Shelley Harris first became interested in occupational and environmental health while travelling in India and Jamaica as part of her undergraduate minor in International Agriculture, where poor working conditions led to exacerbated risk for serious acute illness due to environmental and occupational exposures. Now focusing on chronic disease in Canada and the United States, Shelley has a distinct appreciation for the challenges that exist when quantifying small, long-term exposures linked with cancer and other chronic diseases, and has centred her work on improving measurement of occupational and environmental exposures for determining disease risk. Shelley adds rigor and immense field-specific knowledge to the OCRC team, attracting both students and collaborating researchers to the Centre.
Key Appointments
- Scientist, Prevention, Screening & Cancer Control, Cancer Care Ontario
- Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Education
- B.Sc. (Environmental Biology and International Agriculture), University of Guelph (1988)
- M.Sc. (Environmental Toxicology), University of Guelph (1991)
- Ph.D. (Epidemiology), University of Toronto (1999)
Current OCRC Projects
- Exposures to emerging environmental contaminants and risk of breast cancer in young women: A case-control study using biomarkers of exposure
- Priority issues in occupational cancer research: Ontario stakeholder perspectives
- Exposure to multiple pesticides and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men from six Canadian provinces
- Cross-Canada study of pesticides and select cancers: New analyses
- National study of exposure to pesticides among professional applicators: an investigation based on urinary biomarkers
- A model to predict 24-Hour urinary creatinine using repeated measurements in an occupational cohort study
- Ontario uranium miner cohort: Linkage with national mortality and cancer incidence files
- Occupational exposure to diesel and gasoline engine emissions and the incidence of colorectal and bladder cancer in Canadian men
- Occupational exposures in emergency medical service providers and knowledge of and compliance with universal precautions
- Fish and shellfish consumption estimates and perceptions of risk in a cohort of occupational and recreational fishers of the Chesapeake Bay
Related Activities
- Chair, Environmental and Occupational Working Group for the Ontario Health Study (OHS)
- Member, National Occupational and Environmental Advisory Group for the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project
- Member, Environmental Health Working Group, Division of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
- National Uranium Miners Working Group member (collaboration with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission)
