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Stephen W. Hwang

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Stephen W. Hwang
Born
Los Angeles, California, USA
SpouseAngela Cheung
Academic background
EducationBSc, Biochemistry, 1984, Harvard University
MD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
MPH, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Toronto
St. Michael's Hospital

Stephen Wesley Hwang[1] is an American-born Canadian internal-medicine physician and population health epidemiologist. He is a professor in the Department of Medicine and director of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto. Hwang is also the St. Michael's Hospital's inaugural chair in Homelessness, Housing, and Health and director of the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions.

Early life and education

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Hwang was born and raised in Los Angeles to parents who immigrated from China.[2] As a senior at Rolling Hills High School, Hwang was among 43 California high school senior finalists in the 1980 Presidential Scholars Program.[3] Having been raised in a privileged area, Hwang stated that he had never witnessed homelessness until he moved to Boston for his undergraduate degree at Harvard University.[4] He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1984[5] and subsequently enrolled at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. While completing his medical degree, he met his future wife, Angela Cheung, and they decided to move to Toronto, Ontario for their residency to be closer to Cheung's parents. Following their residency, in which Hwang was named chief resident, they returned to Boston.[2] While Cheung pursued her doctoral degree in health policy at Harvard,[2] Hwang joined the non-profit organization "Health Care for the Homeless" to assist people living on the streets and in emergency shelters.[4]

Career

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A photo of St. Michael's Hospital.

Upon completing his MPH at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Hwang was recruited to Toronto by St. Michael's Hospital to lead their inner-city health program.[2] In this role, he saw patients at the hospital as a doctor of internal medicine and spent a half-day a week at the Seaton House.[6] One of his first research studies in this new role was investigating the death rates of Toronto homeless men. After gathering a dataset of 8,938 homeless men in Toronto over 21⁄2 years, Hwang concluded that they were eight times as likely to die as men in the general population.[7] In 2002, Hwang received the New Investigator Award from the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine.[8] He was shortly thereafter appointed departmental division director of General Internal Medicine (GIM) at the University of Toronto.[9] Beyond his research, Hwang also advocated health equity and social justice through publicly available documents[vague]. In 2007, Hwang publicly admonished the Conservative Party of Canada for threatening to discontinue Vancouver's supervised injection site. He argued that they were putting "the health of the nation in peril" because they "ignore crucial research findings simply because they run contrary to a rigid policy agenda driven by ideology or fixed beliefs."[10] This sentiment was repeated by Hwang and 84 other scientists in 2008 who argued that Prime Minister Stephen Harper "undermined, suppressed and distorted science for political reasons."[11]

In 2011, Hwang's research team published the findings of their Health and Housing in Transitions Study (HHiTS) which followed homeless and marginally-housed people in Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa over a two-year period. The study found that regardless of housing status, participants had extremely poor overall health.[12] In 2013, Hwang was appointed St. Michael's Hospital's inaugural Chair in Homelessness, Housing and Health, considered the first endowed research chair aimed at better understanding the health needs of those experiencing homelessness.[6] One of the first studies he published in this new role found, for the first time, that Canadian physicians favoured patients based on economic status despite Canada's single-payer healthcare system. His research team found that callers to Toronto doctors' offices posing as bank employees were 80 per cent more likely to get an appointment than those presenting as welfare recipients.[13] In 2015, Hwang was appointed director of the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael’s Hospital.[6]

As the director of GIM at the University of Toronto, Hwang helped the department become recognized as a sub-specialty of internal medicine with the establishment of a two-year training program.[9] Hwang stepped down from this role in May 2016 and was replaced by ICES scientist, Moira Kapral.[14] In 2018, Hwang received the Robert Sheppard Award for Health Equity and Social Justice for "outstanding contributions in the development and/or implementation of activities, programs or research related to social justice and health equity in faculty development or postgraduate medical education."[15] The following year, Hwang oversaw the merging of the Centre for Urban Health Solutions into the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael's Hospital.[16] He subsequently received a seven-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundation Grant to continue his interventions research in homelessness, housing, and health.[17] In February 2020, Hwang's work was recognized by the University of Toronto with their President’s Impact Award for "playing a pivotal role in advancing Canadian and international scholarship and advocacy related to homelessness."[18]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hwang received funding through the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force to see how the pandemic impacted unhoused people in Toronto. His main research project was entitled "The COVENANT Study: COVID-19 Cohort Study of People Experiencing Homelessness in Toronto."[19][20] As the pandemic continued into 2022, Hwang encouraged vaccinations for those experiencing homelessness and those in shelters.[21] Hwang was also named the recipient of a Harvard Chan School Alumni Award.[22]

References

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  1. ^ "Stephen Wesley Hwang". University of Toronto. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d Mick, Hayley (October 18, 2008). "Toronto's street saviour". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on December 3, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  3. ^ "Area trio finalists in scholars contest". San Pedro News Pilot. April 28, 1980. Retrieved December 3, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b Goar, Carol (July 3, 2015). "A doctor's journey from privilege to compassion". The Toronto Star. Retrieved December 3, 2022.
  5. ^ "Harbor Area collegians get degrees". San Pedro News Pilot. June 21, 1984. Retrieved December 3, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b c Monsebraaten, Laurie (February 1, 2013). "St. Michael's Hospital appoints Dr. Stephen Hwang inaugural chair in homelessness, housing and health". Toronto Star. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  7. ^ "Toronto homeless live longer than their U.S. counterparts". Red Deer Advocate. April 28, 2000. Retrieved December 4, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "CSIM New and Senior Investigator Award Recipients" (PDF). Canadian Society of Internal Medicine. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  9. ^ a b "Transitions & Thank Yous". University of Toronto. June 20, 2016. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  10. ^ McKnight, Peter (September 1, 2007). "Conservatives Confuse Science and Moralizing". The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved December 4, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Munro, Margaret (October 10, 2008). "85 prominent scientists launch second attack on gov't". The Province. Retrieved December 4, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Hwang, Stephen W.; Aubry, Tim; Palepu, Anita (December 2011). "The health and housing in transition study: a longitudinal study of the health of homeless and vulnerably housed adults in three Canadian cities". International Journal of Public Health. 56 (6): 609–623. doi:10.1007/s00038-011-0283-3. hdl:1807/72366. PMID 21858461. S2CID 23850609. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  13. ^ Oldfield, Jim (November 22, 2013). "Why wealth = health: U of T researchers explain". University of Toronto. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  14. ^ "ICES senior scientist Moira Kapral appointed departmental division director of General Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto". ICES. May 2, 2016. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  15. ^ "Dr. Stephen Hwang to be awarded Robert Sheppard Award for Health Equity and Social Justice". University of Toronto. March 20, 2018. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  16. ^ "C-UHS becomes MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions". Unity Health. November 20, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  17. ^ "Eight researchers at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions receive more than $18 million in federal funding". St. Michael's Hospital. December 18, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  18. ^ "Professor Stephen Hwang receives President's Impact Award". University of Toronto. February 21, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  19. ^ "CANADA'S COVID-19 IMMUNITY TASK FORCE PARTNERS WITH CIHR TO SUPPORT 22 STUDIES INVESTIGATING COVID-19". COVID-19 Immunity Task Force. September 10, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  20. ^ Draaisma, Muriel (December 10, 2020). "Toronto researchers to study COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  21. ^ Ogilvie, Megan (January 21, 2022). "High-risk Ontarians lagging on third doses of COVID vaccine". Toronto Star. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
  22. ^ "2022 Harvard Chan School Alumni Awards announced". The Harvard Gazette. September 29, 2022. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
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