Congratulations to ARCH Lab’s PhD candidate Shannon Reaume on being awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology!

Shannon’s dissertation is titled “Child Multimorbidity in Ontario.” Multimorbidity is the co-occurrence of physical and mental illness. It is already known that children with chronic physical illnesses are at increased risk for developing mental illness, however Shannon’s research will go a step further by using secondary data analysis on the Ontario Child Health Study dataset. Her study aims to:

(1) estimate the prevalence of child multimorbidity;
(2) examine the extent to which socio-economic status, severity of physical illness, family functioning, and self-concept moderate the association between physical illness and mental illness;
(3) compare the psychological well-being and quality of life of siblings of children with and without multimorbidity; and
(4) investigate differences in mental health service use for children with no multimorbidity, mental illness only, physical illness only, and children with multimorbidity.

Together, the information gained from this research will improve our understanding of child multimorbidity in Ontario.