Jennifer Dean

Associate Professor
Jennifer Dean against a green plant wall backdrop

Jennifer Dean is an associate professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests include:

  • Public health and the built environment
  • Socio-spatial inclusion, equity and belonging
  • Active transportation and e-bike mobility
  • Immigration and settlement in mid-sized cities and small communities
  • Qualitative research methods and community-based research

Research Grants/Projects

  • Principal Investigator. Planning for healthy rural communities: Launching a community-driven research program on the health implications of changing settlements patterns of immigrants in the Region of Peel, Ontario. CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant.
  • Principal Investigator. Towards healthy mid-sized cities: Assessing the potential for electric-bicycles to facilitate transportation reform using big-data. CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant in Healthy Cities and Big Data Science.
  • Principal Investigator. Assessing equity in the context of healthy community planning: A review of grey literature and local case studies. University of Waterloo Research Incentive Fund.
  • Co-Investigator. Communities left behind? A timely examination of school closure controversies for justice-informed decision-making on the fate of public schools in Ontario. SSHRC Insight Grant [PI: P. Collins (Queen’s)]

Recent Publications

(*Co-authored with student)

Peer Reviewed Articles

  • Lee, E.,* & Dean, J. (2018). Perceptions of walkability and determinants of walking behaviour among urban seniors in Toronto, Canada. Journal of Transport & Health. Online First.
  • Edge, S., Dean, J., Cuomo, M., & S Keshav. (2018). Exploring e-bikes as a mode of sustainable transport: A temporal qualitative study of the perspectives of a sample of novice riders in a Canadian city. The Canadian Geographer. Online First.
  • Dean, J. (2018). Imagining body size over time: Adolescents’ relational perspectives on body weight and place. Fat Studies, 7(2): 203-215.
  • Meyer, S. Beatty, J. Edge, S. Dean, J. Perlman, C. & S. Leatherdale. (2017). Challenges to evidence-based health promotion: a case study in Ontario, Canada. Health Promotion International. Online First.
  • Rodrigues, P.,* Dean, J, Kirkpatrick, S, Berbary, L, & S. Scott. (2016). Exploring experiences of the food environment among immigrants living in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 107; 53-59.
  • Mukhatar, M.,* Dean J, Wilson, K, Ghassemi E, Wilson D. (2016). "But many of these problems are about funds...": The Challenges Immigrant Settlement Agencies encounter in Peel Region, Ontario. Journal of International Migration Integration, 17(2), 389-408.
  • Harrington, D, Dean, J, Wilson, K., & Z. Qamar. (2015). ‘We don’t have such a thing, that you may be allergic’: Newcomers’ understandings of food allergies in Canada. Chronic Illness, 11(2), 126-139.
  • Dean, J., Fenton, N., Shannon, S., Elliott, S. & A. Clarke. (2015). Disclosing food allergy status in schools: Health-related stigma among school children in Ontario. Health & Social Care in the Community; 24(5).
  • Asanin Dean, J. & S.J. Elliott. (2011). Prioritizing Obesity in the City. Journal of Urban Health, 89(1): 196-213.
  • Asanin Dean, J. & K. Wilson. (2010). “My health has improved because I always have everything I need here…”: A qualitative exploration of health improvement and decline among immigrants. Social Science & Medicine, 70(8): 1219-1228.
  • Asanin Dean, J. & S. Elliott. (2009). Environmental determinants of obesity: Using a mixed methods approach to assess the role of neighbourhood (abstract). Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 34(2); 241.
  • Asanin Dean, J. & K. Wilson. (2009). “Education? It is irrelevant to my job now and it makes me very depressed…”: Exploring the health impacts of under/unemployment among highly-skilled recent immigrants in Canada. Ethnicity & Health, 14(2); 185-204.
  • Asanin, J. & K. Wilson. (2008). "I spent nine years looking for a doctor": Exploring access to health care among immigrants in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Social Science & Medicine, 66(6); 1271-1283.