Poverty's impact on health subject of public lecture by Forum's Jim Dunn

January 18, 2011 - Jim Dunn, a McMaster Health Forum adjunct faculty and a leader in research related to addressing poverty issues, will deliver a public lecture on January 25 dealing with neighbourhood-based approaches to addressing poverty and its impacts on health.

Poverty By Postal Code: Will Neighbourhood Solutions Work in Hamilton? is the first in a series of lectures being organized by various community organizations to address issues raised by the Hamilton Community Foundation’s Vital Signs report and the Hamilton Spectator’s Code Red series, which both identified the grim reality of poverty in various Hamilton locales.

Dunn, who holds the Chair in Research on Urban Neighbourhoods, Community Health and Housing funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, will discuss the issue of health being defined by where we live, and explain the pros and cons of neighbourhood-based approaches to improve poor health outcomes directly related to living in poverty. He will share examples of where such approaches have already been used, and the potential for their use in Hamilton.

Neighbourhood poverty and its impact on health is one of the topics that the McMaster Health Forum is addressing, at Dunn's suggestion, through plans for a stakeholder dialogue. Dunn is co-chair of the steering committee that has been established to guide the development of an issue brief on the subject, which will mobilize the existing research evidence and inform discussions at the dialogue planned for later this year.

The steering committee also includes representation from the Hamilton Community Foundation, the McMaster Community Poverty Initiative and the city of Hamilton.

Dunn is an associate professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster University and a scientist with the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. His research examines how social factors such as housing, neighbourhoods and the distribution of income in cities influence the health of families and individuals.

The lecture will be held at the Hamilton Spectator Auditorium, beginning at 7 p.m. To view a poster about the lecture, click here.