Postdoctoral fellow Stephen Hunter studying how social factors affect the health of young people

Stephen Hunter

School of Public Health researcher and postdoctoral fellow Stephen Hunter has been interested in how social factors influence the health of youth since his graduate studies.

A Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport and Recreation doctoral graduate, Hunter's research has focused on how social determinants of health and environmental factors play a part in the health and health behaviour of children and adolescents. One study looked at how the school neighbourhood affects the amount of physical activity adolescents get.

Social determinants of health are non-medical factors that can influence health, such as income and income inequality, education, employment, social inclusion and early childhood development.

Hunter’s postdoctoral research in the EMERGE lab under Roman Pabayo builds on an existing study on adolescent school health called the Cannabis, Obesity, Mental health, Physical activity, Alcohol, Smoking and Sedentary behaviour (COMPASS) study that is being led by Scott Leatherdale at the University of Waterloo. 

“My project with Roman Pabayo extends the data collection for the COMPASS study beyond high school. It looks at associations between income inequality and health behaviours and outcomes during and after high school and whether these associations differ between genders,” says Hunter. 

His project will also look at social determinants of health for women immediately following high school such as unemployment and post-secondary education and whether the associations between these social determinants and mental and physical health are affected by income inequality.

Hunter was recently awarded a Women and Children’s Health Research Institute postdoctoral fellowship, funded by the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation and the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Hunter decided to focus on the years after school completion after noticing that one study describes the high school years as being somewhat of an equalizer when it comes to social and structural health determinants. 

“It suggested differences in many health outcomes start to emerge in young adulthood, after high school,” says Hunter. “I thought it would be interesting to add additional data collected after high school to see if the impact of these social and structural determinants started to show after high school graduation. I discussed it with Roman Pabayo and Scott Leatherdale and they were on board to see it get started.”

His study is important because it covers a time in adolescents’ lives that often involves big life changes such as attending post-secondary school, entering the workforce, moving out on their own and starting new relationships. 

“Research also suggests that women are more likely to experience inequitable access when it comes to these factors compared to men and that the risk of poor health may be worse for women living in areas with greater income inequality,” says Hunter.

Using data from the COMPASS study and combining it with data from the Canadian Census will allow Hunter and his team to see how the health and behaviours of health turn out for adolescents as well as whether these health trajectories are affected by income. The team will also examine whether these trajectories are affected by gender, whether women start to experience negative social determinants of health immediately following high school and whether the women in areas of lower income experience worse health over this time. 

The goal is to better understand what factors affect the health of adolescents once they finish high school. 

“If we are able to identify factors that have a positive impact on the trajectories of adolescent health behaviours and outcomes immediately after high school, particularly among women, then we can possibly use that information for prevention planning and reduce the number of adolescents who experience poor health,” says Hunter.