Susan J. Elliott

Teaching interests

Environment and health, health geography, environmental science, urban social geography and planning, research methods.

Research interests

Dr. Elliott is a medical geographer, with primary research foci in the area of environment and health, the global environment, urban social geography, and philosophy and method in the social sciences.  She is involved in interdisciplinary research investigating the relationship between the environment and health at different spatial scales vis-à-vis risk perception, prevalence rates and community knowledge and practice. Dr. Elliott is involved in a large population-based study on peanut, tree nut, fish, shellfish, and sesame allergy prevalence in urban and rural Canada.  In another, individual and socio-environmental determinants of obesity were explored in urban Canada (Toronto and Vancouver).  The relationship between chronic exposure to air pollution in childhood and long-term respiratory health was examined using longitudinal cohort data from Ontario.  Other studies are investigating global public health policy and dengue fever in Malaysia, and asthma and associated allergies in First Nations and Inuit communities in Canada.

Dr. Elliott is a program co-leader in the Public Health, Ethics, Policy and Society programme, research management committee member, and funded researcher at AllerGen NCE, the Allergy, Genes and Environment network.  She also holds research grants from CIHR, SSHRC, the Heart and Stoke Foundation of Canada and Cancer Care Ontario.  Dr. Elliott is co-author (with Dr. Anthony Gatrell) of a second edition of Geographies of Health (2009).

Current major funding sources

AllerGen NCE

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Selected publications

• Fenton, N.E., Elliott, S.J., Cicutto, L., Clarke, A.E., Harada, L., McPhee, E. Illustrating risk: anaphylaxis through the eyes of the food-allergic child. Risk Analysis, 2011, 31(1): 171-183.
• Ben-Shoshan, M., Harrington, D., Godefroy, S., Joseph, L., Elliott, S.J., St. Pierre, Y., Fragapane, J., Soller, L., Clarke, A. A population-based study on peanut, tree nut, fish, shell fish, and sesame allergy prevalence in Canada.Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2010, 125(6): 1327-1335.
• Vine, M.M., Elliott, S.J., Olaman, S. To disrupt and displace: placing domestic violence on the public health agenda. Critical Public Health, 2010, 20(3): 339-355.
• Mulligan, K., Vine, M.M., Schuster-Wallace, C. and Elliott, S.J. Sanitation as the Key to Global Health: Voices from the Field. Hamilton, Ontario, UNU-INWEH, 2010.
• Pouliou, T. and Elliott, S.J. Individual and socio-environmental determinants of obesity in urban Canada. Health and Place, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 2, 389-398.
• Gatrell, A.C. and Elliott, S.J. Geographies of Health, Second Edition. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
• Elliott, S.J. and McClure, J. There’s just hope that no one’s health is at risk: resident’s reappraisal of a landfill siting. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2009, Vol. 52, No. 2, 237-255.
• Elliott, S.J. Environmental health. In Kitchen, R., Thrift N. (eds). International Dictionary in Geography, 2009, Vol. 13, pp. 528-534. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Pouliou, T. and Elliott, S.J. An exploratory spatial analysis of overweight and obesity in Canada. Preventive Medicine, 2009, Vol. 48, No. 4, 362-367.
• Harrington, D. and Elliott, S.J. Weighing the importance of neighbourhood: a multilevel exploration of the determinants of overweight and obesity. Social Science & Medicine, 2008, 68, 593-600.
• Elliott, S.J., Loeb, M., Eyles, J. and Harrington, D. Heeding the message: uptake of West Nile Virus messages. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2008, Vol. 99, No. 2, 217-224.
• Schuster-Wallace, C.J., Grover, V., Zafar, A., Confalonieri, U. and Elliott, S.J.Safe Water as the Key to Global Health. Hamilton, Ontario, UNU-INWEH, 2008.