Health and Mental Health

PhD candidate Anson Au recently wrote an op-ed published by South China Morning Post, entitled “K-pop deaths show East Asia must end the stigma, and the solitude, that surrounds mental health.” The op-ed discusses the deaths of Korean pop stars Goo Hara and Sulli and the stigma surrounding mental health in East Asia. He argues … Read More

Ph.D. Candidate Patricia Louie has published an article in the Journal of Society and Mental Health, entitled “Revisiting the Cost of Skin Color: Discrimination, Mastery, and Mental Health among Black Adolescents.” This study aims to investigate whether there are significant associations between skin tone and depression in a population of black adolescents. In particular, Louie … Read More

Professor Scott Schieman recently co-authored a piece entitled, “Workers in the gig economy feel lonely and powerless,”  in The Conversation. The article discusses  findings from a study that Schieman conducted with co-investigators Professor Paul Glavin from McMaster University, and Professor Alex Bierman from the University of Calgary. Based on a survey of over 2,000 working … Read More

Ph.D. student Martin Lukk, in collaboration with Joanne Soares and Professor Erik Schneiderhan has published an article, entitled, “Worthy? Crowdfunding the Canadian Health Care and Education Sectors” in Canadian Review of Sociology. The article discusses crowdfunding and asks the question of why Canadians turn to health care and education crowdfunding and how equitably funds are raised … Read More

Ph.D. Candidate Athena Engman recently published an article in Social Science and Medicine, entitled, “Embodiment and the foundation of biographical disruption.” The article reported on data regarding the experiences of 36 post-operative organ transplant recipients. Therefore, the article aims to categorize the conditions that cause “biological disruption” to emerge. This describes the way that individuals with … Read More

PhD Candidate Gordon Brett published an article in the Journal of Communication Inquiry. The article examines the motivations and explanations of health care professionals who negotiate the benefits and risks of online communication with respect to their roles. Gordon Brett is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Toronto’s Sociology Department.  His research interests lie at the intersection of … Read More

Ph.D. Candidate Patricia Louie and Professor William Magee have co-authored an article published in Race and Social Problems, entitled “Did the Difference Between Black and White Americans in Anger-Out Decrease During the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century?” This article examines the black–white difference in anger-in and anger-out in a sample representative of Americans aged … Read More

In an article by CBC News, Professor Judith Taylor commented on  “femtech,” a growing form of technology focused on women’s health. The article discussed both the liberating possibilities of women having use of data about their reproductive health and the risks of growing private sector surveillance over various aspects of their reproductive lives. Professor Taylor … Read More

Assembling the Politics of Noncitizenship: Local struggles to enforce and extend access to health care Patricia Landolt, University of Toronto UT Sociology Working Paper No. 2019-01 January 2019 Keywords: assemblages, boundary work, health care, noncitizenship, political contestation, politics of noncitizenship Full Article Abstract Shifts in global migration are sparking powerful political clashes over the terms … Read More

PhD graduate Kat Kolar and Professor Adam Green published an article in Sociology of Health & Illness that outlines their content analysis of HIV prevention science funded by the National Institute of Health. Green & Kolar find that research into intervention takes a biomedical approach, but prevention research that focuses on risk factors tends to be … Read More

PhD Candidate Kat Kolar, in collaboration with Vicky Bungay (UBC), Soni Thindal, Valencia Remple (UBC), Caitlin Johnston, and Gina Ogilve, published an article in Health Promotion Practice. The authors find that there is an urgent need for HIV/STI prevention initiatives among commercial sex workers. They offer recommendations for programs to address this need in various communities. Kat … Read More

PhD graduate Kat Kolar published an article in Contemporary Drug Problems that analyzes attitudes surrounding non-prescription stimulant use among undergraduate students. Students often justify using these drugs by claiming that their potential academic success is worth the risks.  Kolar argues that this has implications for understanding the concept of drug acceptability. Kat Kolar obtained her PhD … Read More

PhD graduate Kat Kolar, in collaboration with Vicky Bungay (UBC) and Chris Atchinson (UVic), published an article in AIDS Care. The article explores the condom use and STI testing practices of sex workers in massage parlours and their clients. The authors find that both the sex workers and their clients use condoms for commercial vaginal sex … Read More

PhD graduate Kat Kolar, in collaboration with Ingrid Handlovsky and Vicky Bungay (UBC), published an article in Culture, Health & Sexuality. The article analyzes condom use in the indoor sex industry in Vancouver. The authors argue that context has an important impact on whether condoms are used and initiatives to encourage condom use must take this … Read More

PhD Graduate Marie-Pier Joly published an article in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, in collaboration with Professor Michel Boivin (Universite Laval), Professor Anne Junker (UBC), Professor Alan Bocking (UofT), Professor Micheal S. Kramer (McGill), and Professor Stephanie Atkinson (McMaster). The article discusses the creation of an inventory of pregnancy and birth cohort studies that aims to create … Read More

PhD Graduate Marie-Pier Joly published an article, in collaboration with Professor Anita Gagnon and Jacqueline Bocking from McGill University, in Health Research and Policy Systems. The article examines research resulting from the Metropolis Project, which began in 1996 in an effort to create a stronger connection between health research and policy-making. The authors specifically analyze what proportion of … Read More

PhD Candidate Jonathan Koltai and Professor Scott Schieman published an article in the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour that analyzes what conditions may protect workers from the negative mental health consequences of job pressure. They find that socioeconomic status plays an important role in determining whether job resources provide protection from anxiety resulting from job … Read More

Professor Andrew Miles’ new research project looks into the “feel good” effects of moral behaviour. While previous research has shown that helping others makes people feel good, morality scholars recognize that people moralize many ideals in addition to helping, such as fairness, loyalty to groups, respect for authority, and physical and metaphorical purity. Professor Professor … Read More

Helen Yang published  “The Seed of Contempt” in Volume I of the Undergraduate Sociology Journal (USJ).  Her work explores the emergence, expansion, and effects of the gluten free market. Under this framework, she discusses both the immunological and sociological influences and implications of the gluten-free diet trend. Although celiac disease  only occurs in 1% of … Read More

Jessica Rapson published “The Medicalization of Mental Illness in Canada”in Volume I of the Undergraduate Sociology Journal (USJ). Her work examines Marxist conflict theory to understand how mental illness is medicalized through the marketization of health care in Canada. Specifically, the article focuses on how pharmaceutical companies affect mental illness treatments and exacerbate existing mental … Read More