Leigh Potvin
Biographic Data
| ID | 160766 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leigh Potvin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leigh |
| FAMILY NAME | Potvin |
| SIGNATURE | POTVIN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Université de Montréal |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7759-5952 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 127 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 858 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 126 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Decolonizing Outdoor Education: Toward Fostering an Embodied, Relational Learning Practice
Background: Outdoor education in North America remains complicit in perpetuating settler-colonialism. Purpose: This paper uses a relational literature review methodology to explore how settler outdoor educators come to understand and (un)learn about colonialism. Method: Using relational literature review ( Tynan & Bishop, 2023 ) and Root’s (2010) model of settler learning stages: priming, unconscious and conscious, we explore examples of each lea…
Diet Quality Among Migrant Food Banks Users and the Role of Food Skills
Community-based social assistance programs and household food insecurity among de novo food-aid seekers in Quebec, Canada
CB-SAPs use contributes to reducing Household Food Insecurity. This contribution varies depending on the food-acquisition health-promoting practices of food-aid seeker households
Influencing practices of civil society-led intersectoral networks to improve living environments in the Montreal setting
Population health and well-being are created through access to the necessary resources in living environments. Some of these can be addressed at the municipal level. Intersectoral action is seen as an appropriate strategy to face such challenges. Civic organizations involved in intersectoral coalitions can exert political influence upon municipal authorities to produce healthier living environments. This paper examines influencing practices of ci…
HIV and related health inequities affecting Black communities in Canada: Towards transformative understanding and action
Response to: Beyond hunger: The health costs of Canada’s charitable food model
Association between food security status and dietary patterns in a cohort of first-time food-aid users
Health‐Promoting School Culture: How Do We Measure it and Does it Vary by School Neighborhood Deprivation
BACKGROUND: The context in which school-based health-promoting interventions are implemented is key for the delivery and success of these interventions. However, little is known about whether school culture differs by school deprivation. METHODS: Using data from PromeSS, a cross-sectional study of 161 elementary schools in Québec, Canada, we drew from the Health Promoting Schools theoretical framework to develop four measures of health-promoting …
Fat food justice: Where fat studies meets food studies
This special issue emerged from a sense of disconnection experienced by the members of the guest co-editorial team who seek to advance food justice as food studies scholars on one hand and fat liberation as fat studies scholars on the other. We assert that, despite their similarities and shared commitments to social and structural justice, there has been little cross-pollination between the fat studies and food studies communities. Fat studies sc…
The Pathways study: A cohort study of new food-aid users in rural, semi urban, and urban areas of Quebec, Canada
Results show that newly registered users of food donation programs often have low-income and severe food insecurity, with major differences across geographical locations. The Pathways study is the first study designed to follow, over a 2-year period, a cohort of newly registered users of food donation programs and to quantify their trajectories of service use. Findings from the Pathways study might help adapt the community response to the strateg…
Two strategies used by local intersectoral networks to create healthier environments: A cross-case analysis in the Montreal urban setting
Action aimed at developing healthier living conditions requires intersectoral collaboration, both across sectors and between levels of government. It also calls for the commitment of political and institutional authorities at municipal and higher levels. This article focuses on strategies of local intersectoral networks rooted in civil society for addressing living conditions. A longitudinal cross-case analysis was performed on eight case studies…
It’s time to make room for the next: A look back at the last ten years of the Canadian Journal of Public Health
A midrange theory of local cross-sector action based on the actor-network theory
Given the value of cross-sector collaborations in solving complex societal problems, experts are now recommending that research focus on documenting process–effect linkages. This paper proposes a validated midrange theory on the process–effect links of local cross-sector action on urban living conditions. The theory expands from an initial prospective study showing that changes were produced by sequences of a limited number (n = 12) of transition…
Engaging with community organizations to recruit and retain vulnerable adults: The Pathways Study
Researchers must overcome multiple barriers in recruiting and retaining research participants living in conditions of vulnerability.•A comprehensive recruitment strategy that combines various elements tailored to vulnerable populations is required.•Most studies describing recruitment and retention of participants from vulnerable populations pertain to clinical settings.•This study describes strategies and challenges in recruiting participants thr…
We’re Home Now”: How a Rehousing Intervention Shapes the Mental Well-Being of Inuit Adults in Nunavut, Canada
This study explores the ways in which a rehousing intervention shapes the mental well-being of Inuit adults living in Nunavut, Canada, where the prevalence of core housing need is four times the national average. More specifically, it compares the housing experiences of participants who were rehoused in a newly built public housing unit, to the experiences of participants on the public housing waitlist. The study was developed in collaboration wi…
Universal drug coverage for Canada: It’s time
Housing as a determinant of Inuit mental health: Associations between improved housing measures and decline in psychological distress after rehousing in Nunavut and Nunavik
Social housing construction and improvements in housing outcomes for Inuit in Northern Canada
One-third of Inuit households in the Canadian Arctic are in core housing need-three times the national average. In 2014–2015, over 400 social housing units were constructed in Nunavik and Nunavut, two of the four Inuit land claims regions in Canada. This article examines whether rehousing, following this large-scale construction commitment, is associated with significant improvements in housing outcomes. People on the waiting list for social hous…
Is the end of the pandemic really in sight
Neighbourhood community life and health: A systematic review of reviews
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns: Straight teacher allies reflect on privilege
The role of allies in social movements is an area of social justice activism that is at times celebrated and at other times contested. Sometimes, allies are celebrated for the “good work” that they do to support marginalized people in their struggle against oppression. They undertake challenging and demanding social justice work, often with little to no institutional support or training motivated by a desire to support all the students they teach…
Policy processes sans frontières: Interactions in transnational governance of global health
National policy on global health (NPGH) arenas are multisectoral governing arrangements for cooperation between health, development, and foreign affairs sectors in government policy for global health governance. To explore the relationship between national and global processes for governing global health, this paper asks: in what forms of interaction between NPGH arenas and global health governance are learning and networking processes present? I…
Requirement for Meaningful Engagement of First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and Indigenous Peoples in Publications About Them
No research about “them” without “them”: CJPH policy with regard to publication of health research on First Nations, Inuit, Métis and Indigenous Peoples
Public health saves lives: Sad lessons from Covid-19
A theoretical proposal for the relationship between context and disease
Studies of 'context' are increasingly widespread. These studies often become entrenched in methodological debates rather than being conceptually satisfying. We suggest that part of the problem lies in an inappropriate use of 'classic' methods used by epidemiologists to study context and that it may be useful to study, instead, the relationship between agency (the ability for people to deploy a range of causal powers), practices (the activities th…
Food and eating as social practice - understanding eating patterns as social phenomena and implications for public health
Globally, public health agencies recognise obesity trends among populations as a priority. Explanations for population obesity patterns are linked to obesogenic environments and societal trends which encourage patterns of overeating and little physical activity. However, obesity prevention and nutrition intervention focus predominantly on changing individual level eating behaviours. Disappointingly, behaviour-based nutrition education approaches …
Health inequalities and place: A theoretical conception of neighbourhood
Transcending the Known in Public Health Practice: The Inequality Paradox: The Population Approach and Vulnerable Populations
Using the concept of vulnerable populations, we examine how disparities in health may be exacerbated by population-approach interventions. We show, from an etiologic perspective, how life-course epidemiology, the concentration of risk factors, and the concept of fundamental causes of diseases may explain the differential capacity, throughout the risk-exposure distribution, to transform resources provided through population-approach interventions …
A theoretical and empirical analysis of context
What Is Population Health Intervention Research
Population-level health interventions are policies or programs that shift the distribution of health risk by addressing the underlying social, economic and environmental conditions. These interventions might be programs or policies designed and developed in the health sector, but they are more likely to be in sectors elsewhere, such as education, housing or employment. Population health intervention research attempts to capture the value and diff…
Participatory Research with Native Community of Kahnawake Creates Innovative Code of Research Ethics
Implementing participatory intervention and research in communities: Lessons from the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project in Canada
Integrating Social Theory Into Public Health Practice
The innovative practice that resulted from the Ottawa Charter challenges public health knowledge about programming and evaluation. Specifically, there is a need to formulate program theory that embraces social determinants of health and local actors’ mobilization for social change. Likewise, it is imperative to develop a theory of evaluation that fosters reflexive understanding of public health programs engaged in social change. We believe advanc…
The Roseto effect: A 50-year comparison of mortality rates
OBJECTIVES. Earlier studies found striking differences in mortality from myocardial infarction between Roseto, a homogeneous Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, and other nearby towns between 1955 and 1965. These differences disappeared as Roseto became more "Americanized" in the 1960s. The present study extended the comparison over a longer period of time to test the hypothesis that the findings from this period were not due to random fl…
La santé publique canadienne en état de siège
Women Bargaining to Seek Healthcare: Norms, Domestic Practices, and Implications in Rural Burkina Faso
A theory-based model of translation practices in public health participatory research
This article explores the innovative practices of actors specifically mandated to support interactions between academic researchers and their partners from the community during public health participatory research. Drawing on the concept of translation as developed in actor-network theory and found in the literature on knowledge transfer and the sociology of intermediate actors, we build a theory-based model of the translation practices developed…
Twenty-five Years After the Ottawa Charter: The Critical Role of Health Promotion for Public Health
Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Neighbourhoods: The Conundrum of Identifying Territorial Units
Youth smoking initiation: Disentangling context from composition
Collective Lifestyles as the Target for Health Promotion
Participatory research in public health: Creating innovative alliances for health
Requirement for Meaningful Engagement of First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and Indigenous Peoples in Publications About Them
Understanding place and health: A heuristic for using administrative data
Adapting public policy theory for public health research: A framework to understand the development of national policies on global health
Relocating to a new or pre-existing social housing unit: Significant health improvements for Inuit adults in Nunavik and Nunavut
Understanding the dimensions of socioeconomic status that influence toddlers’ health: Unique impact of lack of money for basic needs in Quebec’s birth cohort
Study objectives: To examine the unique impact of financial difficulties as measured by a lack of money for basic needs on the occurrence of health problems between the ages of 17 and 29 months, controlling for mother’s level of education and neonatal health problems. Design and participants: Analyses were performed on the 29 month data of the Quebec longitudinal study of child development. This longitudinal study followed up a birth cohort annua…
On redesigning public health in Québec: Lessons learned from the pandemic
L’Outil diagnostique de l’action en partenariat: Fondements, élaboration et validation
Utilization of administrative files in health research
L'impact de l'obligation de suivre un cours de conduite sur les accidents impliquant des nouveaux conducteurs, Québec, 1980-1984
Louise Potvin, Francois Champagne, Claire Laberge-Nadeau, L'impact de l'obligation de suivre un cours de conduite sur les accidents impliquant des nouveaux conducteurs, Québec, 1980-1984, Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 399-410
Mandatory driver training and road safety: The Quebec experience
In January 1983, the Quebec Government made driver training courses mandatory for any person seeking a first driver's license. Using accident and licensure data over a five-year period, we conducted an evaluation of the impact of the enactment of mandatory driver training on: the risk of accident for newly licensed drivers; the mortality and morbidity of these accidents; the number of new drivers; and the mean age of licensure. Results of our tim…
Savoir préparer une recherche: La définir, la structurer, la financer
Privacy issues in the information age: What corporations need to know
The Roseto effect: A 50-year comparison of mortality rates
OBJECTIVES. Earlier studies found striking differences in mortality from myocardial infarction between Roseto, a homogeneous Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, and other nearby towns between 1955 and 1965. These differences disappeared as Roseto became more "Americanized" in the 1960s. The present study extended the comparison over a longer period of time to test the hypothesis that the findings from this period were not due to random fl…
Factors influencing the practice of vaginal birth after cesarean section
OBJECTIVES. Vaginal birth after cesarean has been recommended for most women with previous cesarean sections for the past 10 years. This practice, however, has not yet been generalized because high variations can still be observed among countries, hospitals, and physicians. METHODS. A case-control study involving 635 case patients and 2593 control patients was carried out to determine which characteristics of the physician, the patient, or the ho…
Utilization of a Specialized Clinic Following an Ecological Accident
On August 23, 1988, a fire broke out in a warehouse storing PCBs, forcing the evacuation of 5,500 citizens. Three days later, a specialized clinic was opened to examine and reassure the population. Seventy percent of the evacuated people showed up at the clinic. The aim of this case-control study was to identify the determinants of utilization of this clinic among the evacuated population. Cases and controls were sampled from the cohort of the ev…
Participation communautaire et programmes de santé: Les fondements du dogme
La participation communautaire est une dimension importante des stratégies de développement dont elle constitue à la fois un élément du processus et une finalité. Elle est devenue une composante fondamentale des interventions de santé et elle est systématiquement associée aux soins de santé primaires. Une revue des discours, des définitions et des cadres conceptuels de la participation communautaire appliqués au secteur de la santé laisse apparaî…
The Structure of Psychological Distress
In this study we describe the factor structure of the Psychological Distress Index used in the Quebec Health Survey and compare a model that includes psychophysiologic symptoms (29 items) with a model restricted to cognitive and affective symptoms only (18 items). Three samples (n = 2,000) were used to test the likelihood of these two models. Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out using LISREL VII. Logistic regression was then used to exam…
Patterns of Health Services Utilization and Mammography Use Among Women Aged 50 to 59 Years in the Quebec Medicare System
Many studies have identified physicians' recommendation as the single most important predictor of mammography use. Health services utilization is a complex phenomenon, and the contribution of the different dimensions of health services utilization on mammography use is underresearched. This study examines the specific contribution of health services utilization variables in a multivariate model of the recency of mammography use for women aged 50 …
Ecological Foundations of Health Promotion
In this article, human ecology is defined; its historical and intellectual roots are traced through various disciplines to its applications in public health and health promotion today; its strengths and limitations are described; some potential contributions of systems theory are suggested; and some emerging ecological models of health promotion are anticipated.
Assessment of the Integration of the Ecological Approach in Health Promotion Programs
PURPOSE: This article proposes a model of the ecological approach in health promotion programs. Based on system theory, the model identifies intervention settings and targets as two independent dimensions for assessing the integration of this approach in programs. Additional objectives are to present and pretest an analytical procedure that allows the assessment of integration of the ecological approach in programs. DESIGN: This was a descriptive…
Participatory Research with Native Community of Kahnawake Creates Innovative Code of Research Ethics
One Year Outcome Evaluation of an Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Program in a Québec High School
Health promotion through the lens of population health: Toward a salutogenic setting
While strong currents within health promotion have attempted to move the field beyond a focus on individual behaviour towards one that examines the contribution of social environments on health, the tendency is often to fall back on individual behaviour modification as the primary lever for change. The Population Health research agenda bypasses behavioural determinants of health and explores instead the role of social determinants. This body of k…
Linking Users’ Views with Utilization Processes in the Evaluation of Interactive Software
Taking users’ viewpoints into account in evaluation is increasingly recommended. The rationale and methods of user-oriented approaches have been described in theoretical papers. Less often reported are critical and empirical observations on how evaluators should interpret users’ views. In the case of information technology, users’ views may be gathered for the purpose of both evaluation and development. This double function is best served when a …
Collective Lifestyles as the Target for Health Promotion
L’action structurante de l’utilisation d’un modèle pour la planification de programmes en promotion de la santé
Organizational and Professional Characteristics Predicting External Communications in Canadian Public Health Units
A theoretical proposal for the relationship between context and disease
Studies of 'context' are increasingly widespread. These studies often become entrenched in methodological debates rather than being conceptually satisfying. We suggest that part of the problem lies in an inappropriate use of 'classic' methods used by epidemiologists to study context and that it may be useful to study, instead, the relationship between agency (the ability for people to deploy a range of causal powers), practices (the activities th…
Youth smoking initiation: Disentangling context from composition
Inégalités sociales de santé: Un partenariat de recherche et de formation
Évaluation de la fiabilité et de la validité d’un instrument de mesure de l’activation communautaire
A theoretical and empirical analysis of context
Political science (75 works) · Medicine (67 works) · Sociology (44 works) · Nursing (38 works) · Public health (38 works) · Psychology (36 works) · Computer Science (34 works) · Health Policy Implementation Science (33 works) · Community Health and Development (29 works) · Environmental health (29 works)