Shelley Clark
(Canada Research Chair in Youth, Gender and Global Health)
Stephen Leacock Building, Room 713
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T7
Tel.: 514-398-8822
Fax: 514-398-3403
E-Mail: Shelley Clark
Office: Peterson Hall, Room 336
Research Areas
Global health; HIV/AIDS; gender; adolescent transitions; family structure; lifecourse research; social demography; reproductive health.
Biography
(PhD, Princeton University, 1999). Associate Professor at McGill University since 2006.
After receiving her Ph.D. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, Dr. Clark served as program associate at the Population Council in New York. While at the Population Council, she worked on the introduction of new reproductive health technologies such as medical abortion, misoprostol for reproductive health indications, and emergency contraception in a number of countries. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Clark was an Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. In the summer of 2006, she joined the Department of Sociology at McGill as an Associate Professor. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Youth, Gender, and Global Health.
Dr. Clark is a demographer whose research focuses on gender, reproductive health, and lifecourse transitions in developing countries. Her recent work has examined how the social institution of marriage shapes the risks of HIV/AIDS among young women in sub-Saharan Africa. She finds that for adolescent girls in many African countries, marriage does not provide a safe haven, showing instead that married adolescent girls are acutely vulnerable with respect to HIV. Her work also explores whether concerns about HIV/AIDS are influencing the process of marriage as young men and women decide when and whom to marry. One of her current research projects examines how adolescent transitions and relationship dynamics affect risky sexual behaviors among Kenyan youth using an innovative survey method called Relationship History Calendars.
She recently received a Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant to build a Life History, Health, and HIV/AIDS data laboratory, which will provide an important global resource in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. By making data from complex demographic and health surveys more accessible and comparable, this CFI project will enable researchers in Canada and around the globe to better understand the social, economic and demographic factors that are fueling the epidemic.
Selected Publications
Articles
Clark, Shelley. "Extra-Marital Sexual Partnerships and Male Friendships in Rural Malawi" Forthcoming Demographic Research
Clark, Shelley, Caroline Kabiru, and Rohini Mathur. "Relationship Transitions Among Youth in Urban Kenya." Forthcoming Journal of Marriage and Family
Clark, Shelley, and Catherine Kenney. “Is the U.S. Experiencing a “Matrilineal Tilt”?: Gender, Family Structures and Financial Transfers to Adult Children” Forthcoming Social Forces (click here for supplemental tables [.pdf])
Anglewicz, Philip, Simona Bignami-Van Assche, Shelley Clark, and James Mkandawire. “HIV Risks Among Currently Married Couples in Rural Malawi: What do Spouses Know About Each Other?” Forthcoming AIDS and Behavior.
Clark, Shelley, Michelle Poulin, and Hans-Peter Kohler. 2009. “Marital Aspirations, Sexual Behaviors and HIV/AIDS in Rural Malawi.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 71: 396-416.
Boileau, Catherine, Shelley Clark, Michelle Poulin, et al.. 2009. “Sexual and Marital Trajectories and HIV Infection Among Ever-Married Women in Rural Malawi.” Sexually Transmitted Infections, 85 (Suppl 1): i27-i33.
Heymann, Jody, Shelley Clark, and Tim Brewer. 2008. “Moving from Preventing HIV/AIDS in Its Infancy to Preventing Family Illness and Death (PFID).” International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 12: 117-119.
Clark, Shelley, Judith Bruce, and Annie Dude. 2006. “Protecting Girls from HIV/AIDS: The Case Against Child and Adolescent Marriage.” International Family Planning Perspectives, 32(2); pp 79-88.
Kaufman, Carol, Shelley Clark, Ntsiki Manzini, and Julian May. 2004. “Communities, Opportunities, and Adolescent Sexual Behavior in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.” Studies in Family Planning, 35(4); pp 261-274.
Clark, Shelley. 2004. “Early Marriage and HIV Risks in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Studies in Family Planning, 35(3); pp 149-160.
Blanchard, Kelly, Shelley Clark, Beverly Winikoff, Gayle Gains, Ghazala Kabani, and Caitlin Shannon. 2002. "Misoprostol for Women's Health: A Review." Obstetrics and Gynecology 99(2):316-332.
Clark, Shelley, Jennifer Blum, Kelly Blanchard, Loren Galvão, Horace Fletcher, and Beverly Winikoff. 2002. “Misoprostol Use in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Brazil, Jamaica, and the United States.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, 76(1): 65-74.
Clark, Shelley, Usha Krishna, Lisa Kallenbach, Ajita Mandlekar, Veena Raote, and Charlotte Ellertson. 2002. “Women’s Preferences for General and Local Anesthesia During First-Trimester Surgical Abortion in India.” Contraception, 66: 275-279.
Clark, Shelley, Charlotte Ellertson, and Beverly Winikoff. 2000. “Is Mifepristone-Misoprostol Medical Abortion Acceptable to All American Women: The Impact of Sociodemographic Characteristics on the Acceptability of Mifepristone-Misoprostol Abortion?” The Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association Supplement, 55: 177-182.
Muia, Esther, Charlotte Ellertson, Shelley Clark, Moses Lukhando, Batya Elul, Joyce Olenja, and Elizabeth Westley. 2000. “What do Kenyan Family Planning Clients and University Students Think of Emergency Contraception?” African Journal of Reproductive Health 4(1): 77-87.
Clark, Shelley. 2000. “Son Preference and the Sex Composition of Children: Evidence from India.” Demography 37(1): 95-108.
Book Reviews
Clark, Shelley. 2007. Review of Sex Without Consent: Young People in Developing Countries. Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Iqbal Shah, and Shyam Thapa (eds). Studies in Family Planning, 38(3): 218-219.
Courses Taught
Undergraduate Courses:
SOCI 365: Health and Development
Graduate Seminars:
SOCI 513: Social Aspects of AIDS in Africa
Research Grants
Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), “Life Histories, Health, and HIV/AIDS Data Center” (2007-2012)
National Institute for Health (NIH NICHD R21), “Using Relationship Histories to Improve Sexual Behavior Data Among Kenyan Couples” (2006-2007)
