Denise Gastaldo PhD

I study the social and political dimensions of health using participatory methodologies

Dr. Denise Gastaldo is a methodologist, researcher, educator and mentor. She has degrees in Nursing, Public Health, Education and Social Sciences in the Global South and North. For the last 25 years, she has worked internationally to build capacity for health research and to develop critical and equitable approaches to produce transformative knowledge to promote health for all. Her methodological scholarship is focused on critical qualitative health research (www.ccqhr.utoronto.ca). She has been the co-editor of four qualitative research books published in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, including contributions from 20 countries, in addition to numerous articles. Dr. Gastaldo has also co-created the methodology ‘body-map storytelling’ that has been used in the last 10 years in 15 countries. Her empirical scholarship concentrates on the health consequences of social inequity. She studies how power relations and socio-economic-environmental circumstances shape people’s lives and health, with applications to nursing and immigrants’ health. Over the last 25 years, Dr. Gastaldo has supervised or co-supervised over 60 postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows.