Thomas Kerr

Co-Director, Addiction & Urban Health Research Initiative, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Thomas Kerr is the co-director of the Addiction and Urban Health Research Initiative at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (Division of AIDS).

In his role at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Dr. Kerr is a principal investigator of several large cohort studies involving people who inject drugs and individuals living with HIV/AIDS, including the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS).

Dr. Kerr’s primary research interests are HIV/AIDS, injection drug use, health policy and service evaluation, and community-based research methods. A key focus of Dr. Kerr’s work has been the scientific evaluation of Insite, North America’s first safer injecting facility, and his research in this area has contributed significantly to academic, public, and government discussion, both nationally and internationally.

Primary Recipient Awards

Wall Solutions, Thomas Kerr, 2014

Primary Recipient Thomas Kerr

Program Wall Solutions

Translating community-based HIV research into culturally appropriate action with Aboriginal people who use illicit drugs and/or illicit alcohol in Vancouver, BC

Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Thomas Kerr, Faculty of Medicine, UBC; BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Partner(s): Ms. Marion Allaart, Exective Director, VANDU-Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society (WAHRS)

First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples make up a unique segment of the HIV/AIDS and drug use picture in Canada. This includes unique challenges faced by Aboriginal people pertaining to ongoing unmet health concerns related to the legacies of colonization, residential school and foster care experiences, poverty, illicit substance use and access to health and addiction services. The Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, in partnership with the Urban Health Research Initiative of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, are collaborating to create a Knowledge Translation (KT) protocol that incorporates Indigenous methods and ways of knowing in order to: 1) support the recognition and representation of Aboriginal people who use illicit drugs and/or illicit alcohol (APWUID/A) as whole people in research and in the delivery of health care and addiction support; 2) enhance existing strengths in research, health and addiction services that affect APWUID/A and; 3) promote solutions to health disparities and barriers to accessing health and addiction services for APWUID/A. Solutions implemented through this project will seek to address health and addiction needs, impact stigma and discrimination, and inform the process for future community-based research and KT agendas with APWUID/A.

Article (2017) Journal of Social Science and Medicine

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