Jeff Masuda

Professor; Social Dimensions of Health adviser

Public Health and Social Policy

Accepting graduate students

Contact:: Office: HSD B232 jeffmasuda@uvic.ca; sdhadvisor@uvic.ca

ORCID:

Credentials:: CD, PhD, FCAHS

Area(s) of expertise:: Environmental health equity, ecological sustainability, social and environmental justice, critical health promotion, healthy living environments, housing rights, participatory action research, public health history, health geography

Background

I am an urban health geographer specializing in research related to health and the environment, with a focus on community based participatory research, environmental justice, housing rights, community organizing, and critical public health. I am a mixed-methodologist, drawing on qualitative, archival, arts-based, and quantitative approaches. Over my career, I have held a CIHR New Investigator Award (2010-2014) and a Canada Research Chair (2014 - 2022), and in 2023 became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

I will accept highly qualified graduate students at the master’s and PhD levels, as well as postdoctoral fellows. My students have a strong track record of success in securing external awards including Tricouncil (SSHRC, CIHR) Scholarships, Vanier Scholarships, and Trudeau Fellowships. I encourage prospective students to inquire well in advance of your expected start date of study (at least six months for domestic applicants; one year for international applicants), so that I may support you in applications for external scholarships and awards. My ability to provide funding to students will depend on my own research grants, which varies from year to year. Interested students should send an updated Curriculum Vitae and a brief Statement of Interest, outlining your motivations to work with me, the reasons why you have decided to consider the ̽��ϵ��, and your anticipated area(s) of training and research. Please note that I supervise master's and PhD students in the Social Dimensions of Health interdisciplinary graduate program and MPH students in the thesis stream.

Select publications

Significant career publications

Masuda, J.R. and the Right to Remain Collective. (2021). Abandoning the SRO: Public Health Withdrawal from Sanitary Enforcement in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Journal of Urban History.

Lee, E.Y., & Masuda, J.R. (2021). The ‘freedom’ to pollute? An ecological analysis of capitalism, human-induced CO2 emissions, physical inactivity, and non-communicable disease mortality in 124 countries. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 112, 5, 877-87.

Masuda, J.R., Franks, A., Kobayashi, A., & Wideman, T. (2020). After dispossession: An urban rights praxis of remaining in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 38, 2, 229-247.

Masuda, J.R., & Bookman, S. (2018). Neighbourhood branding and the Right to the City. Progress in Human Geography, 42,2, 165–182.

Phipps, E., & Masuda, J.R. (2018). Toward Equity-focused Intersectoral Practice (EquIP) in children's environmental health and housing: The transformational story of RentSafe. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 109, 3, 379–385.

Masuda, J.R., Zupancic, T., Crighton, E., Muhajarine, N., & Phipps, E. (2014). Equity-focused knowledge translation: A framework for “reasonable action” on health inequities. International Journal of Public Health, 59, 3, 457-464.

Masuda, J.R., Teelucksingh, C., Haber, R., Skinner, E., Zupancic, T., Crabtree, A., Poland, B., Frankish, J., & Fridell, M. (2012). Out of our inner city backyards: Re-scaling urban health inequity assessment. Social Science and Medicine, 75, 7, 1244-1253.

Masuda, J.R., & Crabtree, A. (2010). Environmental justice in the therapeutic inner city. Health and Place, 16, 4, 656-665.

Representative collaborative publications

Baker, R., Aiello, D., Hernandez, A., Noterman, E., Chavez, M., Johnson, S., Masuda, J.R. (2025). Research as Organizing: On the Challenges, Precarity and Commitment of Movement Scholarship. ACME, 24, 4, 444-463.

Yoon, L. Buse, C., Lee, E. and Masuda, J.R. (2025). To Cool or Not to Cool: Understanding and Improving Cooling Centre Use in Metro Vancouver through Community-Based Participatory Action Research. Environmental Research: Health, 3, 1.

Barber, R., Collins, P., and Masuda, J.R. (2024).The Fate of Closed Schools: Documenting the Relationships Between School Property Reuses and their Beneficiaries in Ontario, Canada. Community Development, 55, 6.

Sanchez, C., Giroux, D., Masuda, J.R., and M’Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre (2024). Giiwe: An Indigenous-led model for inter-organizational homelessness prevention. International Indigenous Policy Journal, 15, 1.

Rotz, S., Rose, J., Masuda, J.R., Castleden, H., et al. (2022). Toward Intersectional and Culturally Relevant Sex and Gender Analysis in Canadian Health Research. Social Science & Medicine, 292.

Student-led publications emanating from theses and dissertations

Bailey, A., Masuda, J.R., and the Right to Remain research collective. (2024). Demarking a cordon therapeutique through Vancouver’s Liquor License Moratorium for the Downtown Eastside. The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, 38, 2, 237-278.

Phipps, E., Bumstead, L., Butt, T., Crighton, E., Desjardins, N., Hart, R. Oickle, D., Sánchez-Pimienta, C., Schonauer, M., Umbach, J., & Masuda, J.R. (2023). “It doesn’t happen any other way:” Relationship-building and reflexivity for equity-focused intersectoral practice (EquIP). Health Promotion International, 36, 6, 1-14.

Phipps, E., Butt, T., Desjardins, N., Schlonies, R., Schonauer, M. & Masuda, J.R. (2021). Lessons from a rural housing crisis: Grounded insights for intersectoral action on health inequities. Social Science & Medicine, 270.

Sanchez-Pimienta, C.E., Masuda, J.R., & M’Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre. (2021). From controlling to connecting: M’Wikwedong as a place of urban Indigenous health promotion in Canada. Health Promotion International.

Nowell, M., Masuda, J.R., and the Tenant Overdose Response Organizers. (2020). "You need to just provide health services:" the Tenant Overdose Response Organizers and the limits of the public health overdose crisis response in Vancouver, BC. International Journal of Drug Policy, 82.

Hainstock, M., & Masuda, J.R. (2019). “We have a roof over our head, but we have to eat too:” Exploring shifting foodscapes of homelessness and supportive scattered-site housing in Kingston, Ontario. Health & Place, 59.

Wideman, T., & Masuda, J.R. (2018). Toponymic assemblages, resistance, and the politics of planning in Vancouver, Canada. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 36, 3, 383-402.

Wideman, T., & Masuda, J.R. (2018). Assembling “Japantown”: A critical toponymy of gentrification in Vancouver, Canada. Urban Geography, 39, 4, 493-518.

Alaazi, D.A., Masuda, J.R., Evans, J., & Distasio, J. (2015). Therapeutic landscapes of home: Exploring Indigenous peoples’ experiences of a Housing First intervention in Winnipeg. Social Science & Medicine, 147, 30-37.

Skinner, E.A., & Masuda, J.R. (2013). Right to a healthy city? Examining the relationship between urban space and health inequality by Aboriginal youth artist-activists in Winnipeg. Social Science and Medicine, 91, 210-218.