INRICH Member Profile Card
Arjumand Siddiqi
University of Toronto
Arjumand Siddiqi is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health and an Associate Member of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research Program on Successful Societies. Dr. Siddiqi is interested in the role that societal conditions play in shaping inequities in population health and human development. In particular, her research utilizes a cross-national comparative perspective to understand the consequences of social welfare policies for inequalities in health and developmental outcomes. Areas of research include the influence of income inequality and social policies on inequities in schooling outcomes amongst the advanced market economies, and an emerging body of work to understand health inequities in Canada versus the United States. Dr. Siddiqi for formally Assistant Professor at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and a Faculty Fellow of the Carolina Population Center. She was a member of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health Knowledge Hub on Early Child Development, and has consulted to several international agencies including the World Bank and UNICEF. Dr. Siddiqi received her doctorate in Social Epidemiology from Harvard University.
Type of member: Regular
Telephone: 416-978-4017
Email Address: aa.siddiqi@utoronto.ca
Mailing Address: 155 College Street, Room 566, Toronto, Ontario M5T 3M7 Canada
Collaborative Projects
I work with Clyde Hertzman on a variety of projects related to social determinants of health and human development.
Current research interests
Dr. Siddiqi is interested in the role that societal conditions play in shaping inequities in population health and human development. In particular, her research utilizes a cross-national comparative perspective to understand the consequences of social welfare policies for inequalities in health and developmental outcomes. Areas of research include the influence of income inequality and social policies on inequities in schooling outcomes amongst the advanced market economies, and an emerging body of work to understand health inequities in Canada versus the United States.
Research priorities
Pathways and mechanisms: Cumulative and additive social risk exposures (e.g. transient v. persistent poverty). Stress and allostatic load. Social into the biological and epigenetic. | Methodological issues: Methods for examining change over time including longitudinal effects studies. Need to define poverty. Need to study social gradients as well as poverty. Multi-level studies - Society, Family & Individual. Regional studies (within countries). Which indicators? for example, perception of health vs. objective measures of health (these may be more reliable in studying mechanisms). Root cause analysis to inform policy change. | Other:
Societal influences (primarily social policy) on inequities in children's health and development.
Selected publications
Hertzman, C., Siddiqi, A., Hertzman, E., Irwin, L., Vaghri, Z., Houweling, T., . . . Marmot, M. (2010). Bucking the Gradient: Tackling Inequalities through Early Child Development. British Medical Journal, 340, 468.
Siddiqi, A., & Nguyen, Q. C. (2009). A cross-national comparative perspective on racial inequities in health: the USA versus Canada. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 64(01), 29-35. doi:10.1136/jech.2008.085068