Elizabeth Saewyc

University of British Columbia, Co-Lead Immigrant Health and Wellbeing Theme, Co-Lead Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group

EducationPhD, University of Washington School of Nursing

Areas of ExpertiseYouth, stigma, violence and trauma affecting adolescent health, risk behaviours, sexual minority youth, homeless and runaway youth, sexually abused and sexually-exploited teens, pregnant and parenting adolescents, youth in custody, immigrant youth, indigenous youth

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Elizabeth Saewyc is a Professor, Distinguished University Scholar and, since 2017, Director of the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She also founded and heads the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre, a multidisciplinary research centre with research collaborators in several countries. For over 25 years, Elizabeth has conducted mix-methods research with many different groups of marginalized youth, including runaway and street-involved youth; sexually abused and sexually exploited teens; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) adolescents; youth in custody; immigrants, home-stay students and refugees; and Indigenous youth. Her research emphasizes how stigma, violence, and trauma affect adolescent health and risk behaviours, as well as the protective factors that foster resilience among these vulnerable populations of youth.

Elizabeth provides consultation on the health of young people to provincial, national and international governments and agencies, including the World Health Organization. She has been named a Fellow in the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, in the American Academy of Nursing, and in the Canadian Academy of Nursing. In 2019, she was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Researcher Hall of Fame.

Recent Publications

Clark, B. A., Marshall, S. K., & Saewyc, E. M. (2020). Hormone Therapy Decision‐making Processes: Transgender Youth and Parents (external link) . Journal of Adolescence, 79(1), 136–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.12.016 (external link)

Okoye, H., Ojukwu, E., Coronel Villalobos, M., & Saewyc, E. (2023). Racism as a Social Determinant of Health: Link to School‐related Psychosocial Stressors in a Population‐based Sample of African Adolescents in Canada (external link) . Journal of Advanced Nursing, jan.15673.

Watson, R. J., Park, M., Taylor, A. B., Fish, J. N., Corliss, H. L., Eisenberg, M. E., & Saewyc, E. M. (2020). Associations Between Community-Level LGBTQ-Supportive Factors and Substance Use Among Sexual Minority Adolescents (external link) . LGBT Health, 7(2), 82–89.