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About Piotr Wilk

Dr. Piotr Wilk is an epidemiologist who uses large data sets to analyze the ways in which children are affected by social, cultural, and environmental risk factors. A major aspects of his research concerns overarching health trends, especially in vulnerable populations.

Children's Health Collaborators: Jason Gilliland and Kathy Speechley
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (includes cross-appointed): Kelly Anderson, Craig Campbell, Martha Karen Campbell, Orlando da Silva, Facundo Garcia-Bournissen, Gilliland, Naveen Poonai, Jamie Seabrook, Speechley, Janice Tijssen, and Evelyn Vingilis


Appointments

Research Cluster Membership

Research Interests
Dr. Wilk’s research focuses on chronic disease surveillance and prevention and the links between environmental factors, social determinants of health, health-related modifiable behaviours, and health outcomes at the local and national level. In particular, he is interested in assessing the contribution of socioeconomic, behavioural and environmental risk factors to hospitalization for chronic disease using linked survey and administrative datasets.


Dr. Piotr Wilk is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Paediatrics at Western University and a Scientist at the Children’s Health Research Institute in London, Ontario. His research is focused on the health and well-being of children, particularly obesity among Aboriginal children and youth. Dr. Wilk is currently conducting a number of studies on child-, family- and neighbourhood-level determinants of childhood obesity and is the Academic co-Lead of the Healthy Weights Connection, a PHAC-funded intervention to improve service delivery to First Nations and Métis children and families. He is also the Academic co-Director of the Statistics Canada Research Data Centre at Western University.


Dr. Wilk received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1994, Master of Arts degree in 1999 and PhD in 2005 at Western University. He also spent one year as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University. He has worked in both academia and government.

His public service career includes several years with the Middlesex-London Health Unit where he worked as the Community Health Researcher and Educator in the Public Health Research, Education and Development program. He also worked in Health Division at Statistics Canada in Ottawa.

In 2009, he was appointed an Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at Western University.

Professional and Academic Experience
Currently, Dr. Wilk is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Paediatrics at Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is also a Scientist at the Children’s Health Research Institute (Division of Children’s Health & Therapeutics) and at the Lawson Health Research Institute in London.

He is teaching graduate courses in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics (Population Health Surveillance and Advanced Biostatistical Methods for Epidemiology) and is the Course Chair for the Population Health course in the Undergraduate Medical Education program at Schulich.

Dr. Wilk serves as the Academic co-Director of the Statistics Canada’s Research Data Centre at Western University and the Academic co-Director of the Healthy Weights Connection, a Public Health Agency of Canada-funded intervention to improve service delivery to Indigenous children and families. His current research is funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Research Group: Children's Health
Research Interest Area: Obesity; Public and population health and prevention; Societal and cultural dimensions of health

Research Overview
Dr. Wilk’s research is focused on the health of children and youth. His current research includes studies on individual-, family-, and neighbourhood-level factors affecting health and wellness of Indigenous children living primarily in urban areas; these factors include social and cultural conditions unique to Indigenous children, as well as aspects of the social, economic and environmental contexts.

Collaborating with Dr. Cooke (Waterloo University), Dr. Wilk studies how a community-based intervention (Healthy Weights Connection) can reduce the risk of obesity among Indigenous children by improving the ability of local public health systems to provide culturally appropriate and effective services.

Working with Dr. Gilliland (Western University), Dr. Wilk evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention that offers a free pass to various facilities and programs (ACT-i-Pass) to increase physical activity levels among elementary school children.

Keywords: Child health, Indigenous health, Research methodology, Statistical analysis

Positions

Present Associate Professor, Western University ‐ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
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Present Fellow, Western University ‐ Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
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Present Scientist, Lawson Health Research Institute ‐ Children's Health Research Institute (CHRI)
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Disciplines

Research Interests

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