Kiffer G. Card

Kiffer is an Assistant Professor (grant tenure) in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, where he holds the Blanche and Charlie Beckerman Scholar for Public Health Innovation and a Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar award. He also directs the Healthy Ecologies and Lifestyles Lab and serves as President for three non-profit organizations, including Island Sexual Health Community Health Centre, the Canadian Alliance for Social Connection and Health (CASCH) and the Mental Health and Climate Change Alliance (MHCCA).

Dr. Card’s research program asks how the social environment shapes mental and physical health - and what governments, health systems, and communities can do about it. He works across four interconnected lines of inquiry: social connection and loneliness; climate change and mental health; social prescribing and health-system change; and syndemics and public health crises. He leads this work as Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on funding from CIHR, SSHRC, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Michael Smith Health Research BC, the BC Ministry of Health, the Canadian Red Cross, and several philanthropic partners.

Moving beyond traditional academic scholarship, Dr. Card translates this work into public-health infrastructure through community-based engagement and knowledge translation -- ensuring that his lab's research is readily taken up by policy makers and practitioners locally and globally.