Project 422851

Epidemiologists design and conduct quantitative studies that measure health outcomes and use complex statistics for analysis. The overarching goal of the proposed program is to strengthen the methods that epidemiologists and other researchers use to study health, by better incorporating a sex- and gender-based analysis plus (SGBA+) approach. SGBA+ means we always consider not just sex/gender differences in health or the factors that promote or hinder good health, but that we do two additional things: 1) clearly incorporate diversity of biological sex characteristics and social gender characteristics that can affect health through very different pathways (the "SG" part of SGBA+), and 2) use methods that allow for sex and gender to have different effects or impacts among groups of people of varying identities or social positions, e.g., ages, socioeconomic statuses, ethnoracial backgrounds, sexual orientations (the "+" part of SGBA+). As researchers, we have not been very good at doing these two things in our work. The proposed program of research and knowledge translation provides vital information that researchers need to improve their capacity for SGBA+, including: 1) understanding dimensions of sex or gender and their perform as substitutes (proxies) for the dimension(s) researchers believe are most relevant for particular health issues; 2) identifying the statistical methods currently used in intersectional research, how well they reflect intersectionality theoretical frameworks, and how best practices might be applied in Canadian data. This research will inform development of academic research papers, an Online SGBA+ Methods Toolkit, SGBA+ Methods Workshops at conferences. It will also inform curriculum for a Summer Training Intensive in Intersectionality Research in conjunction with the recently-chartered Intersectionality Training Institute in Washington DC. Together, these research and training initiatives serve to build capacity for SGBA+ in epidemiology.