Dr. Christopher Lo

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD Psychology), University of Toronto, 2001 – 2008;
• Master of Arts (Psychology), University of Toronto, 1999 – 2001;
• Bachelor of Arts, University of British Columbia, Major: Psychology, 1993 – 1998

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Biography

I'm a researcher and educator in medical psychology, social psychiatry and social epidemiology. My work has concerned the improvement of quality of life and quality of care in patients and families coping with advanced disease, and development of supportive care interventions. This has included the use of implementation science approaches to develop psychoeducational interventions for rapid deployment in clinical settings to improve medical decision-making and planning for the end of life. A second strand of research has concerned the design and validation of patient-reported outcomes of quality of life/care for use in clinical trials and program evaluations. These have included measures of family satisfaction with care, quality of life at the end of life, death anxiety and existential distress. A third strand concerns issues of life course and aging, and social determinants of mental health across the lifespan, which may include family, community and cultural supports. My contributions have included modeling the relational system between patients and caregivers and their ability to make use of social connectedness to meet the challenges of advanced cancer; and discussion of a developmental perspective that explains individual differences in the readiness to face the end of life. I also have interests in quantitative and qualitative methods and their mixing, and the study of wider cultural issues concerning the evolution of self and identity over time.

Research Interests

• Health/Medical Psychology
• Life Course and Aging
• Culture, Self and Society