Dr. Morton Beiser: Abstract Title TBA
Dr. Morton Beiser will present the context of the research study and the research process. He will specifically focus on the mental health findings and analyses with regards to depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. This will include community rates for mental health issues as well as a discussion about protective and risk factors.
Biographical Statement:
Dr. Morton Beiser is Professor of Distinction, Dept of Psychology, Ryerson University; Crombie Professor Emeritus of Cultural Pluralism and Health, University of Toronto; Founding Director and Senior Scientist, Ontario Metropolis Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS). Past academic appointments include Associate Professor of Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health (1965-1975); Professor and Head, Division of Cultural Psychiatry, Dept of Psychiatry University of British Columbia (1975-1991), David Crombie Professor of Cultural Pluralism and Health, and Head, Culture, Community and Health Studies, University of Toronto (1975-2002). He has received more than $17.5 million dollars in research funding for projects including the Refugee Resettlement Project, a ten year study of resettlement and mental health of more than 1300 refugees from Southeast Asia, the Flower of Two Soils, a study of mental health and academic achievement among 2000 children from American Indian and First Nations reserves, Immigrants and Tuberculosis, an investigation of factors accounting for the high risk for Tuberculosis among immigrants and refugees; Growing Up in Canada, a study of the children of the Southeast Asian refugees who took part in the Refugee Resettlement Project; Community in Distress, an investigation of the mental health of 1600 adult Tamils living in Toronto; The New Canadian Children and Youth Study, a national, longitudinal investigation of the health and development of approximately 5,000 immigrant and refugee children in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, Leavers and Stayers, a comparison of the development and health of Ethiopian children growing up in Toronto and in Addis Ababa, and A Troubled Homecoming, a study of Ethiopian-Jewish children in Israel. Author of more than 175 scientific papers, and a book entitled Strangers at the Gate, (University of Toronto Press 1999). Dr. Beiser has always been interested in effecting a crossover from research into policy and public debate, A twelve-part radio series on immigration and settlement in Canada aired on public radio in Ontario and Alberta, as well as grade school and high school curricula subsumed under the title Strangers Becoming Us are products of this interest. Word outside of academia has include chairing a federal government task force on the mental health of immigrants and refugees that produced a report called After the Door Has Been Opened (1988), membership on the Canadian Multiculturalism Advisory Committee, and chairing the Medical Advisory Committee for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Recognition of Dr. Beiser’s achievements has included National Health Scholar and Scientist Awards from Canada’s National Health Research and Development Program (1981-1999); honorary membership by the Belgian Royal Society of Medicine (1975); the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation (New York) Distinguished Scholar Award (1974-1975), the University of Toronto Beverley Distinguished Professor Award (1988); the Joey and Tobey Tanenbaum Award for Research in Schizophrenia (1994); the Rockefeller Foundation Resident Scholar Award (1995); the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s Alexander Leighton Award for Research in Psychiatric Epidemiology (2002); the Queen’s Golden Jubilee medal awarded by the Senate of Canada (2002), and the Order of Canada (2004).
