Dr. Cecilia Benoit

See also: Cecilia's dedicated research site: understandingsexwork.ca
About Cecilia
Cecilia Benoit is a scientist at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (formerly CARBC). Apart from research focused on the occupation of midwifery and the organization of maternity care in Canada and internationally, she is involved in a variety of projects that employ mixed methodologies to investigate the health of different vulnerable groups, including Aboriginal women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, young people confronting health stigmas linked to obesity and asthma, street-involved youth in transition to adulthood, workers in lower-prestige service occupations, adults in the sex industry, and pregnant and early parenting women dealing with addiction and other challenges.
In 2016, Cecilia was honoured with a Governor General's Award in Commenoration of the Persons Case for her “outstanding contribution to the goal of equality for women and girls in Canada.” (Photos: MCpl Vincent Carbonneau, Rideau Hall, and Status of Women Canada) |
Cecilia has received numerous awards for her scholarship and community outreach activities. Most recently, she was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize (2022) received the Killam Prize in Social Sciences (2020), was named CIHR's senior researcher Trailblazer Award in Population and Public Health Research (2020), received a Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation Fellowship (2018), was honoured with a UVic Provost's Engaged Scholar award (2017) and Governor General's Award in Commenoration of the Persons Case (2016). She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2013) and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2013). She is currently leading two CIHR-funded projects that adopt an intersectionality lens: “Team grant on contexts of vulnerabilities, resiliencies and care among people in the sex industry” and “Interventions to promote health and healthy equity for pregnant and early parenting women facing substance use and other challenges.”
Videos of Cecilia
Projects
- Beyond the ‘missing women inquiry’: Empowering sex workers as social justice advocates
- Comprendre le travail du sexe
- Free standing birth centres: Planning an ethnography of an alternative workplace for midwives
- Gender, violence and health: Contexts of vulnerabilities, resiliencies and care among people in the sex industry
- Girls Experiencing Multiple Challenges
- Investing in Police and Non-Profit Organizational Partnerships to Enhance Responses to Sexual Assault of Sex Workers
- Sex workers as educators: networking HIV prevention strategies
- Socio-cultural and environmental health risks and resilience among street-based women and transgender sex workers
- The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act: A structural intervention impacting health equity for sex workers
- Treatment and prevention of illicit substance use among pregnant and early parenting women
- Understanding Sex Work
- Youth Experiences Project: Police discretion with youth who use illicit substances
- Youth-Led Development of Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines for Individuals Aged 13 To 18: A Pathway to Better Mental Health and Wellness
Publications
- Addiction research centres and the nurturing of creativity: the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, Canada
- Addressing health inequities through social inclusion: The role of community organizations
- A reasoned action model of male client involvement in commercial sex work in Kibera, a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya
- Belief-level markers of physical activity among young adult couples: Comparisons across couples without children and new parents
- Benefits and constraints of intimate partnerships for HIV positive sex workers in Kibera, Kenya
- Body image and dieting attitudes among pre-adolescents
- Building on the evidence: A working paper on the sex industry in Canada
- Centering Sex Workers’ Voices in Law and Social Policy
- CISUR Bulletin 21: Lower Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines for Youth, By Youth
- Commentary – Problematic substance use or problematic substance use policies?
- Community Empowerment and Transformative Learning among Sex Workers
- Comparison of the dietary intakes of new parents, second-time parents, and nonparents: A longitudinal study
- Complicating the dominant morality discourse: mothers and fathers’ constructions of substance use during pregnancy and early parenthood
- Conceptualizing care work
- Courtesy stigma: a hidden health concern among front-line service providers to sex workers
- Developing Knowledge Transfer with Non-Profit Organizations Serving Vulnerable Populations
- Disability stigmatization as a barrier to employment equity for legally-blind Canadians
- Exploring courtesy stigma among frontline care providers serving sex workers
- Exploring the promises of intersectionality for advancing women's health research
- Factors contributing to frequent police contact among young people: a multivariate analysis including homelessness, community visibility, and drug use in British Columbia, Canada
- Family kinship patterns and female sex work in the informal urban settlement of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
- From one ally to another: Pratice guidelines to better include people who use drugs at your decision-making tables
- Gaps in post-birth care in neo-liberal times: Evidence from Canada
- Gender and maternal healthcare
- Health service needs for urban indigenous women with co-occurring health concerns
- Historical linkages between reproduction, pronatalism and professional institutions in North America
- In for the Long Haul: Knowledge Translation between Academic and Nonprofit Organizations
- Lack of Confidence in Police Creates a “Blue Ceiling” for Sex Workers' Safety
- Legalization of Cannabis in Canada: Implementation strategies and public health
- Lower Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines for Youth, by Youth
- Managing Conflict: An Examination of Three-Way Alliances in Canadian Escort and Massage Businesses
- Maternity care as global health policy issue
- Medical dominance and neoliberalisation in maternal care provision: The Evidence from Canada and Australia
- Motherhood, medicine and markets: the Changing cultural politics of postnatal care provision
- Occupational Stigma and Mental Health: Discrimination and Depression among Front-Line Service Workers
- Oh baby! Motivation for healthy eating during parenthood transitions: A longitudinal examination with a theory of planned behavior perspective
- Partners and clients of female sex workers in an informal urban settlement in Nairobi, Kenya
- Physical activity and sedentary behavior trajectories across 12 months in cohort samples of couples without children, expecting their first child, and expecting their second child
- Police discretion to charge young people who use drugs prior to cannabis legalization in British Columbia, Canada: a brief report of quantitative findings
- Poverty, Material Hardship, and Mental Health among Workers in Three Front-Line Service Occupations
- Privatization & marketization of post-birth care: the hidden cost for new mothers
- Prostitution Stigma and Its Effect on the Working Conditions, Personal Lives, and Health of Sex Workers
- Providers’ constructions of pregnant and early parenting women who use substances
- Providers’ constructions of pregnant and early parenting women who use substances
- Public Drinking Venues as Risk Environments: Commercial Sex, Alcohol and Violence in a Large Informal Settlement in Nairobi, Kenya
- Public policy, caring practices and gender in health care work
- Regulating Sex Work: Heterogeneity in Legal Strategies for Controlling Prostitution
- Sex Work: A Comparative Study
- Sex work and three dimensions of self-esteem: self-worth, authenticity and self-efficacy
- Sex workers as peer health advocates: community empowerment and transformative learning through a Canadian pilot program
- Social correlates of physical activity across 12 months in cohort samples of couples without children expecting their first child and expecting their second child
- Social relationships and social support among street-involved youth
- Society, the basics: Fifth Canadian edition
- Sociology insights on inequities in health and health care
- Status of Women Canada Issue Brief: Sexual Violence Against Women in Canada
- Stigma, service work, and substance use: A two-city, two-country comparative analysis
- The impact of neo-liberalism on maternity care work in different welfare states: Canada in cross-national perspective
- The Mother-Citizen and the Working-Girl: First-wave feminist citizenship claims in Canada and discursive opportunities for 21st century child-care policy
- Towards a sociology of health and healthcare
- Valuing care work: Comparative perspectives
- Would you think about doing sex for money? Structure and agency in deciding to sell sex in Canada
- “Well, It Should Be Changed for One, Because It’s Our Bodies”: Sex Workers’ Views on Canada’s Punitive Approach towards Sex Work