Dr. Patricia O’Campo

(416) 864-5403

"When I was younger, I thought some of these problems could be solved if we provided policy-makers with the right data. I don’t think that anymore. And I don’t think that any one field can do it, either. That’s why I’ve pushed for trans-disciplinary work and partnerships between health and non-health disciplines. The policy-making process is complex, the problems are complex, and we have to address that complexity in the way we approach our work."


Dr. Patricia O’Campo

One of the first scientists to shine a light on the social determinants of health, Dr. Pat O’Campo is internationally renowned for her scholarship and methods development. She is the Executive Director of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Population Health Intervention Research.

Dr. O’Campo authored one of the first papers to examine the social and economic factors that affect health – specifically, the health impacts of city neighbourhoods. Her early career research helped shape what is now known as social epidemiology.

Today, Dr. O’Campo continues to push for change: evidence-based health and social policies and programs to eliminate urban health inequities. She has received career-excellence awards from the US Centers for Disease Control, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association, and the US Institute of Medicine. Over the last two decades she received more than $55 million dollars as principal investigator and more than $30 million as co-investigator from national and international funding agencies to fund studies in areas such as mental health, intimate-partner violence, children’s wellbeing, HIV prevention, infant-mortality prevention and homelessness.

Dr. O’Campo is a MAP scientist and the St. Michael’s Hospital Chair in Intersectoral Solutions for Urban Health Problems. She is a professor in the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and adjunct professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health.