McGill researcher named CIHR Chair in Public Health

A McGill epidemiologist has been named to one of 14 new Chairs in Public Health funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and several partner agencies.

Dr. Gilles Paradis of the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), is studying strategies to promote healthy lifestyles and develop new techniques for healthy living in school children. His approach includes examining social, environmental, familial and genetic factors to understand how they influence unhealthy lifestyles like smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity. The new information will be used to promote healthy lifestyles to elementary and high school children.

“McGill has long been a leader in the biomedical sciences, and Gilles Paradis’s research is an excellent example of how such investigations directly benefit Canadians,” said Denis Thérien, Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations). “This new funding from CIHR will allow Dr. Paradis to exert an even greater impact on the health and well-being of our youth by providing decision-makers with accurate and insightful information aimed at promoting healthier lifestyles.”

The CIHR and its partners – the Institute of Population and Public Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Le Centre de recherche en prévention de l’obésité, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) and the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec – are investing close to $13 million into these new research chairs, which are charged with taking on pressing public health problems like obesity, sexually transmitted diseases among youth, animal transmitted diseases, drug use, health issues among First Nations and Métis people, mental health in the workplace and the effects that neighbourhoods have on our health. The program was initially announced by federal Health Minister Tony Clement in May, 2008.