Members of the centre work across various research and policy themes within global health:
- Tobacco policy
- Food policy
- Environment and resources
- Infectious disease
- Evaluation of health programs
Members of Global Health and Policy Innovation research centre (GHPI) work on tobacco policy at various levels:
Geoff Fong heads the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Project which conducts research in 28 countries to evaluate the impact of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the global tobacco control treaty; the ITC Project is the world’s largest tobacco research program.
Other centre members with active research and interest in tobacco policy include David Hammond and Kitty Corbett.
Members' activities in food policy research have contributed to obesity prevention and the promotion of healthy eating in Canadian and international contexts. David Hammond works on obesity prevention, food labelling and taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages (primarily in Canada); Rhona Hanning works on healthy eating in youth, with projects focusing on Aboriginal peoples in Canada and community-level determinants of maternal child health and nutrition in Africa. Susan Horton works on nutritional status and micronutrients, also in Africa and her findings have been used to strengthen international advocacy efforts around improved nutrition. Susan Elliott works on allergens, many of which are in food. Shannon Majowicz works on food safety, synthesizing evidence to inform national and international food standards, including via the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
Susan Elliott works on policies for clean water and adequate sanitation, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Brian Laird works on contaminants in the environment, such as arsenic in rice and mercury in seafood; many of the policy solutions to these problems require concerted international action. Craig Janes has worked with a team in Mongolia to build capacity to undertake health assessments in the mining sector. Working with partners from the World Health Organisation, civil society and several government ministries, they have achieved success in improving policy, including two important new pieces of legislation.
Kitty Corbett and Craig Janes have worked on emerging infectious disease; Alan Whiteside has a long-standing program of working on policy for HIV-AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Shannon Majowicz works on infections transmitted via food and water, with both a Canadian and a global burden focus, and has consulted for the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Karen Grépin and Susan Horton (both economists) have worked on evaluating health programs and interventions, and have interests in health systems in low- and middle-income countries. Also, Geoff Fong and David Hammond have conducted evaluation studies of tobacco control policies; these evaluations have also included evaluation of policies in low- and middle-income countries.
