Epidemiology and Biostatistics Seminar Series Presents: Ayden Scheim, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego 

Stigma and discrimination are considered fundamental causes of health disparities, and there is growing interest in the health impacts of intersectional discrimination. His research has focused on elucidating the behavioral health impacts of discrimination and on advancing methods for measuring discrimination in population health research. In this talk, he will share findings from the first Canadian study of transgender substance use disparities and introduce a new instrument for evaluating discrimination across intersecting social positions. Scheim is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego and an associate scientist with the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation at St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto, Canada). Scheim is a social epidemiologist focused on understanding and ameliorating health disparities faced by stigmatized populations including gender and sexual minorities and people who use illicit drugs. He received his PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from The University of Western Ontario in 2017.