Changing lives through passion-fuelled research
Siobhan Churchill has always been driven by her desire to make a career out of doing something that has a great impact on people’s lives.
Given her exposure to biomedical sciences, population medicine and public health, as well as her passion for social equity, Churchill knew a career in epidemiology would be an ideal fit.
Churchill decided to further her education in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry because her supervisor, Greta Bauer, PhD, had interested that completely overlapped with her own.
“Greta’s research interests are health equity, LGBTQ health and especially trans health, HIV-focused work in social epidemiology, as well as intersectionality studies,” Churchill said. “Those are all subjects I am interested in, so I thought it was a perfect match.”
Churchill’s current research focuses on the social epidemiology of women living with HIV. She is interested in whether or not women with HIV who experienced abuse during childhood are less enabled to disclose their HIV status to their partners in adulthood.
This research is especially important because HIV non-disclosure is criminalized in Canada, as it is against the law to not disclose your HIV status before having sex in a situation where you have a reasonable chance of transmission.
“This sounds good, but it presents a lot of problems for people — especially women — living with HIV,” she explained. “You could be involved in an abusive relationship where it could be dangerous to disclose your HIV status, and it’s something that could be used against you in the future.”
“The idea is that if there is this inequality and women who are exposed to child abuse are less enabled to disclose their HIV status, then how does this law fare if it disproportionally affects these women,” she added.
Churchill’s research is based on the data gathered in the Canadian HIV Women’s Reproductive Health Study, which recruited women ages 16 and older from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. The women included in the data are those with HIV in clinical care, as well as those who are street involved or may not be accessing health care services.
The area of research Churchill is currently working on is close to her heart, as she came out as gay a few years ago. She went to Toronto to attend the Pride Parade and walk in the Dyke March, and ended up walking with women from Women’s College Research Institute who really inspired her to continue pursuing her research passions.
“That was what got me really motivated to pursue this research,” she said. “Actually, the study that my data is coming from is based on Women’s College Research Institute, so things have really come full-circle which is amazing.”
