Nine Research Grants Awarded to Protect and Enhance Health in Toronto and Beyond
May 29/2015The first healthier cities and communities grants were awarded to nine research teams comprised of community, public sector and university collaborators to address a range of social determinants of health to improve the health of Torontonians and beyond. “More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and...
World No Tobacco Day: Plotting Smoking’s Endgame
May 28/2015
Sunday, May 31 is World No Tobacco Day. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco kills nearly six million people each year, and the annual death toll could rise to more than eight million by 2030. Canada is at the vanguard of tobacco control, with Ontario taking the lead...
The risk of becoming a high-cost user of health care strongly linked to socio-economic status
May 08/2015
Individual, household and neighbourhood socio-economic status impact future high-cost users of health care according to researchers at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Public Health Ontario (PHO). High-cost users of health care generally refer to the top five per cent of health...
New breast cancer gene identified by U of T and Women’s College Hospital Scientists
April 27/2015A new breast cancer gene has been identified in a study led by Professor Mohammad Akbari, who is an assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and researcher at Women’s College Hospital (WCH). The study, which was published online today in Nature Genetics, describes how...
Reducing global tobacco use
April 21/2015
Although global efforts to cut tobacco use have had some success, more can be done to reduce the number of deaths from smoking, according to a commentary published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) by Professor Prabhat Jha. More than 170 countries have signed the World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework...
Professor Chandler Davis on the consequences of asking the unaskable questions
April 21/2015
Professor Chandler Davis will speak at the third Dr. Zofia Pakula Public Lecture Series on April 27, 2015 in the Music Room at Hart House. Davis is a Professor Emeritus in U of T’s Department of Mathematics. He is also an author and self-identified socialist who was imprisoned in 1960...
Baby Boomers: Not As Healthy As Previously Believed
April 17/2015
We hear all the time that “50 is the new 40” or “60 is the new 40”—claims that make it sound as though today’s baby boomers are healthier than their counterparts in other generations. But are they? A University of Toronto study published in the March 2015 issue of the...
Professor Lisa Forman receives CRC Research Chair and Jus Prize for ground-breaking human rights research
April 09/2015
If you are born in Canada, you can expect to live a much healthier life than if you are born in Cameroon. These disparities are what the global health community increasingly understand as health inequities — differences in health that are avoidable and unfair. Yet views on how states should...
Professor Alex Jadad appointed Interim Director of Institute for Global Health Equity and Innovation
March 04/2015Professor Alejandro (Alex) Jadad is the Interim Director of the Institute for Global Health Equity and Innovation (IGHEI) as of March 1, 2015. A Canada Research Chair in eHealth Innovation and a lead co-chair of the School’s Global Health Summit, Professor Jadad is an internationally-recognized leader in improving health and...
U of T researchers demonstrate that raising tobacco taxes will not spark contraband market
February 19/2015Despite claims made by tobacco industry and convenience store representatives, tobacco tax increases do not increase contraband, according to a report by the University of Toronto’s Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. The research team, led by Robert Schwartz, analyzed trends in tobacco taxes and contraband tobacco use since 2007 and the...