Research on the convergence of overlapping epidemics — HIV/STBBI, substance use and overdose, COVID-19, mpox, and the toxic-drug crisis — alongside an emerging philanthropically funded body of work on recreational and therapeutic psychedelic medicine, and the structural and social conditions that sustain (and respond to) them. Built on long-running collaborative cohorts and rapid-response work with provincial and federal partners.
Single-disease frameworks fail the populations I work with. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, two-spirit and trans people, people who use drugs, and people living with Long COVID experience overlapping epidemics — HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, mental-health conditions, substance-use disorders, structural stigma, and exposure to acute crises like COVID-19, mpox, and the toxic-drug supply. A syndemic lens treats these as interacting conditions whose health impacts are larger than the sum of their parts, and whose solutions therefore require integrated structural responses.
My contribution to this field is built on long-running community-based cohorts — Momentum, Engage, Sex Now, and the COAST cohort — and on rapid-response partnerships with provincial health authorities and the Public Health Agency of Canada. I’ve led and co-led work on PrEP-uptake inequities, syndemic clustering among 2S/GBTQ+ men, substance-use morbidity and mortality, hepatitis-C care models in correctional settings, and the mental-health sequelae of Long COVID. The program also includes an emerging body of work on recreational and therapeutic psychedelic medicine — a frontier that sits squarely at the intersection of substance use, mental-health care, structural stigma, and emerging clinical regulation, and that the syndemic lens is uniquely positioned to address. The program treats community-based research as a methodological commitment, not an afterthought: priorities, instruments, analyses, and dissemination are co-produced with the communities whose lives are being measured.
This is the program with the longest track record in my portfolio — the funding base, cohort partnerships, and publication record that anchor my work. It is also the lens through which my newer social-connection and climate-distress research stays grounded in the populations and structural conditions that public-health practice actually has to respond to.
Syndemics are the sharpest illustration of how health inequity is produced. Overlapping epidemics of HIV and other infections, substance-use harms, and mental-health conditions converge on the same marginalized populations, not because of individual risk behaviour, but through structural stigma, criminalization, and material disadvantage that interact and amplify one another.
Single-disease, individual-behaviour models reproduce this harm by treating the symptom and ignoring the structure. My contribution is built on community-based cohorts in which priorities, instruments, and dissemination are co-produced with the people whose lives are measured. That makes community-based research both a method and a justice commitment: producing evidence with, rather than about, the communities a fairer public-health system has to serve.
An emerging body of work — supported by the Blanche & Charlie Beckerman Scholar Award in Public Health Innovation — that pairs evidence generation with practice infrastructure, so psychedelic-assisted therapy can be regulated, taught, and delivered safely.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy is moving from research clinics to community settings faster than regulators, prescribers, and frontline practitioners can keep up. My program treats that gap as the problem to solve. From provincial steering-committee work and a practitioner-led practice manual, to a community-based harm-reduction guide for psilocybin users, to peer-reviewed studies on acceptability and psychological distress — this work is building the connective tissue between research evidence, clinical training, and public-health policy in BC and Canada.
This research is made possible by the Blanche & Charlie Beckerman Scholar Award in Public Health Innovation, funded by Andrew Beckerman to advance evidence-based responses to public-health challenges that existing systems aren’t solving fast enough.
See the full body of work →Long-running community-based cohorts of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal — the data backbone for our work on HIV/STBBI, substance use, PrEP, and syndemic clustering.
Canada’s longest-running national survey of two-spirit, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer men and non-binary people, run through the Community-Based Research Centre.
Clinic-based and community-based research on the mental-health, employment, and caregiving consequences of Long COVID — including the 1st Canadian Symposium on Long COVID.
Rapid surveys, public-communication research, and policy briefings during the 2022 and 2024 mpox public-health emergencies — in close partnership with provincial and federal public-health agencies and community organizations.
Innovative community-health-centre × corrections partnership for Hepatitis-C testing and treatment in Victoria, BC — recently published in Viruses (2025).
A Vancouver Foundation-funded PAR project (PI, 2026–2028) examining how systemic challenges in mental-health care contributed to the Lapu Lapu tragedy, and how to ensure compassionate, effective psychosocial support after community crises.
Cumulative funding for this program: $19.4M across 40 awards — the largest pillar of my funding portfolio, built on CIHR, PHAC, BC Ministry of Health, and Vancouver Foundation partnerships.
Among 89 publications in this area, published in The Lancet HIV, PLOS One, International Journal of Drug Policy, AIDS & Behavior, BMJ Open, and others. The full filterable record is on the publications page.
Selected from 95 presentations in this area, including invited briefings to provincial and federal partners and the Canadian Association for HIV Research.
Mpox declarations, COVID-19 social bubbles, syphilis-rate surges in young people in BC, Long COVID, and the toxic-drug crisis have been covered through CBC News Network, CBC Vancouver News, Global News, CTV Vancouver, Radio-Canada, and many regional outlets, with policy commentary in The Conversation and Visions Magazine.
Many syndemic-affected populations are also disproportionately disconnected. Social-connection interventions are now part of how we respond.
See the social-connection programClimate change is a syndemic accelerator — widening the structural inequities that drive overlapping epidemics. Our climate-distress and HIV/climate work make that link explicit.
See the climate program