On July 16, 2019, Geo-SDH group member Thomas Herrmann sat down with CBC Montreal’s Ainslee MacLellan to discuss our research group’s pan-Canadian, freely available measure of active living environments (Can-ALE) and the implications of the research for the Montreal area. We discussed how the measure […]

The Canadian Active Living Environments Measure (‘Can-ALE’) is Canada’s first freely accessible measure of the favourability of active living environments, or ‘walkability’. The dataset contains several measures of the active living friendliness of Canadian neighbourhoods – structural support for walking, cycling, public transport and other […]

In early July, Geo-SDH researchers Sarah Mah, Clara Kaufmann, and Andrew Stevenson traveled to New Zealand to present their research at the 18th International Medical Geography Symposium (IMGS). Sarah’s presentation showcased her work on a forthcoming international study examining physical activity patterns and active living environments using survey data […]

Group members Thomas Herrmann and William Gleckner each presented recent work at the Active Living Research Conference in Charleston, South Carolina this past week. Thomas presented work titled ‘Meeting Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity Automatically’ where he explored the nuances of the built environment-physical activity relationship in […]

Earlier today, the Geo-SDH Group was pleased to learn that it has been awarded funding for “Neighbourhood Active Living Environments, Physical Activity, and Long-term Risk for Chronic Disease and Mortality.” Dr. Nancy Ross is joined by Dr. Kaberi Dasgupta of McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and […]

Recent undergraduate honours student and alumna of the GeoSDH Group Grace O’Brien recently published in the International Journal of Biometerology on the ‘heat penalty’ associated with walkable neighbourhoods. On a summer day in 2016, Ms. O’Brien and Professors Ian Strachan and Nancy Ross used a […]

Last week, group member Thomas Herrmann presented our recent work on using the Canadian Community Health Survey and Can-ALE to better understand the built environment-physical activity relationship in Canada at the Urban Transitions Conference in Sitges, a coastal community south of Barcelona.  The conference brought […]

This Monday, the Geo-SDH Group was in attendance at the annual Trottier Institute of Science and Public Policy Symposium, where Dr. Nancy Ross spoke about the Geo-SDH Group’s policy-relevant research of active living environments. Dr. Ross addressed the question “Does the neighbourhood you live in get […]

On Friday, November 26, the GeoSDH Group was very pleased to host approximately 40 professors, students, and academic staff for “Urban Sustainability and Population Health: Turning Data into Insights”. The meeting brought people together from several disciplines—including epidemiology, computer science, geography, human kinetics, sociology—and five […]

Geo-SDH group member and PhD Candidate Sarah Mah has recently returned from a productive visit to Banff, where she presented her research at the 2018 International Population Data Linkage Conference. Sarah presented her Canadian evidence on “Neighbourhood built environments as correlates of hospital burden and […]

Members of the GeoSDH Group are officially back together for the semester and celebrated with a group barbecue this weekend! We were happy to reflect on our productive summer, including important progress on international comparative data linkage research in Australia, submission of our first manuscript […]

The GeoSDH Research Group is happy to share the Canadian Active Living Environments (Can-ALE) dataset with members of the Canadian research and policy community. The dataset is the first national-level set of measures characterizing the active living environments (or ‘walkability’) of Canadian communities derived entirely […]

A new post-doctoral position is being offered with the McGill Sustainability Sciences Initiative! “We are seeking a post-doctoral researcher to help develop a research project on urban sustainable neighbourhoods across Canada and to create online surveys to comprehend consumption and mobility patterns of residents of […]

‘Childbirth-Related Hospital Burden by Socioeconomic Status in a Universal Health Care Setting’ a work coauthored in part by doctoral student Sarah Mah and Dr. Nancy Ross, was published this week in the International Journal of Population Data Science. Among the key findings: Canadian women with […]

Several members of the McGill Geo-SDH Research Group recently returned from Banff, AB, where they participated in and presented research at the Active Living Research conference. Prof. Nancy Ross presented on a body of work on “Active Living Environments, Health-Related Behaviour, and Cardiometabolic Health of […]

On Wednesday, November 29, 2017, our research group joined the Place, Health and Well-being Research Group for a joint lab meeting. The goal of the meeting was to exchange mutual research interests, increase awareness skill sets held by individuals in our two groups, and discuss […]

On Tuesday, November 28, 2017, Professor Nancy Ross delivered a speech at the Symposium on Science and Public Policy, hosted by the Trottier Institute for Science and Public Policy. The talk, titled “Neighbourhood Active Living  Environments Get Under the Skin – A Policy Window for the […]

Congrats to Samantha Hajna, Dr. Kaberi Dasgupta, and Dr. Nancy A. Ross for publishing their article Steps, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and cardiometabolic profiles in Preventative Medicine. In their new paper, Hajna, Dasgupta, and Ross find that more optimal indicators of cardiometabolic health (e.g., lower BMI, lower […]

Last Saturday (November 4), the research group got together over the weekend to enjoy some group bonding and early winter festivity the Baie d’Urfé Curling Club. Fortunately, no one the group wiped out, and group members Rania Wasfi and William Gleckner even learned of their […]

Congratulations to our master’s student, Madeleine Pawlowski, on being awarded a prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Program Master’s Scholarship from the Social Sciences of Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)! The CGS Master’s Scholarships are one-year scholarships which aim to train Canada’s researchers […]

Congratulations to our two PhD students–Sarah Mah and Madeleine Steinmetz-Wood–who were both awarded funding from the Fonds de Recherche Santé Québec (FRSQ). This three-year doctoral funding will support our Group’s research in health and walkability in Canada. You can read more about Sarah’s research on international […]

Group members Nancy Ross and Sarah Mah attended the International Medical Geography Symposium in July 2017 in Angers, France. The theme of the conference centered on “Practicing Health and Medical Geography,” and was attended by 200 researchers. Sarah presented her research on neighbourhood walkability and […]