Dr. O’Loughlin is a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal School. She is also a member of the Carrefour de l’innovation et de l’évaluation en santé at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), an elected member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium, a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and an invited member of the International Network for Research on Inequalities in Child Health (INRICH). She was a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Early Determinants of Chronic Disease from 2004 to 2021. Her team is housed at the CRCHUM and in addition to local researchers Dr. O’Loughlin has ongoing collaborations nationally and internationally. Her research has focused on increased understanding of the relative importance of genetic, psychosocial, behavioral and environmental determinants of the childhood risk for adult chronic disease. She heads several longitudinal adolescent investigations (i.e., the Nicotine Dependence in Teens (NDIT) Study and AdoQuest) and she is a co-investigator on several others. Her research output includes over 350 publications and over 500 presentations at local, national and international conferences. A key indicator of how her work is influential, is its citation in “Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2012” and “A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease, 2010.” Her research is also cited in an INSPQ submission to the Quebec government on proposed legislative changes to the Quebec Tobacco Control Act. Overall Dr. O’Loughlin’s work exemplifies interdisciplinary research that is well-grounded in public health, it demonstrates leadership in child and adolescent research, and it provides the “cells to society” underpinnings for furthering early prevention of adult chronic disease.

My interdisciplinary training allows me to use tools from epidemiology, public health, informatics, and statistics to untangle the causes, forecast future burdens, and evaluate intervention effectiveness of vector-borne diseases. I am also interested in climate change implications for vectorborne diseases. Specifically, my research is focused on malaria, arboviruses (dengue, chikungunya, Zika), and most recently, Lyme disease. 

1. Evaluation of large-scale vector-borne disease interventions

I have been involved with evaluating the effectiveness of large-scale malaria interventions and programs including indoor residual spraying and universal bednet coverage in Uganda. I have recently begun to evaluate a community mobilization approach for arbovirus control in Fortaleza, Brazil with various partners. 

2. Infectious disease forecasting and spatiotemporal modelling

I am interested in applying different forecasting methods and data streams for disease burden estimations, and most recently exploring machine learning methods. I also use spatiotemporal methods to understand the patterns of disease emergence, identifying at-risk locations and time periods, and disease determinants.

3. Estimating the impact of climate change on vector-borne diseases (VBD)

Climate change will have important implications for future VBD and using different scenarios, we forecast future disease burdens using various methods.  We also consider sociodemographic changes and intervention scenarios in our work.

4. Improving disease surveillance

I am involved with various malaria surveillance projects which aim to integrate fragmented data sources and improve data harmonization. Most recently, we are evaluating the biases in reported arboviral cases in the national surveillance system in Colombia.