James Dunn

Centre for Research on Inner City Health Research, St. Michael's Hospital, Canada

Jim Dunn is a Research Scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health (CRICH), an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto (UofT) and is Director of the Neighbourhoods and Health Research Interest Group at the Centre for Urban Health Initiatives at UofT. His background is in the social geography of health, having earned a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University in 1999. His research program focuses on questions regarding socio-economic determinants of health and the influence of economic and social policies and programs on health inequalities. He currently co-leads an international study of the relationship between income distribution and population health in North American metropolitan areas. It focuses on explaining what urban structural, governance and policy factors could explain why unequal U.S. cities have poorer health than more egalitarian ones, while in Canada, no such relationship exists. In addition, he has several projects related to the role of housing in the production of social inequalities in health. Among these is a quasi-experimental study of the effects of receiving affordable housing on adult mental health and child development in low-income families and a study of the effects of supportive housing for people with severe mental illness on health, quality of life and health care utilization. His third major area of interest is on the pathways by which neighbourhood social relations, socio-economic factors and built environment characteristics shape health and child development. A significant focus of his work in each of these substantive areas is to develop more robust theoretical explanations of how social experiences in everyday life shape social inequalities in health, using notions of power, identity, status and control.

Any competing interests declared are displayed with individual evaluations.

Faculty Member: Public Health & Epidemiology > Social & Behavioral Determinants of Health (since 14 November 2005)

Links

http://www.crich.ca/page.asp?PAGES_ID=54

All recent recommendations

• 3.0
  Effect of insulating existing houses on health inequality: cluster randomised study in the community.
  Recommended by James Dunn
  
• 8.4
  Disease and disadvantage in the United States and in England.
  Recommended by Martin Hyde, Ichiro Kawachi, Johannes Siegrist, James Dunn
  
• 3.0
  The effect of adverse housing and neighborhood conditions on the development of diabetes mellitus among middle-aged African Americans.
  Recommended by James Dunn
  
• 6.0
  Gradient of disability across the socioeconomic spectrum in the United States.
  Recommended by James Dunn
  
• 3.0
  Relationships between poverty and psychopathology: a natural experiment.
  Recommended by James Dunn
  
• 6.0
  Behavioral science at the crossroads in public health: extending horizons, envisioning the future.
  Recommended by James Dunn
  
• 3.0
  Country material distribution and adolescents' perceived health: multilevel study of adolescents in 27 countries.
  Recommended by James Dunn
  
• 3.0
  Do urban regeneration programmes improve public health and reduce health inequalities? A synthesis of the evidence from UK policy and practice (1980-2004).
  Recommended by James Dunn