Maria De Koninck

Maria De Koninck, PhD, Health Sociologist

Dr De Koninck has had  a long, renowned research and teaching career focused on the social determinants of health, social and gender inequalities.

Dr De Koninck is a Professor at the University of Laval (Quebec) in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and a principal investigator of the research team on social and health inequalities. She has recently completed research on the social construction of health inequalities, poverty and social exclusion in Quebec.

For several years, Dr De Koninck has been in charge of the “Strategic research axis on social and health inequalities” of the Quebec Population Health Research Network. It is in this position that she chaired the Scientific Committee of the 2008 International Francophone Conference on Social Inequalities in Health in Quebec.

At the international level, she has headed the Gender and Development dimension of Projet Sida 3 conducted in nine countries of West Africa (2001-2005) in support of the fight against HIV/AIDS. She also conducted work in Mali and Burkina Faso as a co-researcher of the Interdisciplinary Research Team on vulnerability and equity in health in Africa (Teasdale-Corti, created in 2007) and as the head of the “vulnerability of young migrant girls in urban settings” thematic area of research.