Dr. Brendan Smith

Scientist
Health Promotion, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention

Photo of Dr. Brendan Smith
ON WHY PUBLIC HEALTH ONTARIO IS IMPORTANT

"As an epidemiologist, PHO’s unique applied public health setting allows me to work alongside leading researchers, public health practitioners and policy-makers in Ontario. This multidisciplinary environment provides a variety of rich perspectives to inform my research program focused on developing innovative solutions to protect and promote health and reduce health inequities."

Areas of Expertise

  • social epidemiology
  • health equity
  • diabetes and cardiovascular diseases
  • population health intervention research

Academic Degrees and Accreditations

  • Doctor of Philosophy (Epidemiology), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto 
  • Master of Science (Epidemiology), McGill University

PHO Research Interests

  • Elucidate the mechanisms through which population health interventions impact the creation, maintenance, exacerbation and reduction of social inequalities in health. 
  • Apply innovative epidemiologic methods to estimate the effectiveness of population health interventions to reduce social inequalities in health.
  • Investigate the appropriate blend of high-risk and population health intervention strategies to improve population health and reduce social inequalities in health.
  • Examine the influence of intervention coverage and unintended consequences on effectiveness of population health interventions.
  • Measure of the extent to which health inequalities exist and change over time.
  • Cardiovascular disease attributable to nutrition-related causes: Estimating future burden and evaluating nutrition policy options for maximizing population health benefit in Canada.

PHO Research Activities

  • Reducing population burden and social inequalities in diabetes, can we do both? A population risk tool approach for evaluating population health interventions.
  • Identifying intervention targets to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in heart disease incidence in Ontario using a data linkage approach.
  • Monitoring socioeconomic trends over time in heart disease incidence using a data linkage approach.

Selected Publications

  1. Smith BT, Siddiqi AA. Professional football participation and mortality. JAMA. 2018;320(1):91.
  2. Kamel M, Smith BT, Wahi G, Carsley S, Birken CS, Anderson LN. Continuous cardiometabolic risk score definitions in early childhood: a scoping review. Obes Rev. 2018 Sept 17 [Epub ahead of print].
  3. Smith PM, Smith BT, Mustard CA, Lu H, Glazier RH. Estimating the direct and indirect pathways between education and diabetes incidence among Canadian men and women: a mediation analysis. Ann Epidemiol. 2013;23(3):143-9.
  4. Smith BT, Smith PM, Harper S, Manuel DG, Mustard CA. Reducing social inequalities in health: the role of simulation modelling in chronic disease epidemiology to evaluate the impact of population health interventions. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2013;68(4):384-9.
  5. Smith BT, Lynch JW, Fox CS, Harper S, Abrahamowicz M, Almeida ND, et al. Life-course socioeconomic position and type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Framingham Offspring Study. American journal of epidemiology. 2011;173(4):438-47.

View more publications by Dr. Brendan Smith on PubMed.gov


Public Health Ontario Scientist Profile: Brendan Smith

Dr. Brendan Smith discusses what excites him about his work, the impact of his research and why he chose Public Health Ontario.

Duration: 2 min

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Contact

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media@oahpp.ca

Updated 22 Oct 2019