This talk will speak to some of the diverse work our team has been doing to generate evidence of the role of nutrition in chronic disease prevention throughout the lifespan. It will review how some of these ideas came to be, the partnerships necessary to conduct the research, and the methodological approaches we have taken to evaluate diet, its association with health, and assess the quality of the evidence. It will summarize how some of this work is being used, and areas for future development.
Russell de Souza is an Associate Professor, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. He earned his BA from Queen’s University and BASc from Toronto Metropolitan University before his dietetic internship at St. Michael’s Hospital. He holds an M.Sc. from the University of Toronto, and an SD (Doctor of Science) from The T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health. As a settler who identifies as a South Asian cis male with an academic title, he recognizes that he occupies a position of privilege in Canadian society. He wishes to use this privilege to learn about and dismantle barriers that people who are underserved face in accessing health care, and pursuing careers in nutrition and dietetics, and academia.
His research program addresses diet and chronic disease prevention throughout the lifespan with a health equity lens, methodological issues related to study design, evidence synthesis, quality of evidence, and dietary measurement.
He has 187 lifetime publications and an h-index of 59. He has mentored over 50 trainees at all levels. His vision is that any learner, regardless of background or ability, is supported in their academic ambitions respectfully and in a nurturing environment that allows their strengths to shine, and their voice to be heard.
He is involved in knowledge translation activities with the WHO Nutrition Guidelines Advisory Committee, Health Canada’s Nutrition Science Advisory Committee, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (Public Health England), and the Precision Medicine in Diabetes Initiative (American Diabetes Association).