Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty Member

Shaun Morris

Research Interests

Newborn and child mortality
Tropical infectious diseases
Community based trials
Children’s travel medicine
Verbal autopsies

Primary Teaching Responsibilities

Assistant Professor
Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine

Adjunct Professor
Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Professional Summary & Appointments

Shaun Morris is a clinician-scientist in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and scientist and principal investigator, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, SickKids Research Institute and Centre for Global Child Health. Dr. Morris is an honourary scientist at the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON, and Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, cross appointed to the Division of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. He completed his medical degree at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, and his Master’s in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Morris completed his clinical training in paediatrics and infectious diseases here at SickKids and further training in tropical medicine at the Instituto Conmemorativo Gorgas de Estudios de la Salud (The Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies (GMI)), Panama, Republic of Panama, and Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru.

Honours & Awards

2014-2016 Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, March of Dimes
2012 Sanofi Pasteur Award for Communicable Disease Epidemiology
2009-2011 Pediatric Scientist Development Program, Yale University

Current Research Projects

Dr. Morris’ current research interests include large scale observational studies of childhood morbidity and mortality in South Asia, randomized controlled trials of low cost interventions to save lives and improve neurodevelopment in Asia and Africa, and the epidemiology of globally important infectious diseases in Canada.

Representative Publications

Kitai I, Morris SK. Encounters with an old foe: Childhood tuberculosis in Canada. Paediatr Child Health 2014:19(2); 89-90.

Morris SK, Awasthi S, Kumar R, Shet A, Khera A, Nakhaee M, Ram U, Brandao JR, Jha P., for the Million Death Study Collaborators. Measles mortality in high and low burden districts of India: Estimates from a nationally representative study of over 12,000 child deaths. Vaccine. 2013 Jul 19. pii: S0264 410X(13)00934-1. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.07.012.

Schwartz KL, Sheffield H, Richardson SE, Sung L, Morris SK. Invasive Fusariosis: A single pediatric centre 15-year experience. J Ped Inf Dis Soc 2013; 2(4): 1-8. Doi: 10.1093/jpids/pit080.

Hau M, Schwartz KL, Frenette C, Mogck I, Gubbay JB, Severine A, Hiebert J, Deeks S, Morris SK. Local public health response to a vaccine-associated measles case. BMC Public Health 2013 Mar 25;13:269. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-269.

Morris SK, Awasthi S, Khera A, Bassani DG, Kang G, Parashar UD, Kumar R, Shet A, Glass RI, Jha P, for the Million Death Study Collaborators. Rotavirus mortality in India: Estimates based on a nationally representative survey of diarrheal deaths. Bull of WHO 2012; 90:720-727.

Suraweera W, Morris SK, Kumar R, Warrell DA, Warrell MJ, Jha P, for the Million Death Study Collaborators. Deaths from Symptomatically Identifiable Furious Rabies in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey. PLoS Neg Trop Dis 2012; 6(10):e1847

Montgomery AL, Morris SK, Bassani DG, Kumar R, Jotkar R, Jha P. Factors associated with physician agreement and coding of cause of death using verbal autopsis for 1130 maternal deaths in India. PLoS One 2012 7(3):e33075. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033075

Morris SK, Allen UD, Gupta S, Richardson SE. Breakthrough Filamentous Fungal Infections in Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant and Oncology Patients Receiving Caspofungin. Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology. Can J Infect Dis Med Microbiol 2012; 24(4):179-182.

Hsiao M, Morris SK, Bassani DG, Montgomery AL, Thakur JS, Jha P. Factors Associated with Physician Agreement on Verbal Autopsy of over 11500 Injury Deaths in India. PLoS One 2012 ;7(1): e30336. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030336

Morris SK, Parkin P, Science M, Subbarao P, Yau Y, O’Riordan S, Barton M, Allen U, Tran D. A retrospective cross sectional study of risk factors and clinical spectrum of children admitted to hospital with pandemic H1N1 influenza as compared to influenza A. BMJ Open 2012;2:e000310 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2011-000310

Morris SK, Bassani DG, Awasthi S, Kumar R, Shet A, Suraweera W, Jha P, for the MDS Collaborators. Diarrhea, Pneumonia, and Infectious Disease Mortality in Children Aged 5 to 14 Years in India. PLoS One 2011; 6(5): e20119.

Montgomery AL, Morris SK, Kumar R, Jotkar R, Mony P, Jha P, Bassani DG. Capturing the Context of Maternal Deaths from Verbal Autopsies: A Reliability Study of the Maternal Data Extraction Tool (M-DET). PLoS ONE 2011 6(2): e14637. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014637

Morris SK, Bassani DG, Kumar R, Awasthi S, Paul VK, Jha P. Factors Associated With Physician Agreement On Verbal Autopsy Of Over 27000 Childhood Deaths In India. PLoS ONE 2010; 5(3): e9583. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009583.

Bassani DG, Kumar R, Awasthi S, Morris SK, Paul VK, Shet A, et al. Causes of Neonatal and Child Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey. Lancet 2010; 376(9755): 1853-1860.

Morris SK , Dzolganovski B, Beyene J, Sung L. A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Antibody Therapy for the Prevention of Severe Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection. BMC Infectious Diseases 2009; 9:106 doi:10.1186/1471-2334-9-106.

Morris SK, Richardson SE, Sauve LJ, Ford-Jones EL. Increasing Fluoroquinolone Resistance in Salmonella typhi in Ontario, 2002-2007. American Journal of Tropical Medicine Hygeine 2009;80 1012-1013

Morris SK, Moss WJ, Halsey NA. Haemophilus influenzae Type B Vaccine Use and Effectiveness. Lancet Infectious Diseases 2008; 8: 435-43.