Faculty members in the Faculty of Health are available to comment on various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including:
Craig Janes, professor in the School of Public Health Sciences. He has previously been interviewed on the efficacy of social interventions.
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Ellen MacEachen, Director of the School of Public Health Sciences. She is an expert on work and health, work disability and new forms of work. She says that supporting vulnerable workers will help slow down the spread of COVID-19.
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Sue Horton, University Research Chair and professor of Health Economics in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. She studies the economic effects of health issues, both for high income and low- and middle-income countries, but has commented on other aspects of the disease as well.
Peter Hall, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. He can discuss behavioural aspects of COVID-19 prevention on the individual level.
Zahid Butt, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. He can comment on pandemic preparedness and public health responses to COVID-19 in developed and developing countries. He can also discuss how underlying health conditions could impact individual responses to the COVID-19 infection.
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Warren Dodd, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. He and colleague Jim Wallace, also in the School, recently received a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Government of Canada as part of a University of Toronto team to develop guidelines for hospitals and primary care settings in the Philippines for the management of COVID-19. The goal is to create these guidelines so that can be adapted to other low- and middle-income settings. The team is working with physicians and civil society organizations to pilot and evaluate the guidelines to assess their feasibility in settings where resources may be limited.
John Hirdes, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. He is the lead Canadian researcher for interRAI, a 35-country network of clinicians, researchers and policy experts focussed on improving quality of care and quality of life of vulnerable persons of all ages. He has been leading interRAI’s international response to the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on mortality risks for patients in home care, nursing homes and assisted living. He has developed a mortality risk profile for COVID-19, collaborated in the development of assessment and care management guidelines for home care and nursing home settings during the pandemic, is developing a screening tool to identify persons most at risk during the COVID-19 outbreak in partnership with researchers at the Canadian Red Cross and is working in partnership with WHO to support response to the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable older persons in low-middle income nations.
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George Heckman, practicing physician specializing in geriatric and internal medicine, and a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. In addition to collaborating closely with John Hirdes on several COVID-19 related projects, he can speak to managing COVID-19 in long-term care homes and in the home care system.
Shannon Majowicz, infectious disease epidemiologist in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. She worked with the Public Health Agency of Canada prior to joining Waterloo and can speak to outbreaks and the decisions of public health, individuals and organizations/institutions around how their guidance is being rolled out, and the nature of public health guidance in general.
Narveen Jandu, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. She is a cellular microbiologist whose work focuses on public health prevention of infectious diseases through immunizations, appropriate health and hygiene practices, as well as harm reduction programs. She can speak about vaccines, therapeutics, protective and preventative measures.
Troy Glover, professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. As a researcher in transformative placemaking, the creation of positive change for people and communities through the use of community spaces, he can comment on the implications of the pandemic on public space use.
Kim Lopez, professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. She can comment on the implications of the pandemic on professional caregiving staff in long-term care homes. She researches invisibility in caring labour, aging well in long-term care homes, leisure in the helping professions and digital leisure technologies.
Michael Barnett-Cowan, professor in the Department of Kinesiology, where his focus is virtual reality (VR). He can speak to using VR as a means to stay connected while staying home.
Jim Wallace, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. His research focuses on how we can better enable people to interpret and interact with healthcare data.
David Hammond, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. His work focuses on chronic disease prevention and global health in three main areas: tobacco/vaping, nutrition policy, and cannabis and harm reduction policy.