Dr. Lachaud has a multi-disciplinary background with a B.Sc. in Applied Economics and Statistics from the Centre de Techniques de Planification et d’Economie Appliquée (Port-au-Prince, Haiti), an MSc in Population and Development with a focus on Population Health from the Faculdad Latinoamericana de Ciencies Sociales (Mexico, D.F., Mexico), and a PhD in Demography from the University of Montreal. James was also a post-doctoral fellow at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
In 2020, James was awarded a CIHR Urban Housing and Health Fellowship. The award, offered in partnership with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), provides funding for research and knowledge translation activities in the field of health and housing in Canadian cities.
Working with: Dr. Stephen Hwang, Dr. Patricia O’Campo
View Dr. Lachaud’s Research Gate profile
Meet Dr. Lachaud
My research interests are population health and inequality with a special focus on health and education. In my dissertation, I looked at how declining family size affected social inequalities in West Africa, particularly in Burkina Faso. In the context of international development, the control of population growth through family planning programs was (and is) largely discussed as a pathway to economic development. While some studies show that declining family sizes can lead to improvements in wellbeing such as investment in education, many ignore the distribution of these benefits, and how they might impact existing social inequalities. I aimed at understanding the effect of reduction of family size on investment in education and its impacts on educational inequalities over time and generations. To do this, I used data from:
- The Health and Demographic Surveillance of Ouagadougou (capital of Burkina Faso) that followed more than 80,000 individuals over five years in four low-income settlements in Ouagadougou;
- The Demographic Trend (Demtrend) Survey that gathered data over three generations: grandparents, mothers (35-59 years), and their children.
I found that there is not a static relationship between family size and investment in education. It all depends on socioeconomic and historical context. For example, the relationship between family size and children’s schooling shifted over time and generations in Ouagadougou. For the generations who grew up in a context where formal education was not valued in the labour market and the economic contributions of children were substantial as farm labourers, family size did not have a significant effect on investment in education. By contrast, for recent generations, the smaller the family size, the bigger the investment in education.
In addition, the results revealed that the social origin of the mother’s family influenced their reproductive behaviour. Compared to those whose original family was poor and less-educated, mothers whose original family was better-off and well-educated had a smaller family size. In turn, their children were also more educated. That suggests a potential leverage effect of the reduction in family size on the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic disadvantages, particularly in terms of education.
I investigated cause-related mortality and socioeconomic inequalities using large administrative and longitudinal databases from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), which contains health care and census data for the population of Ontario.
One of the papers that came out of this work addressed homicide as a public health issue in Ontario (A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records, 2017). Public health is often focused on the leading causes of deaths such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. At the same, in Ontario, young people are dying in large numbers by homicide, and little is being done through public health systems to address this.
I used ICES data to look at homicides over the period of 1999-2012. I estimated the potential years of life lost (PYLL) and compared the socioeconomic gradient in homicide with cardiovascular and cancer deaths using the Ontario Marginalization Index measures on material deprivation and residential instability. We found that young males (15-29) were much more likely to die of homicide than the general population, and this trend is getting worse over time. Moreover, people living neighbourhoods with high levels material deprivation and residential instability were significantly more likely to die of homicide than of causes like cardiovascular disease and cancer. Finally, we found that homicide is one of the leading causes of premature death for young people in Ontario.
I am currently collaborating on the At Home/Chez Soi project, a randomized controlled intervention of Housing First, which provides people experiencing homelessness and mental health problems with permanent rent supplements coupled with ongoing mental health supports and case management. I am working with six years of data from the Toronto arm of the study. My role specifically involves assessing the impact of the project on health care utilization and mortality among participants. To do this, I’m using project data pooled with administrative health data from ICES. I am also working at evaluating the effect of housing stability on food security.
Prior this project, I co-investigated the association between neighborhood characteristics and the risk of depression and depressive symptoms. I also collaborated on research related to precarious work and anxiety and depression.
I would like to see more diversity and inclusion in the research world. Beyond the socio-demographic representation, I refer to diversity and inclusion of thoughts and ideas, and a more participatory and inclusive approach in decision-making.
Lachaud, J., Mejia-Lancheros, C., Wang, R., Nisenbaum, R., Stergiopoulos, V., Hwang, S.W., and O’Campo, P., (2020).Mental health disorder, Substance use, and Food Security among Homeless Individuals in the At Home/Chez Soi Randomised Controlled Trial, PlosOne, 15(4):1-13. Co-Principal Author.
Mejia-Lancheros, C. & Lachaud, J. (fortcoming) Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Colombia: Reopen the debate, Editorial, Avances en Enfermería Vol. 38, 2. Co-Principal Author.
Fene, F., Gómez-Dantés, O., Lachaud, J. (forthcoming) “Sistema de Salud de Haití”. Monograph. Salud Pública de México. 62:1-8.
Mejia-Lancheros, C., Lachaud, J., Wang, A., Nisenbaum, R., Stergiopoulos, V., Hwang, S.W., and O’Campo, P. (2020). Dental problems and physical chronic diseases in mentally ill homeless individuals, BMC Public Health. Co-Principal Author.
Mejia-Lancheros, C., Lachaud, J., Wang, A., Nisenbaum, R., Hwang, S.W., O’Campo, P., and Stergiopoulos, V., (2020). Trajectories and mental health-related predictors of perceived discrimination and stigma among homeless adults with mental illness, Plos One 15(2):e0229385. Co-Principal Author.
Liu, M., Mejia-Lancheros, C., Lachaud, J., Nisenbaum, R., Stergiopoulos, V., and Hwang, S.W. (2020) Resilience and Adverse Childhood Experiences as Protective and Risk Factors for Poor Mental Health Outcomes among Homeless Adults, American Journal of Preventive Medicine. (Trainee publication, Michael Liu, (undergraduate student)).
Chum, A., O’Campo, P., Lachaud, J., Fink, N., and Mutaner, C. (2020). Challenges in conducting a population-based study investigating associations between neighbourhood social environment and individual mental health, SAGE Research Methods. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529740387
Généus, W., Lachaud, J., and Gayet, C. (forthcoming). Factores asociados al descenso de la desnutrición crónica de los niños de 6 a 24 meses en Haití en el periodo 1994-2017, Notas de poblaciones, Centro Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Demografía (CELADE)/Population división of The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Chum, A., O’Campo, P., Lachaud, J., Fink, N., and Mutaner, C. (forthcoming). Challenges in conducting a population-based study investigating associations between neighbourhood social environment and individual mental health, SAGE Research Methods.
Lachaud, J, Hruschka, D. J.,Kaiser, B.N., and Brewis, A. (2019). Agricultural wealth better predicts mental wellbeing than market wealth among highly vulnerable households in Haiti: Evidence for the benefits of a multidimensional approach to poverty, American Journal of Human Biology, pp. 1-14.
Chum, A., O’Campo, P., Lachaud, J., Fink, N., Kirst, M., and Nisenbaum, R. (2019) Evaluating the potential for same-source bias in neighbourhood effects on depression: a cross-sectional study of 2411 adults in Toronto, Canada”. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, pp 1–11.
Stergiopoulos, V., Mejia-Lancheros, C., Nisenbaum, R., Wang, R., Lachaud, J., O’Campo, P., and Hwang, S.W. (2019). The long-term effects of rent supplements and mental health support services on housing and health outcomes of homeless adults with mental illness: outcomes of the extended At Home/Chez Soi randomized controlled trial, The Lancet Psychiatry, pp 915-925.
Lachaud, J., and Fene, F. (2019). Desigualdades sociales en el acceso a los servicios de salud maternal en Haití, in Salud reproductiva en Haití: una perspectiva sociodemográfica, (Ed.), Gayet, C., and Davila Cervantes, CA., Ed. FLACSO, Mexico, D.F., Chapter 2, pp 41-66
Thibodeau L., Rahme E., Lachaud J., Pelletier E., Rochette L., John A., Reneflot A., Lloyd K., and Lesage A. (2018). “Individual, programmatic and systemic indicators of the quality of mental health care using a large health administrative database: an avenue for preventing suicide mortality”, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada: Research, Policy and Practice, 38(7/8): 299-308. (Published in French also)
Lachaud, J., LeGrand T. and Kobiané. J. (2017), “Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Disadvantage in the Context of the Decline of Family Size in Urban Africa”, Population Review, 56(1):102-126.
Lachaud, J., Donnelly, P., Henry, D., Kornas, K., Fitzpatrick, T., Calzavara, A., Bornbaum, C., Rosella, L. (2017) “Homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada, over the period 1999-2012: Using linked death records to explore a public health issue”, International Journal of Equity of Health.
Lachaud, J., Donnelly, P., Henry, D., Kornas, K., Fitzpatrick, T., Calzavara, A., Bornbaum, C., Rosella, L. (2017) “Characterizing Suicide and Violent Deaths classified of Undetermined Intent in Ontario, 1999-2012”, Injury Prevention, 0:1-7.
Lachaud, J., LeGrand T., and Kobiané. J. (2016) “Child Fostering and Children’s Human Capital in Ouagadougou” Population Review 55(1): 27-48.
Thibodeau, L. and Lachaud, J. (2016) “Impacts of Economics Fluctuations on Suicide Mortality (1926-2008): Testing the Durkheim, Ginsberg and Henry and Short Terms Theories.” Death Studies, 40(5), 305-315. doi:10.1080/07481187.2015.1133727.
Lachaud, J., LeGrand T., Adjiwanou, V., and Kobiané. J. (2014), “Family Size and Intra-family Inequalities in Education in Ouagadougou,” Demographic Research, 31(49): 1455-1476.
Lachaud, J., (2009), “Análisis de la dinámica poblacional a partir de su ley poblacional”, Conference proceedings (with peer review committee): XXVII Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología Conference. VIII Jornadas de Sociología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología, Buenos Aires.