I am an associate professor at McGill University. My primary research areas are public health policy, ethics, and epistemology. I study the ways that 'black boxes' of all sorts - from seemingly objective measures of health and health inequalities, to complex algorithms - are shaped by human interests and hidden value judgments, which in turn shape individual decisions, collective behaviors, and public policies.  

I hold appointments in the Biomedical Ethics Unit; Dept. of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health; Institute for Health and Social Policy; and the Max Bell School for Public Policy. 

Email: nicholas [DOT] king [AT] mcgill [DOT]ca​

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Webinars

• Defining freedom in the time of COVID
• Weaponizing Uncertainty During the COVID-19 Pandemic 
• Health Disparities Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic 
• Evidence and Uncertainty During the COVID-19 Pandemic 

Media

• A spike in pandemic-related mental illness has overwhelmed Canada’s health care system. The Conversationalists (24 Feb 2022)
  
• Emerging health law ethics challenges with Dr. Nicholas King. McGill Journal of Law and Health Podcast (23 Feb 2022)
  
• The pandemic exposed Montreal's inequalities, and residents say it's time to tackle root causes. CBC News (3 Nov 2021)
  
• Peut-on parler de « décès acceptables » de la COVID-19? Radio-Canada (9 Oct 2021)
• Concerns raised over travel based on type of COVID-19 vaccine received. Global News (22 July 2021)
• COVID-19: Could Albertans choose which vaccine they get? GlobalNews (5 March 2021)
• Trudeau’s move to wait his turn for vaccine signals difference in political dynamics with U.S., say experts. Hill Times (6 Jan 2021)
• COVID-19 Vaccine distribution. CTV News (9 Dec 2020)
• Legault concedes Quebec's pandemic projection data is out of date. Montreal Gazette (16 Sept 2020)
• Keeping accurate lists of COVID in schools not 'mission impossible.' Montreal Gazette (12 Sept 2020)
• How Canada's first long-term coronavirus pandemic projections hold up today. Global News (1 Aug 2020)
• Covid Conversations podcast (June 2020).  
• Racialized groups in Canada will ‘lose’ in the post-pandemic economy. Experts aren't surprised.. Global News (21 June 2020)
• Covid-19: chi teme la riapertura e chi invece pensa all’economia. OMNI Television (10 June 2020) 
• Should B.C. remain an outlier when it comes to releasing locations of COVID-19 cases? CBC News (30 May 2020) 
• How we make decisions during a pandemic. Knowable Magazine (26 May 2020)
• Coronavirus pandemic exposing health inequities among Canadians, experts say. Global News (25 May 2020)
• Florida knew a COVID-19 pandemic was likely. State leaders didn’t warn the public. Miami Herald (20 May 2020)
• COVID-19's devastating toll on families in Montreal's poorest neighbourhoods. CBC News (15 May 2020)
• ​Gare à l’infection volontaire. La Presse (30 April 2020)
• ​Quebec and Ontario are hardest hit by coronavirus. Why are their reopening plans different? Global News (29 April 2020)
• The pandemic pods choosing friendship over public health. MEL Magazine (20 April 20 2020)
• Better late than never? What to expect from COVID-19 modeling —​​​​​​​ if Manitoba ever reveals it. CBC News (22 April 2020)
• ​Reporting COVID-19 numbers in small communities. CBC Radio (6 April 2020)
• The ethics of safe injection sites. CTV News (2 Mar 2017)

Recent publications

• How global is global health research? A large-scale analysis of trends in authorship BMJ Global Health (2021)
• Declining Life Expectancy in the United States: Missing the Trees for the Forest. Annual Review of Public Health (2020)
• Harm Reduction: A Misnomer. Health Care Analysis (2020)
• ​Technological Fixes and Antimicrobial Resistance. In Ethics and Drug Resistance: Collective Responsibility for Global Public Health (2020)
  
• Catastrophe Theory in Slow Motion. Biosocieties (2020)
• The politics of evidence and uncertainty in the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy for Pandemics (2020)
• Cash transfer programs have differential effects on health: A review of the literature from low and middle-income countries. Social Science & Medicine (2020)
• Defining Global Health as Public Health Somewhere Else. BMJ Global Health (2020)
• ​The impact of social and psychological consequences of disease on judgments of disease severity: An experimental study PLOS One (2018)
• The Zika epidemic and abortion in Latin America: a scoping review.  Global Health Research and Policy (2018)
• Epigenetics Changes Nothing: What a New Scientific Field Does and Does Not Mean for Ethics and Social Justice Public Health Ethics (2017)
• Out of Alignment? Limitations of the Global Burden of Disease in Assessing the Allocation of Global Health Aid. Public Health Ethics (2017)
• The heterogeneity of vulnerability in public health: a heat wave action plan as a case study. Critical Public Health (2017)
• Justice, Evidence, and Interdisciplinary Health Inequalities Research. Chapter in Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice: New Conversations across the Disciplines (2016)  
• Has the Increase in Disability Insurance Participation Contributed to Increased Opioid-Related Mortality? Annals of Internal Medicine (2016)
• 'Unsettling circularity': Clinical trial enrichment and the evidentiary politics of chronic pain. Biosocieties (April 2016)
• A Difference-in-Differences Approach to Assess the Effect of a Heat Action Plan on Heat-Related Mortality, and Differences in Effectiveness According to Gender, Age, and Socioeconomic Status (Montreal, Quebec). Environmental Health Perspectives (2016)
• Ebola 1995/2014. Limn 5 (2015)​

Google Scholar
Impactstory

h-index: 21
i10 index: 34
Erdös number: 6

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