Cheryl Peters, CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow, Health Sciences

by Ariel Root

When she saw workers without proper health and safety protection, Cheryl Peters found her niche in Industrial Hygiene, helping to prevent workers’ diseases and to improve workplaces. She assumed she would end up in the oil and gas industry, but didn’t expect developing a keen interest in a variety of very high, and very unique occupational exposures. Peters declares that her career path has stemmed from a combination of necessity, circumstance, and luck, “but I never thought that I would be an academic researcher.”

Peters came to ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University in 2015, and is now a Canadian Institute of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences, with a cross-appointment at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (Institut Armand-Frappier) in Montreal. Her program of research at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ focuses mainly on epidemiological studies of men’s occupational kidney, skin, and prostate cancers.

“In Canada, more than 80% of the jobs with dangerous or hazardous exposures are still held by men…and this is one reason that men are still getting more cancer than women,” she explains, especially for both occupational kidney and skin cancers. More than 90% of outdoor workers are men.

But there’s also an interesting consideration when reviewing screening frequency for prostate cancer—worker willingness. Are there differences by job? How does a worker’s job influence his or her willingness to seek cancer screening? Peters explains that it seems like there’s more than just socioeconomic status or education at play here, and that comparing screening willingness to job type is more like a job culture examination.

Because her main research interests are occupational and environmental epidemiology, and carcinogen exposure assessment, Peters is also an Affiliated Scientist of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre at Cancer Care Ontario, and the Occupational Exposures Lead Scientist at CAREX Canada.

is a multidisciplinary team of researchers based at Simon Fraser University, which works in collaboration with researchers at University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, and the Occupational Cancer Research Centre based at Cancer Care Ontario. Peters has been involved in the CAREX project since its inception in 2007, where she observed the levels of exposures to carcinogens at workplaces.

More recently, however, her contributions to the project have been related to knowledge translation of the collected data to help researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to reduce carcinogen exposures at work. “It’s all about getting the numbers into the right hands,” she says.

Peters hosts targeted webinars, and works directly with lawyers and unions, performing case review or in-person training related to specific occupational hazards. In some cases, Peters has worked with First Nations communities, performing tutorials on how to use the occupational data collected. Peters expresses the importance in tailoring the research to best benefit the users.

But Peters also acknowledges the hurdles from insufficiently specified data. “We need measurements taken in various environments and occupations.” A lot of what has been recently recorded is now privately owned, and therefore not accessible.

Peters loves the practical components of her research—manipulating numbers, data, and statistics—as well the application and translation of these models and analyses into practice. “I like doing research that is relevant to the workers… and I believe that quantifying [these hazards] can lead directly to policy change that can affect all workers.”

In these cases, Peters acknowledges the importance of applying a new way to look at the research. Having been able to go into the field, and talk directly with workers, Peters learned invaluable lessons from incorporating novel opinions and considerations. “I thought I would struggle to find people, or get a lot of pushback, but I didn’t… lots of people on worksites are passionate about their health… and were able to highlight other workplace hazards.” Peters expects the CHAIM Centre will similarly bring new angles and considerations to her research. “I love the interdisciplinary aspect… connecting with people I may not have otherwise.”

While at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, Peters will continue to examine gender differences in workplace cancer, and build further understanding of the influences of workplace culture. She also expects to identify new sources of environmental and occupational cancers, but acknowledges the current challenges from insufficient data. Her CIHR post-doctoral fellowship will enable her to conduct field explorations, as well as to attend additional training courses, and to translate gained knowledge back into the working communities.

Talking to real workers and identifying their workplace concerns has left a lasting impression on Peters. “It’s long been accepted that men live shorter lives [than women]. But I think that a lot of that is related to exposures at work.” For Peters, this inequity is worth investigating, highlighting, and changing for future generations.

For Dr. Peters contact information, go here.

By Ariel Root

Air pollution, green space, and wind turbines. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, and cancer. Formal training in statistics, and epidemiology. And partnerships across mathematics, chemistry, geography, and biological disciplines. Paul Villeneuve reflects back on an inspirational co-op work term at Health Canada during his statistics undergraduate training. He was required to apply statistics to better understand specific health issues, but found it much more appealing than theoretical statistics. “I guess,” he laughs, “that’s when I thought epidemiology would be more fun.”

Villeneuve is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences, and cross-appointed to the School of Mathematics and Statistics at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University. He is also an Affiliate Scientist at the Ontario Occupational Cancer Research Centre (OCRC) in Toronto, Senior Editor for the Canadian Journal of Public Health, and an Associate Editor for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada.

From the beginning of his time at the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control at Health Canada in 1988, Villeneuve has been involved in controversial health issues that are interwoven with political implications, such as the taxation of cigarettes. Being part of such a strong team of epidemiologists, Villeneuve recalls their high caliber research on topics including physical activity, pesticide use, exposure to radon, and cigarette smoking, including second hand exposure. “It generated a lot of attention [because] we didn’t understand the risks like we do now. These things were extremely relevant to many developing policies; it was easy to become excited about the research.”

Today, Villeneuve’s primary research interests assess the link between environmental and occupational exposures on the health of Canadians. His combined expertise in epidemiology and biostatistics have resulted in close collaborations with Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the OCRC, Cancer Care Ontario, and academic researchers across disciplines in both Canada and the US.

“Much of my work [focuses] on the health impacts from long-term exposure to air pollution, and the health benefits of green space in urban areas.” His expertise has been applied to several large-scale cohort studies examining the association between ambient air pollution and green space, and chronic diseases. Specifically, associations between outdoor air pollution and the risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes; air pollution and its role on oxidative stress mechanisms related to dementia and neurodegenerative disease; urban green space access and its association with obesity and physical activity; the built environment and development of chronic disease; wind turbines and the potential health impacts and implications; and occupational causes of cancer.

Villeneuve’s research is influenced by stakeholder concerns, and the emerging literature. His health research continues to strengthen his belief that multi-disciplinary research teams are critical in developing in-depth health research perspectives and skills. “Think of all the many projects that involve clinicians, statisticians, geographers… you always need to draw from different disciplines. The nice thing is that people bring different perspectives, and you can then adapt [your research] as you learn from others. I’ve been able to work with many different researchers over long periods of time, and feel lucky to have developed both professional and personal relationships with them”. At ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, both the Department of Health Science and The CHAIM Centre combine disciplines, providing opportunities for continuing his engagement in existing and emerging collaborations with various health researchers.

Community engagement and involvement has heavily inspired his research passions. Villeneuve recalls his twenty-year involvement in evaluating the relationship between occupational exposure to radon and lung cancer among Newfoundland fluorspar miners. “We went into communities, talked with and engaged people, including the miners, and did the analysis.” Villeneuve recalls this as one the first projects that he felt truly excited about his work, “because for the first time, it was more than just looking at data. It was [about] going out and talking to people, and hearing of their stories.” A cemetery across the street from the museum of the Newfoundland Fluorspar miners contained many of the individuals who were included in the research.  “My visit there taught me that there are important stories behind the lines of data that I typically run across in an office in Ottawa. Hearing first hand of some of these struggles, and the interest in re-opening the mine because of potential impacts of its closure provided me with a different perspective on how my research could matter at a local level.”

In fact, Villeneuve identifies this as one of the most satisfying results of his research; “interacting with communities, actual residents.” Publications as academic acknowledgement and recognition are satisfying, but “explaining the research— what it means, getting [community] feedback… that level of engagement” is more rewarding for Villeneuve. The general public “doesn’t usually read our papers, so town-hall meetings or workshops that bring together more senior community members is important”.

Villeneuve notes that online articles have become a very important and widely used method of knowledge translation “that wasn’t there 10 to 15 years ago”.  He also acknowledges the evolution of the epidemiology field, especially in air pollution research. Satellites can now estimate ground level concentrations of pollution, and GPS and other apps provide better estimated exposures at an individual-level. As “the field continues to evolve, we continue to do things better and better, and [it continues to be] something that appeals to me”; an appeal that he doesn’t see fading out anytime soon.

Here for contact information for Paul Villeneuve