor for the WHO at many occasions. She is a member of the the Regional Research Ethics Review Board in Stockholm.

She has extensively published in that research area and counts over 100 empirical studies and 7 major reviews in peer reviewed international journals.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+46(0)852483362

Email
lucie.laflamme@ki.se

Website Address: www.phs.ki.se/ihcar/research/isac

Mailing Address: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Global Health, Nobels väg 9, SE 171 77, Stockholm, Sweden

Collaborative projects: I work with a number of members of the network based at UCL (UK) and elsewhere in London and through the Public Health Research Consortium, based at the University of York, UK.

Current research interests: My main areas of research address social disparities in the risk and consequences of injuries of various types. In my research group, there are many ongoing studies about road traffic injuries (among young and old drivers), child and adolescent injuries, and intentional injuries (self-inflicted and related to inter-personal violence). Children urban mobility is also a concern.

Our studies have taken place not only in Sweden but also in different low and middle income countries. We are currently planning for studies addressing the various consequences of injuries sustained during childhood, in particular burns.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Regional studies (within countries) / Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation

Selected Publications

Burrows S, Van Niekerk A, Laflamme L. Fatal injuries in urban children in South Africa: risk distribution and potential for reduction. WHO Bulletin. Available on line 09-10-14; doi: 10.2471/BLT.09.068486.

Burrows S, Swart L-A, Laflamme L. Adolescent injuries in urban South Africa: A multi-city investigation of intentional and unintentional injuries. J Adolesc Med Health 2009;2:117-29.

Laflamme L, Reimers A, Hasselberg M, Tricai Cavalini L, Ponce de Leon A. Social determinants of child and adolescent traffic- and violence-related injuries. A multilevel study in Stockholm County. Soc Sci Med 2009;68:1826-34.

Farley C, Laflamme L, Vaez M. Bicycle helmet campaign and head injuries among children. Does poverty matter? JECH 2003;57:668-72.

Laflamme L, Engström K. Socio-economic differences in traffic-related injuries among Swedish children and youth. A cross-sectional study. BMJ 2002;324:396-7.

Bio: Catherine Law trained in paediatrics in London, UK and epidemiology and public health in Baltimore, USA. She then worked at the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, UK, and with regional and national Government. She is now Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the UCL Institute of Child Health. She is also Chair of the Public Health Interventions Advisory Committee of NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) and Programme Director for the National Institute of Health Research’s Public Health Research Programme.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
0044 207 905 2304

Email
c.law@ich.ucl.ac.uk

Mailing Address: UCL Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford St, London WC1N 1EH, UK

Collaborative projects: I work with a number of members of the network based at UCL (UK) and elsewhere in London and through the Public Health Research Consortium, based at the University of York, UK.

Current research interests: Child public health, especially as it relates to policy. The use of evidence in policymaking. Physical growth.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures, Intergenerational influences | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities? | Other: Developing research which has utitlity in policymaking

Selected Publications

Pearce A, Law C, Elliman D, Cole TJ, Bedford H, the Millennium Cohort Study Child Health Group. Factors associated with uptake of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and use of single antigen vaccines in a contemporary UK cohort: prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal 2008; 336: 754-7.

Hawkins SS, Lamb K, Cole TJ, Law C, the Millennium Cohort Study Child Health Group. Influence of moving to the UK on maternal health behaviours: prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal 2008; 336: 1052-5.

Hawkins SS, Cole TJ, Law C, the Millennium Cohort Study Child Health Group. An ecological systems approach to examining risk factors for early childhood overweight: findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2009; 63: 147-55.

Mindlin M, Jenkins R, Law C. Maternal employment and indicators of child health: a systematic review in pre-school children in OECD countries. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2009; 63: 340-50.

Milne R, Law C. The NIHR Public Health Research programme: developing evidence for public health decision-makers. Journal of Public Health 2009; 31; 589-92.

Bio: Patricia Lucas (UK) is particularly interested in the ‘what works’ agenda in population interventions for child health and, in particular, child inequalities. Her expertise is in evidence syntheses and the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to better understand impact. She has worked produce reviews of evidence for impact in diverse areas to including early growth, welfare reform, food and nutrition interventions and challenging and anti-social behaviour.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
0117 3310866

Email
patricia.lucas@bristol.ac.uk

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, 8 Priory Rd, Bristol BS6 1TZ

Collaborative projects: Patricia has current projects considering the potential for improving child health in the developing world through improved drinking water quality monitoring with Dave Gordon (Aquatest), and with Hein Raat and Johan Machenabach bringing together mother-child birth cohorts across Europe with a view to informing policy particularly considering health inequalities (CHICOS). She has previously worked with Catherine , Helen Roberts and Liz Waters on systematic reviews in health.

Current research interests: Migration and child health / Inequality and perinatal health / School as a mediator of socio-economic inequalities in child health / Health of adoptees and foster children

Research priorities:
Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Lucas PJ, McIntosh K, Shiell A, Petticrew M, Roberts H (2008) Financial benefits for child health and well-being in low income or socially disadvantaged families in developed world countries. (Review). Cochrane Database for Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue.

Lucas PJ (2008) Family payments: a cautionary tale for policy makers (Letter) British Medical Journal 337:a1134

Oldroyd J, Burns C, Lucas PJ, Haikerwal A, Waters E (2008) The effectiveness of nutrition interventions on dietary outcomes by relative social disadvantage: a systematic review. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 62:573-579

Lucas PJ, Roberts H, Baird J, Kleijnen J and C (2007). The importance of size and growth in infancy: integrated findings from systematic reviews of scientific and lay perspectives. Child: Care, Health & Development 33(5):635-640

Lucas P; Liabo K (2004) Breakfast Clubs and School Fruit Schemes. NCB Highlight No. 206

Bio: Sonia Lupien is Scientific Director of the Mental Health Research Centre Fernand Seguin at Hospital Louis H Lafontaine, and is an associate professor with the Department of Psychiatry at Université de Montréal. She is also the Founder and Director of the Centre for Studies on Human Stress (www.humanstress.ca). Dr. Lupien’s research interests focus on the effects of stress over the human lifespan.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
(514) 251-4015 extension 2337

Email
sonia.lupien@umontreal.ca

Website Address: www.humanstress.ca

Mailing Address: Centre de recherche Fernand Seguin Hôpital Louis H Lafontaine, 7401 rue Hochelaga, Montréal, Québec H1N 3M5

Collaborative projects: The ELDEQ study with Louise Seguin

Current research interests:

• Effects of stress (particularly stress hormones) on learning and cognitive function across the lifespan
• Effects of stress throughout development
• Effects of socioeconomic status on stress hormones and cognitive function across the lifespan

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty), Stress and allostatic load, Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty, Multi-level studies - Society, Family &Individual | Interventions: Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation, What works in reducing child health inequalities? | Other research priorities: New interventions to prevent the negative effects of stress on child development (e.g. The Destress for Success Program developed by the Centre for Studies on Human Stress - www.humanstress.ca).

Selected Publications

Marin, M.F*., Pilgrim, K.*, Lupien, S.J. (2010) Modulatory Effects of Stress on Reactivated Emotional Memories. Psychoneuroendocrinology. May 12 [Epub ahead of print].

Juster RP*, McEwen BS, Lupien SJ. (2009) Allostatic load biomarkers of chronic stress and impact on health and cognition. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. Nov 12 (Epub ahead of print).

Lupien SJ, McEwen BS, Gunnard MR, Heim C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on brain, behaviour and cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci. June 10(6) : 434-45

Ouellet-Morin I, Dionne G, Pérusse D, Lupien SJ, Arsenault L, Barr RG, Tremblay RE, Boivin M. (2009). Daytime cortisol secretion in 6-month-old twins: genetic and environmental contributions as a function of early familial adversity. Biol Psychiatry, Mar 1;65(5):409-17. Epub 2008 Nov 14.

Lupien SJ, King S, Meaney MJ, McEwen BS. (2001). Can Poverty Get Under Your Skin?: Basal Cortisol Levels and Cognitive Function in Children from Low and High Socioeconomic Status. Development and Psychopathology, 13:651-674.

Lupien SJ, King S, Meaney MJ, McEwen BS. (2000). Child's stress hormone levels correlate with mother's socioeconomic status and depressive state. Biological Psychiatry, 48:976-980.

Bio: John Lynch is Professor of Public Health Epidemiology in the Sansom Institute in the Division of Health Sciences at the University of South Australia, and Professor of Epidemiology at University of Bristol (UK). He was previously in the Dept. of Epidemiology at the Uni. Michigan (USA) and was a Canada Research Chair in the Dept. of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University in Montreal (Canada).

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+618 83022640

Email
john.lynch@unisa.edu.au

Mailing Address: University of South Australia, City East Campus (Playford P4-27B), CEA - 01, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia

Current research interests: John Lynch's research interests include early life determinants of health, early childhood development, lifecourse processes regulating health behaviours, population health monitoring, evidence-based public health and improving the public health research-policy nexus.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

D’Onise K, Lynch J, Sawyer M, McDermott R. Systematic review of pre-school programs on child health. Soc Sci Med 2010; 70: 1423-1440.

D’Onise K, Lynch J, McDermott R. Can attending preschool reduce the risk of tobacco smoking in adulthood? The effects of Kindergarten Union participation in South Australia. J Epidemiol Community Health 2010 (in press)

Lynch J, Law C, Brinkman S, Sawyer M. Inequalities in Child Healthy Development: Some Challenges for Effective Implementation. Soc Sci Med 2010 (in press)

Bio: Jennifer J. McGrath, Ph.D., M.P.H. received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (Dual Specialization: Child Clinical and Behavioral Medicine) from Bowling Green State University, Ohio and her M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine Training Program of the University of Pittsburgh. Currently, she is an Associate Professor at Concordia University, Montreal and the Director of the Pediatric Public Health Psychology laboratory. Dr. McGrath is a CIHR New Investigator (2009-2014), the 2009 Concordia University Research Award Fellow, and the 2009 Canadian Psychological Association Mentor of the Year. Dr. McGrath is the principal investigator of 7 grants with funding totaling over $3.6 million from CIHR, FQRSC, and CTCRI, among others. Additionally, she is a co-investigator on 5 additional grants with funding totaling over $3 million.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
(514) 848-2424 x5207

Email
jennifer.mcgrath@concordia.ca

Website Address: http://pphp.concordia.ca

Mailing Address: Concordia University, Department of Psychology, PY139.3, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC H4B 1R6 Canada

Collaborative projects: I am a co-investigator on the ELDEQ-Sante Longitudinal Cohort project led by Dr. Louise Seguin.

Current research interests:My research broadly focuses on the pathogenesis of subclinical cardiovascular disease markers across childhood and adolescence as mediated by potential behavioral, environmental, and psychological mechanisms that influence these markers, and possibly confer susceptibility to developing cardiovascular disease. The overarching aims of my research program have been threefold. First, I am examining socioeconomic position and stress exposure as possible determinants of health inequalities in children and adolescents. Disease is not equitably distributed across the population; rather, individuals of lower socioeconomic status (measured by education, occupation, or wealth) or who experience more stressful events have higher rates of disease. Reducing health disparities is an important public health priority; however, the means by which the social environment becomes translated into physiological and psychological processes that influence health remains unclear. Of particular interest is how contextual effects (at the neighborhood level) contribute to the disease process. Second, I am investigating the initiation, establishment, and maintenance of lifestyle behaviors in childhood and adolescence associated with later cardiovascular disease. Specifically, I am interested in learning how children acquire healthy and unhealthy habits related to smoking, physical activity and sedentary behavior, diet, and sleep. Third, I am attempting to elucidate whether autonomic and neuroendocrine responses to stress are pathogenic mechanisms associated with cardiovascular risk factors, such as metabolic syndrome and obesity, in children and adolescents. These three overarching research aims are being addressed through four longitudinal cohort projects: The Healthy Heart Project, QUALITY Cohort, ELDEQ, and AdoQuest.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty),1B. Stress and allostatic load,1C. Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies,2B. Need to define poverty / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty,2E. Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Regional studies (within countries) / Which indicators?: for example, perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms) | Interventions: Children's rights & equity - research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities | Other: Pathophysiological mechanisms by which stress and socioeconomic inequalities get "under the skin"

Selected Publications

Chaiton, M., Sabiston, C., O'Loughlin, J., McGrath, J.J., Maximova, K., & Lambert, M. (2009). A structural equation model relating adiposity, psychosocial indicators of body image, and depressive symptoms among adolescents. International Journal of Obesity, 33, 588-596.

Maximova, K., McGrath, J.J., Barnett, T., Lambert, M., O'Loughlin, J., & Paradis, G. (2008). Do you see what I see? Exposure to obesity and weight status misperception among children and adolescents. International Journal of Obesity, 32, 1008-1015. (Time Magazine Feature by Dr. Sanjay Gupta)

Belanger, M., O'Loughlin, J., Okoli, C.T., McGrath, J.J., Setia, M., Guyon, L., & Gervais, A. (2008). Nicotine dependence symptoms among young never-smokers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke. Addictive Behaviors, 33, 1557-1563.

McGrath, J.J., Barnett, T., Lambert, M., O'Loughlin, J., Paradis, G., Alamian, A., & Ho, T. (2007). Cardiovascular risk factors in boys and girls. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 176, S5-S11.

McGrath, J.J., Matthews, K.A., & Brady, S.S. (2006). Individual versus neighborhood socioeconomic status and race as predictors of adolescent ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate. Social Science and Medicine, 63, 1442-1453.

Bio: Dr. Miller is co-director of the Psychobiological Determinants of Health Laboratory at UBC. After receiving a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in health psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Miller joined the faculty of Washington University in Saint Louis July 2000 and after three years there, accepted his current position at the University of British Columbia, where he is Associate Professor. Dr. Miller’s research examines the biological mechanisms through which thoughts and feelings “get inside the body” to influence the development and progression of medical illnesses. This work is supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Dr. Miller has received a number of honors for his research, including the Young Investigator Award from the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the Early Career Award from the American Psychosomatic Society, and the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions from the American Psychological Association. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
604 822-3269

Email
gemiller@psych.ubc.ca

Website Address: http://www.psych.ubc.ca/~healthpsych

Mailing Address: UBC Psychology, 2136 West Mall Avenue, Vancouver BC V6T1Z4

Collaborative projects: Longitudinal analysis of the Quebec birth cohort: pathways between early childhood poverty, stress, child health, cardiovascular risk factors and associated secular trends, and resiliency.

Current research interests:Mounting evidence indicates that socioeconomic status (SES) during the early years of life is an important determinant of medical outcomes in adulthood. To the extent that children spend the first years of their lives in unfavorable socioeconomic conditions, they show increased vulnerability to infectious, respiratory, coronary, and vascular diseases in adulthood. This project attempts to identify how early SES “gets inside the body” and remains there in a manner that gives rise to disease many decades later. The principle hypothesis guiding the project is that children reared in low-SES environments are often exposed to social and physical “pollutants” that shape the epigenetic landscape of the developing nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. This has long-term implications for their responsivity to stress, emotion and impulse control, immune system function, and presumably mental and physical health. We will test these ideas by doing extensive psychosocial, immunologic, and epigenetic assessments on a large sample of adults with varying SES histories. This work is being done in collaboration with my UBC colleagues Drs. Edith Chen, Michael Kobor, and Joanne Weinberg. It is funded by the National Institute Child Health and Human Development.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Stress and allostatic load / Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty

Selected Publications

Miller, G.E., Chen, E., & Cole., S.W. (2009). Health psychology: Developing biologically plausible models linking the social world and physical health. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 501-524.

Miller, G.E., Chen, E. Fok, A., Walker, H., Lim, A., Nicholls, E.F., Cole, S.W., & Kobor, M.S. (2009). Low early-life social class leaves a biological residue manifested by decreased glucocorticoid and increased proinflammatory signaling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 14716-14721.

Miller, G.E., Chen, E., Sze, J., Marin, T.J., Doll, R., Ma, R., & Cole, S.W. (2008). A functional genomic fingerprint of chronic stress in humans: Blunted glucocorticoid and increased NF-?B signaling. Biological Psychiatry, 64, 266-272.

Miller, G.E., Chen, E., & Zhou, E.S. (2007). If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in humans. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 25–45.

Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., & Miller, G.E. (2007). Psychological stress and disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 298, 185-1687.

Bio: Paul Newacheck is Professor of Health Policy and Pediatrics at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Department of Pediatrics at UCSF. Dr. Newacheck is trained in economics, public policy and public health. He has served on the Board on Children, Youth and Families for the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. He has also served as member of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics which advises the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Congress on issues related to health information. He currently serves as the chairman for the expert panels that developed the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs and the National Survey of Children's Health.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
5108481332

Email
paul.newacheck@ucsf.edu

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: 3333 California Street, Suite 265, San Francisco, CA 94108 USA

Collaborative projects: Working with Neal Halfon, MD and Paul Wise, MD to assess the impact of the changing epidemiology of children's heatlh, as chronic conditions account for a growing share of the illness burden borne by children.

Current research interests:Dr. Newacheck's work focuses on health care access and delivery for children, and the epidemiology of childhood illness. His research is largely directed at vulnerable populations of children, including children from low income families, racial and ethnic minority groups, those with special health care needs, and those without insurance coverage. His current projects include an NIH-funded study of oral health disparities with colleagues from UCSF's dental school and pediatrics department.

Research priorities:
Methodological issues : Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Which indicators?: e.g. perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms) | Interventions : Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation

Selected Publications

Newacheck PW, Houtrow AJ, Romm DL, Kuhlthau KA, Bloom SR, Van Cleave JM, Perrin JM. The future of health insurance for children with special health care needs. Pediatrics. 2009 May;123(5):e940-7. PMID: 19403486

Newacheck PW, Kim SE, Blumberg SJ, Rising JP. Who is at risk for special health care needs: findings from the National Survey of Children's Health. Pediatrics. 2008 Aug;122(2):347-59.PMID: 18676553

Newacheck PW, Park MJ, Brindis CD, Biehl M, Irwin CE. Trends in Private and Public Health Insurance for Adolescents. JAMA. 2004; 291(10):1231-1237.

Newacheck PW, Hung YY, Park MJ, Brindis CD, Irwin, CE. Disparities in Adolescent Health and Health Care: Does Socioeconomic Status Matter? Health Services Research. October 2003:38(5):1235-52.

Newacheck PW, Hughes DC, Hung YY, Wong ST, Stoddard JJ. The Unmet Health Needs of America's Children. Pediatrics. 2000;105(4):989-997.

Bio: racticed clinical medicine (Dr. Med) and public health (MSc) in Burkina Faso. Currently research assistant with the IRSPUM, Université de Montréal, and a PhD canditate in Public health. Collaborating with the Centre National de Recherche en Santé de Nouna- CRSN (Burkina Faso) for research and with the Institut de Formation en Démographie -IFORD (Cameroon) for research and teaching.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Post graduate researcher

Telephone
+1-514-343-6111 # (1)5482

Email
b.nikiema@umontreal.ca

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: 1420 Boulevard du Mont-Royal, C.P. 6128, Succ. "Centre-Ville", Montréal, Qc H3C 3J7

Collaborative projects: Working with Louise Séguin and Lise Gauvin on a longitudinal study of child development, seeking to understand the links between poverty and physical health in childhood.

Current research interests: Poverty and health in childhood / Maternal and child's health in Sub-Saharan Africa / Inequalities in access and utilization of health services / Measuring and understanding gender inequalities in access to health care (Sub-Saharan Africa)

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies

Selected Publications

Nikiema B, Spencer N, Séguin L (2009). Poverty and chronic illness in early childhood: a comparison between UK and Quebec. Accepted for publication in Pediatrics.

Nikièma B, Zunzunegui MV, Séguin L, Gauvin L, Potvin L (2008). Poverty and cumulative hospitalization in infancy and early childhood in the Quebec birth cohort: a puzzling pattern of association. Matern Child Health J. 12(4):534-44.

Séguin L, Nikiéma B, Gauvin L, Zunzunegui MV, Xu Q (2007). Duration of poverty and child health in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development: longitudinal analysis of a birth cohort. Pediatrics.119(5):e1063-70.

Nikiéma B, Beninguisse G, Haggerty JL (2009). Providing information on pregnancy complications during antenatal visits: unmet educational needs in sub-Saharan Africa. Health Policy Plan. 24(5):367-76.

Nikiema B, Haddad S and Potvin L (2008). Women Bargaining to Seek Healthcare: Norms, Domestic Practices, and Implications in Rural Burkina Faso. World Development 36 (4):608–624

Bio: Trained in biological anthropology, nutritional sciences and epidemiology, Kate Pickett is Professor of Epidemiology and Programme Leader for the MPhil/PhD in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. She is an NIHR Career Scientist, a fellow of the New Economics Foundation and A Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts. She is co-author with Richard Wilkinson, of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, and a director of The Equality Trust.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
01904 321377

Email
kp6@york.ac.uk

Website Address: https://hsciweb.york.ac.uk/research/public/Staff.aspx?ID=1197

Mailing Address: Department of Health Sciences, Seebohm Rowntree Building, Area 2, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, UK

Current research interests:One programme of research focuses on the social determinants of health, including the influences of such factors as social class, income inequality, neighbourhood context and ethnic density on such varied outcomes as mortality and morbidity, teenage birth, obesity, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and health-related behaviours. A second research agenda focuses on smoking in pregnancy; its causal role in relation to behavioural problems in children and its psychosocial context.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Social into the biological and epigenetic, Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Pickett KE and Pearl M. Multi-level analyses of neighborhood social environments and health outcomes: a critical review. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2001;55:111-122.

Pickett KE, Wilkinson RG. Child well-being and income inequality in rich societies: Ecological cross sectional study. BMJ 2007; 335(7629):1080-1086.

Pickett KE, Wilkinson RG. People like us: The effects of ethnic group density. Ethnicity and Health 2008;13:321-334.

Pickett KE, Wilkinson, R. G., & Wakschlag, L. S. The psychosocial context of pregnancy smoking and quitting in the Millennium Cohort Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2009; 63;474-480.

Wilkinson RG, Pickett KE. The consequences of relative deprivation. Annual Review of Sociology, 2009; 35:493-511.

Bio: Luis Rajmil is senior researcher at the Agency for Health Information, Assessment and Quality (former Catalan Agency for HTA) and collaborator at the Municipal Institute of Medical Research (both in Barcelona, Spain). He received his MD degree in Argentina (1976) and trained in Pediatrics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1981), obtained his MPH degree at the University of Barcelona (1991) and also completed a PHD (1998). His research work has been devoted to child health measurement, health-related quality of life, mental health and health services research in children, with special interest on the inequalities in the use of health services in children. He was Principal investigator of different European and Spanish projects related to measures of health and quality of life in children and adolescents, such as the development of the European KIDSCREEN measure and the Spanish version of the Child Health and Illness. He is an advisor to the Spanish, Catalan, and Barcelona Health Interview Surveys board. He was Associate Editor of the Quality of Life Research Journal for the period 2006-2009.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+34 93 551 3922

Email
lrajmil@imim.es

Website Address: www.aatrm.net

Mailing Address: Roc Boronat 81-95 2nd Fl. Barcelona 08005 Spain

Collaborative projects: Adaptation and uses of health status measures, and evaluation of Primary Care in pediatric population with Barbara Starfield (died June 2011).

Current research interests: Development and application of child health status measures. As part of the European Kidscreen group he was responsible for the analysis of inequalities in child health. He is interested in the analysis of equity in the use of primary pediatric health care as well as specialty care in Spain and worldwide.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Regional studies (within countries) / Which indicators?: for example, perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms) | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Berra S, Tebé C, Erhart M, Ravens-Sieberer U, Auquier P, Detmar S, Herdman M, Alonso J, Rajmil L, and the European KIDSCREEN group (2009) Correlates of use of health care services by children and adolescents from 11 European countries. Med Care. 47(2) 161-167.

Analitis F, Klein Velderman M, Ravens-Sieberer U, Detmar S, Erhart M, Herdman M, Berra S, Alonso J, Rajmil L, and the European KIDSCREEN group. (2009) Being bullied: associated factors in children and adolescents 8-18 years old in 11 European countries. Pediatrics 123 (2):569-577.

Pueyo MJ, Serra-Sutton V, Alonso J, Starfield B, Rajmil L (2007). Self-reported social class in adolescents: validity and relationship with gradients in self-reported health. BMC Health Serv Res. 7:151.

Von Rueden U, Gosch A, Rajmil L, Bisegger C, Ravens-Sieberer U, and the European KIDSCREEN group. (2006). Socioeconomic determinants of health-related quality of life in childhood and adolescence: results from a European study. J Epidemiol Community Health. 60:130-5.

Rajmil L, Borrell C, Starfield B, Fernandez E, Serra V, Schiaffino A, Segura A. The quality of care and influence of double health care coverage in Catalonia (Spain). Arch Dis Child. 2000;83:211-4.

Bio: I am a medical sociologist and I work in the General Adolescent and Paediatrics Unit at the UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK. I'm an editor with the Cochrane Public Health Review Group, and sit on the International Advisory Committee of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St Michael's Hospital, Toronto. I am a non executive director of The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in London.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
44-207-905-2190

Email
h.roberts@ich.ucl.ac.uk

Website Address: - http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ich

Mailing Address: General and Adolescent Paediatrics Unit, UCL Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London, WC1N 1EH

Collaborative projects: In the past work with Prof E Waters; Prof N Spencer, currently with with Prof C Law.

Current research interests: I have a particular interest in the translation of research evidence into policy and practice right across health, education and social care; inequalities in health (and what can be done about them) and the voice of the patient, user and citizen. I write on the lay expertise of users of services (including child users); the synthesis of different kinds of research evidence, and implementation issues.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: Children’s rights &equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation.

Selected Publications

Roberts H (2012 in press) What Works in Reducing Inequalities in Child Health, Policy Press, Bristol.

Stevens, M., Shiell, A., Roberts H. (2010). Economic Evidence for interventions in children's social care. Child and Family Social Work 15, 145-154.

Stevens, M., Liabo, K., Witherspoon, S., Roberts H, (2009). What do practitioners want from research, what do funders fund, and what needs to be done to know more about what works in the new world of children's services?. Evidence and Policy 5(3), 281-294.

Roberts H. (2006). What Works for Children? Reflections on building research and development in a children's charity. Journal of Children’s Services 1(2), 51-60.

Petticrew, M., Roberts H. (2006). Systematic reviews in the social sciences. Oxford: Blackwell. 336 pages

Bio: I am currently involved in the ESRC funded Priority Network on Gender Inequality and Production (GeNet)) and the ESRC Centre for the Study of Learning and Life Chances in the Knowledge Economies (Llakes). I am the Director of an International Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme on Productive Youth Development, funded by the Jacobs Foundation, involving comparative research and collaboration with the University of Michigan, the Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin, the University of Jena, the University of Stockholm, and the Helsinki University Collegium for Advanced Studies. I am also a member of the International Collaborative for the Analysis of Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood (CAPCA) organised by the University of Michigan.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
020 7612 62238

Email
I.Schoon@ioe.ac.uk

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: 55-59 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0AL

Collaborative projects: Evans, G. W., Ricciuti, H. N., Hope, S., Schoon, I., Bradley, R. H., Corwyn, R. F., et al. (2009). Crowding and cognitive development. The mediating role of maternal responsiveness among 36-month-old children. Environment and Behaviour, http://eab.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/0013916509333509v0013916509333501.

Current research interests: My research interest lies with the study of human development in context, in particular the study of risk and resilience, the realization of individual potential in a changing socio-historical context, social equalities in attainment, health and well-being, and the intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to define poverty / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Schoon, I. & Bartely, M. (2008). Growing up in poverty: the role of human capability and resilience. The Psychologist, 21:24-27

Schoon, I. (2007). Adaptations to changing times: Agency in Context. International Journal of Psychology, 42, 94-101

Schoon, I. (2006). Risk and Resilience: Adaptations to changing times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schoon, I., Hansson, L. & Salmela-Aro, K. (2005). Combining work and family life: contrasting the psychological well-being of married and divorced men and women in Estonia, Finland and the UK. European Psychologist, 10, 309-319

Schoon, I., Sacker, A. & Bartley M. (2003). Socio-economic adversity and psychosocial adjustment. A developmental-contextual perspective. Social Science and Medicine, 57, 1001-1015

Bio: My clinical work as well as my research in Public health was always with and about children living in poverty conditions. After leaving my paediatric training in Montreal I became one of the first medical doctors of the first Community Health and Social Services Center in Quebec which opened in a poor neighbourhood. This experience led me to specialize in Public Health and I went to the University of California at Berkeley to receive a MPH in Maternal and Child Health. Back in Montreal, I implemented, with dr Peter Delva, a Family Medicine Teaching Unit. At the same time I began teaching in our new Master degree program in Community Health. After some 10 years combining clinical work and clinical teaching with my involvement in Public Health I chose to focus on research and on my work with students from our Master and PhD degree programs in Public Health.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
514-343-7665

Email
Louise.Seguin@umontreal.ca

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: Département de médecine sociale et préventive, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3J7

Collaborative projects: List collaborative projects: - Poverty and chronic illness in early childhood: a comparison between UK and Quebec, with Nick Spencer and Béatrice Nikiéma | Longitudinal analysis of the Quebec birth cohort : pathways between early childhood poverty, stress, child health, cardiovascular risk factors and associated secular trends, and resiliency. L. Séguin (PI), with L. Gauvin, S. Lupien, J. Lynch, J. McGrath, P. Newacheck, J.O’Loughlin, M.-V. Zunzunegui and other co-researchers.

Current research interests: Among the social determinants of health, my research interests focus on poverty and child health looking at the dynamics in time of this relationship in rich countries and at the mechanisms and pathways underlying it. For these analyses we use the data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, a representative birth cohort followed up annually since 1998. Taking advantage of the longitudinal data we analysed the differential effect of cumulative, lagged or concurrent poverty through multilevel analysis. We are also interested in a better understanding of the impact of multiple risk exposure for children living in poverty conditions especially during the early years of life on their health later during childhood and adolescence. We are currently examining the trajectories of family poverty and child health, and the factors that are linked with remaining in “good” health especially for poor children. We will soon begin to look at the level of stress and of reactivity to stressors and, their impact on health among poor children compare with non-poor ones. In all these analysis we aim at making a distinction between the influences of a low family income as such and the generally low level of education of poor mothers.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty),1B. Stress and allostatic load | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to define poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual | Interventions: What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Nikiéma B, Spencer N, Séguin L, Poverty and chronic illness in early childhood: a comparison between UK and Quebec, Pediatrics, accepted.

Ehounoux NZ, Zunzunegui MV, Séguin L, Nikiema B, Gauvin L, Duration of lack of money for basic needs and growth delay in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development Birth Cohort, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2009, 63:45-49

Séguin, L, Nikiéma, N, Gauvin L, Zunzunegui MV, Duration of Poverty and Child Health in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development Birth Cohort, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2009, 63:45-49

Séguin L, Potvin L, Xu Q, Zunzunegui MV, Gauvin L, Frohlich KL, Understanding which dimensions of socio-economic status influence toddlers’ health : Unique impact of lack of money for basic needs in Quebec’s birth cohort, J Epidemiology Community Health, 2005, 59:42-48

Michael S. Kramer, John Lydon, Louise Séguin, Lise Goulet, Susan R. Kahn, Helen McNamara, Jacques Genest, Clément Dassa, Moy Fong Chen, Shakti Sharma; Michael Meaney, Steven Thomson; Stan Van Uum; Gideon Koren, Mourad Dahhou, Julie Lamoureux; Robert W. Platt. Stress pathways to spontaneous preterm birth. The Role of Stressors, Psychological Distress, and Stress Hormones, American Journal of Epidemiology, 2009; 169:11:1319-1326

Bio: Arjumand Siddiqi is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health and an Associate Member of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research Program on Successful Societies. Dr. Siddiqi is interested in the role that societal conditions play in shaping inequities in population health and human development. In particular, her research utilizes a cross-national comparative perspective to understand the consequences of social welfare policies for inequalities in health and developmental outcomes. Areas of research include the influence of income inequality and social policies on inequities in schooling outcomes amongst the advanced market economies, and an emerging body of work to understand health inequities in Canada versus the United States. Dr. Siddiqi for formally Assistant Professor at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and a Faculty Fellow of the Carolina Population Center. She was a member of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health Knowledge Hub on Early Child Development, and has consulted to several international agencies including the World Bank and UNICEF. Dr. Siddiqi received her doctorate in Social Epidemiology from Harvard University.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
416-978-4017

Email
aa.siddiqi@utoronto.ca

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: 155 College Street, Room 566, Toronto, Ontario M5T 3M7 Canada

Collaborative projects: I work with Clyde Hertzman on a variety of projects related to social determinants of health and human development.

Current research interests: Dr. Siddiqi is interested in the role that societal conditions play in shaping inequities in population health and human development. In particular, her research utilizes a cross-national comparative perspective to understand the consequences of social welfare policies for inequalities in health and developmental outcomes. Areas of research include the influence of income inequality and social policies on inequities in schooling outcomes amongst the advanced market economies, and an emerging body of work to understand health inequities in Canada versus the United States.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty), Stress and allostatic load, Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies, Need to define poverty, Need to study social gradients as well as poverty, Multi-level studies - Society, Family &Individual, Regional studies (within countries), Which indicators?: for example, perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms), Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: Children’s rights & equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities Policy innovation, What works in reducing child health inequalities? | Other research priorities: societal influences (primarily social policy) on inequities in children's health and development.

Selected Publications

Hertzman C, Siddiqi A, Hertzman E, Irwin LG, Vaghri Z, Houweling TAJ, Bell R, Tinajero A, Marmot M. 2010. Bucking the Gradient: Tackling Inequalities through Early Child Development. British Medical Journal. 340:c468.

Siddiqi A, Nguyen Q. 2010. A Cross-National Comparative Perspective on Racial Inequities in Health: The United States versus Canada. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 64(1):29-35.

Siddiqi A, Subramanian, SV, Berkman LF, Hertzman C and Kawachi I. 2007. The welfare state as a context for children’s developmental health: A study of the effects of unemployment and unemployment protection on reading literacy scores. International Journal of Social Welfare. 16(4): 314 – 325.

Siddiqi A, Kawachi I, Berkman L, Subramanian SV, and Hertzman C. 2007. Variation of socioeconomic gradients in children’s development across advanced capitalist societies: Analysis of 25 OECD Nations. International Journal of Health Services. 37(1): 63-87.

Siddiqi A. and Hertzman C. 2007. Towards an epidemiological understanding of the effects of long-term institutional changes on population health: a case study of Canada versus the USA. Social Science & Medicine. 64(3): 589-603. (Named a ‘Notable Release’ by the Canadian Population Health Initiative, Canadian Institute for Health Information).

Bio: Nick Spencer trained as a paediatrician and held the first UK post as a social paediatrician working across the hospital/community divide. In 1990 he was appointed Professor of Community Child Health at the University of Warwick and Consultant Community Paediatrician in Coventry. In addition to clinical and managerial responsibilities in Coventry, he was responsible for leading the development of the Warwick Masters (MSc) course in Community Child Health and developing a research programme in the social determinants of child health. He was national chair of the British Association for Community Child Health and a member of the Advocacy committee of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Following retirement in 2003, he has continued to pursue his research interests with colleagues at the University of Warwick and the University of Montreal. He is the founder, along with Louise Seguin, of INRICH.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+44 (0) 1926 424414

Email
n.j.spencer@warwick.ac.uk

Website Address:

Mailing Address: 86, Leicester Street, Leamington Spa, CV32 4TB, UK

Current research interests:Nick Spencer (UK) has a longstanding interest in the social determinants of child health with a particular focus on poverty and child health. He has published widely on social inequities in child health including 'Poverty and Child Health' - the main English language book focusing on this key aspect of the social determinants of health. His recent work has focused on the social determinants of birth weight and chronic illness/disability in childhood.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Social into the biological and epigenetic / Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Need to study social gradients as well as poverty | Interventions: Children’s rights and equity – research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities

Selected Publications

Spencer NJ. Poverty and child health. 2nd Edition. Radcliffe Medical Press, Oxford, 2000

Spencer NJ. The effect of income inequality and macro-level social policy on infant mortality and low birthweight in developed countries - a preliminary systematic review. Child: care, health and development 2004;30:699-709

Sundrum R, Wallace A, Logan S, Spencer NJ. Cerebral palsy and socio-economic status: a retrospective cohort study. Archives of Disease in Childhood 2005;90:15-19

Spencer NJ. Maternal education, lone parenthood, material hardship, maternal smoking and longstanding respiratory problems in childhood: testing a hierarchical conceptual framework. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2005;59:842-6

Spencer NJ, ESSOP. Social inequalities in child health - towards equity and social justice. ESSOP position paper. Child Care Health Dev. 2008 ;34(5):631-34.

Bio: Mai Thanh Tu completed her doctoral studies in neurosiences at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) under the supervision of Dr. Sonia Lupien and Dr. Claire-Dominique Walker. After spending 18 months at The University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) as a postdoctoral research fellow in Pediatrics, she came back to Montreal to pursue her postdoctoral training at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Universite de Montreal, with Dr. Louise Seguin and Dr. Mark Daniel. Mai Thanh Tu is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the NARSAD foundation.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Post graduate researcher

Telephone
514 890-8000 ext. 15901

Email
mai.thanh.tu@umontreal.ca

Website Address: -

Mailing Address: 3875 St-Urbain, office 3-02, Montreal, Canada H2W 1V1

Collaborative projects: Quebec Longitudinal Study on Child Development - Health outcomes with Louise Seguin and Lise Gauvin.

Current research interests: Mai Thanh Tu examined the influences of breastfeeding and low income on biological stress pathways in mothers of healthy infants during her doctoral studies. Then, she investigated stress regulation in preterm infants during painful procedures such as vaccination. Mai is now working on the contribution of contextual factors such as social and physical characteristics of residential neighborhood, living in poverty conditions and caring for a sick child on maternal mental health using questionnaires, geographic informatics system and biomarkers of stress and allostatic load (cortisol and glycated hemoglobin).

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) / Stress and allostatic load / Social into the biological and epigenetic | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual

Selected Publications

Tu MT, Daniel M, Séguin L (2009) Child Health, Poverty, Neighborhood Characteristics and Trajectories of Maternal Depression. Poster presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, April 22nd-25th, 2009, Montréal, Canada. Meritorious Student Award.

Tu MT, Grunau RE, Petrie-Thomas J, Haley D, Weinberg J, Whitfield M (2007) Maternal stress and behavior modulate relationships between neonatal stress, attention and basal cortisol at 8 months in preterm infants. Developmental Psychobiology, 49(2): 150-64.

Tu MT, Lupien SJ and Walker CD (2006) Diurnal salivary cortisol levels in postpartum mothers as a function of infant feeding choice and parity. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 31(7): 812-824.

Tu MT, Walker CD, Lupien SJ (2006) Multiparity reveals the blunting effect of breastfeeding on physiological reactivity to psychological stress. Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 18(7): 494-503.

Tu MT, Lupien SJ, Walker CD. (2005) Measuring stress responses in postpartum mothers: perspectives from studies in human and animal populations. Stress, 8(1):19-34.

Bio: Professor Waters is the inaugural Jack Brockhoff Chair of Child Public Health, spearheading the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program within the School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne. Professor Waters' contribution to public health extends beyond national committees to include WHO, UNICEF, and the international Cochrane Collaboration. She holds a Master of Public Health from Monash University (1993) and a DPhil from the University of Oxford (2001).

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+61 3 9344 3183

Email
ewaters@unimelb.edu.au

Website Address: www.mccaugheycentre.unimelb.edu.au/

Mailing Address: The McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, Level 5, 207 Bouverie Street, Carlton VIC 3053

Collaborative projects: Cluster randomised controlled trial on knowledge translation for obesity prevention (KTOP) Cochrane Public Health Review Group - systematic reviews of action on social determinants of health

Current research interests: Child health promotion and disease prevention intervention research / Systematic reviews of public health interventions / Equity and health inequalities research / Quality of Life of children with Cerebral Palsy / Effectiveness of Knowledge Translation Strategies / Oral health promotion / Healthy eating, physical activity, obesity prevention

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual | Interventions: Children's rights & equity - research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities / What works in reducing child health inequalities?

Selected Publications

Waters E; Ashbolt R; Gibbs L; Booth M; Magarey A; Gold L; Kai Lo S; Gibbons K; Green J; O'Connor T; Garrard J; Swinburn B. Double disadvantage: the influence of ethnicity over socioeconomic position on childhood overweight and obesity: findings from an inner urban population of primary school children.

Priest N, Mackean T, Waters E, Davis E, Riggs E. Indigenous child health research: a critical analysis of Australian studies. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 2009; 33(1): 55-63.

Waters E, Davis E, Ronen GM, Rosenbaum P, Livingston M, Saigal S. Quality of life instruments for children and adolescents with neurodisabilites: how to choose the appropriate instrument. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, August 2009, 51: 660-669

Waters E, Petticrew M, Priest N, Weightman A, Harden A, Doyle J. Evidence synthesis, upstream determinants and health inequalities: a Cochrane Public Health Collaborative Review Group. European Journal of Public Health, 2008; 18(3): 221-223.

Waters E, Davis E, Sing KL, Boyd R, Reddihough D, Graham K, McKinnon A, Wolfe R, Ravens-Sieberer U, Stevenson R, Bjornsen K, Blair E, Hoare E. Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children (CP QOL- Child): Psychometric properties of parent proxy questionaire. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 2007; (49)1:49-55.

Bio: Russell Wilkins is a senior analyst with the Health Information and Research Division at Statistics Canada, and an adjunct professor of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa. He is also Principal Investigator for the Canadian Census Mortality Follow-up Study (1991-2001). Russell studied anthropology at the University of Oregon, urban planning at the Université de Montréal, and epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His main research interests are socio-economic inequalities in mortality and birth outcomes, and summary measures of population health expectancy using vital statistics, survey and administrative data. He is on the editorial board of Chronic Diseases in Canada, and is an editorial consultant for the International Journal for Equity in Health. He was a founding member of the International Network on Health Expectancy (REVES), and of the Fetal and Infant Health Study Group of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System (CPSS).

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
+1 613 951 5305

Email
russell.wilkins@statcan.gc.ca

Website Address: www.statcan.gc.ca

Mailing Address: Health Analysis Division, Statistics Canada, RHC-24A - 100 Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1A 0T6

Collaborative projects: Fetal and Infant Health Study Group, Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System, with Michael Kramer. Census linkage to births and infant death database, project with Michael Kramer.

Current research interests:Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality and birth outcomes, by education, income, occupation, ethnicity and immigration status, etc. / Database linkages (vital statistics, hospital morbidity, and census) -- record-level / Use of postal codes and small area characteristics to supplement health data (as proxies for missing socioeconomic information, and as contextual variables)

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty) | Methodological issues: Need to study social gradients as well as poverty / Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Regional studies (within countries).

Selected Publications

Kramer MS, Wilkins R, Séguin L, Goulet L, Lydon J, Kahn S, McNamara H, Dassa C, Masse A, Miner L, Asselin G, Gauthier H, Ghanem A, Platt RW, for the Montreal Prematurity Study Group. Investigating causal pathways underlying socioeconomic disparities in preterm birth: evidence for selective study participation and selection bias. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 2009;23:301-309.

Wilkins R, Tjepkema M, Mustard CM, Choinière R. The Canadian census mortality follow-up study, 1991 through 2001. Health Reports 2008;19(3):25-43.

Borugian M, Spinelli J, Mezei G, Wilkins R, Abanto Z, McBride ML. Childhood leukemia and socioeconomic status in Canada. Epidemiology 2005 Jul;16(4):526-531.

Luo ZC, Wilkins R, Kramer MS, for the Fetal and Infant Health Study Group of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System, Effects of neighbourhood income and maternal education on birth outcomes: a population-based study. CMAJ 2006;174 (10):1415-1421 online.

Luo ZC, Wilkins R, Platt RW, Kramer MS; For the Fetal and Infant Health Study Group of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System. Risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes among Inuit and North American Indian women in Quebec, 1985-97. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2004 Jan;18(1):40-50.

Bio: Dr. Wise is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Fellow in the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Prior to moving to Stanford University, Dr. Wise was Vice-Chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities in the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Wise received his A.B. and M.D. degrees from Cornell University, a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and did his pediatric training at the Children's Hospital in Boston. He served as Chair of the Steering Committee of the NIH Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research between 2000 and 2006 and currently serves on the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Service's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society.

Type of INRICH Research Associate: Regular

Telephone
650-725-5645

Email
pwise@stanford.edu

Website Address: healthpolicy.stanford.edu/mediaguide/paulhwise/

Mailing Address: CHP/PCOR, 117 Encina Commons, Stanford, CA 94305-6019

Current research interests:U.S and international child health policy, the policy implications of gene-environment interaction, and the impact of medical innovation on disparities in child health. Current projects focus on the policy models that incorporate life-course effects and the provision of child health services in areas of unstable governance, particularly areas affected by ongoing civil strife, post-conflict and non-functioning local government.

Research priorities:
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty),1C. Social into the biological and epigenetic / Intergenerational influences small box where they can check | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies,2C. Need to study social gradients as well as poverty,2E. Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual / Regional studies (within countries) / Which indicators?: for example, perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms) / Root cause analysis to inform policy change | Interventions: Children's rights & equity - research into effective use as tools to reduce child health inequalities / What works in reducing child health inequalities? | Other: Implications of gene-environment interaction and life-course effects on child rights and health policy

Selected Publications

Wise PH, Kotelchuck M, Wilson M, Mills M. Racial and socio economic disparities in childhood mortality in Boston. New Eng J Med 1985;313:360 6.

Kahn RS, Wise PH, Kennedy BP, Kawachi I. State income inequality, household income, and maternal mental and physical health:cross sectional national survey. BMJ. 2000;321:1311-5.

Wise PH. The transformation of child health in the United States. Health Affairs. 2004;. 23(5): 9-25

Wise PH, Blair ME. The UNICEF Report on child well-being: a commentary. Amb Peds. 2007;7:265-7.

Wise PH. Confronting social disparities in child health: The policy requirements of life-course science and research. Pediatrics. (In Press).