{"id":10416,"date":"2024-04-12T12:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T16:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/dighr\/?p=10416"},"modified":"2025-07-24T10:32:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T14:32:58","slug":"key-moments-from-the-trust-and-political-sociology-of-health-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/dighr\/key-moments-from-the-trust-and-political-sociology-of-health-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Moments from the Trust and Political Sociology of Health Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The \"Trust and Political Sociology of Health\" research workshop took place on April 4th at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, 快播视频. This forum brought together senior and emerging scholars, practitioners, and students sharing a common interest in democracy, governance, and trust within the realm of health and well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workshop, led by Professor Cary Wu<\/a> York Research Chair in the Political Sociology of Health and Dahdaleh Institute faculty fellow, featured three discrete sessions. During one session, select workshop participants presented their research-projects-in-progress on various topics in trust and the political sociology of health to elicit actionable feedback from other workshop participants. During another session, two invited participants, both leading researchers, presented their completed research projects. The substantive goal of these two sessions was to bring together budding and leading researchers of trust to begin the launch of a community of peers interested in topics in the political sociology of health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the other session, Dan Harper, the Strategic Initiatives Lead of the Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia<\/a> (RCCbc) gave a short talk on his organization and their mission to advance rural health equity. What follows is a closer take of each part of the day.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening Remarks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cTrust and Political Sociology of Health'' workshop began with a welcome from Professor Mark Thomas, professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology at 快播视频. Prof. Thomas introduced Prof. Wu, highlighting Prof. Wu\u2019s vibrant contributions to not only the teaching and research excellence of the Department but to public sociology more broadly, noting Prof. Wu\u2019s work in communicating the sociology of trust, racism, health, and migration to multiple publics. Prof. Thomas also celebrated Prof. Wu\u2019s appointment as a York Research Chair in the Political Sociology of Health, highlighting Prof. Wu\u2019s research program which proposes the analytical utility of trust to obtain a transdisciplinary political sociology of health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Prof. Thomas\u2019 welcome message, Theresa Dinh, Coordinator of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, introduced the Dahdaleh Institute, highlighting its mandate to create knowledge that addresses global health challenges. Theresa stressed the Institute\u2019s commitment to gathering scholars from a range of disciplinary traditions, as a university-wide organized research unit, and the Institute\u2019s work, at the intersection of research, policy, and practice, in planetary health, global health and humanitarianism and global health foresighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Prof. Wu welcomed participants, explaining his vision to develop a transdisciplinary political sociology of health framework with the concept of trust and the importance of training the next generation of scholars on trust and the political sociology of health. Prof. Wu introduced the aims of the workshop, to offer advice on research in trust and the political sociology of health at all stages of development, from devising research outlines to preliminary data analyses to producing written texts and to foster conversations at the cutting edge of research in trust and the political sociology of health. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Session 1: Research projects<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening the first session was Prof. Eric Mykhalovskiy, Dahdaleh faculty fellow and professor in the Department of Sociology at 快播视频. A well-established scholar, Prof. Mykhalovskiy has made a profound scientific impact with his scholarship on HIV\/AIDS and his many contributions to the sociology of health and healthcare. Prof. Mykhalovskiy spoke about forging a newfound research interest in trust and urban noise. He discussed his preliminary research outline which suggested that a definitional equation of noise to aural phenomenon should be avoided. Prof. Mykhalovskiy critiqued this understanding of noise, sharing a snippet of his preliminary qualitative data which showed how urban noise is rendered by residents in downtown Toronto neighbourhoods. Of important consideration was residents\u2019 moral and political imagination when experiencing urban noise. Prof. Mykhalovskiy found that social trust, the belief that most people can be trusted and trust in institutions, specifically in 311, the institution Toronto residents call upon to report problems such as noise complaints, greatly underlie peoples\u2019 experience of noise. What followed was a vibrant discussion of participants\u2019 personal experiences of urban noise and the opportunity to think through potential theoretical and methodological issues in his research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second in the lineup of presenters was Prof Ingrid Pechenkov, who has just received her PhD from the Department of Psychology at 快播视频 and is now teaching at Trent University. Prof. Pechenkov presented her ongoing research project which considered the role of gender as a determinant of mental health. She discussed the debated role of gender in mental health and shortcomings in the empirical literature, namely, issues in the measurement of gender and the absence of diverse samples. Prof. Pechenkov discussed her interest in testing the competing hypotheses: the androgyny hypothesis which relates androgyny to higher psychological well-being and the person-environment fit hypothesis which suggests that environment fit in femininity or environment fit in masculinity affect psychological well-being. She noted that her research conceptualizes gender on a continuum to better understand mental health outcomes across genders. Participants offered constructive feedback regarding Prof. Pechenkov\u2019s analytic plans, noting the opportunity to investigate the possibility of a bidirectional association. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third to present was Rex Wang, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at 快播视频. Rex presented his research outline, preliminary data, and analytic plan for his exploration of the Canadian Trust Radius which refers to whether Canadians think \u201cmost people\u201d can be trusted and to whom \u201cmost people\u201d refers. In his research project, Rex grapples with methodological concerns related to how Canadians interpret \u201cmost people\u201d across cultures and contexts, for instance, whether \u201cmost people\u201d encompasses strangers as well as the determinants of trust radius. This sparked discussion among participants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourth to present was Joanne Ong, an incoming PhD Student in the Department of Global Health at 快播视频. Joanne presented findings from a paper co-authored with Prof. Wu and Jenny Nilsson, an MA graduate from the Department of Sociology at 快播视频. Joanne discussed the role of political ideology in Black-White differences in perceptions of police bias as well as within-White population differences and within-Black population differences. Further, she discussed their key finding that the link between perceived police bias and poor mental health is primarily driven by ideological differences among White Americans, but not among Black Americans. Her research prompted conversation on the importance of investigating within racial group variation in perceptions of police bias and the racially specific mechanisms driving the mental health consequences of perceived police bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding the first part of the workshop, Simarpreet Kaur, a BA Honours Student in Psychology and Criminology and Emmanuella Binanga, a BA Honours Student in Sociology discussed their respective Dean's Award for Research Excellence (DARE) projects in Trust and Sleep and Democracy and Health. They shared their research plan and their enthusiasm about working with Prof. Wu as DARE Awardees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n