A summer of learning and research with the Social Paediatrics Research Summer Studentship Program | Leong Centre
This summer, the Centre supported five students participating in the Social Paediatrics Research Summer Studentship (SPReSS) Program at the University of Toronto. The program gives students an opportunity to contribute to child health research while learning more about how social factors influence health and well-being. In this feature, two funded students reflect on their summer research experiences, what they learned and how they continue to be involved in their projects. Alisha Ahmed is a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto and a summer research student in the SPReSS program. She is supervised by Dr. Rhandi Christensen at The Hospital for Sick Children. “My project focuses on social predictors of neurodevelopmental outcome in children born preterm. We are using a Canadian marginalization index to measure neighbourhood level socioeconomic status and examining how these values are associated with various measures of neurodevelopmental outcome. The SPReSS program a