Nick King
NICHOLAS B. KING, PhD is the Director of the MEDEC Lab.
Dr. King is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Ethics Unit and Department of the Social Studies of Medicine, and an Associate Member in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University. He holds a Ph.D. in the history of science and a Masters degree in medical anthropology from Harvard University. Dr. King conducts research in two areas:
Public health ethics and policy. Previous and current research includes work on the ethics of biosecurity, disaster response, and public health preparedness; ethical issues in responses to emerging diseases and the development of antimicrobial resistant pathogens; and health inequalities.
Health information, inequalities, and measurement. A current project with colleagues in the Department of Epidemiology investigates the role of ethical judgments in the statistical measurement and assessment of causality in research on health inequalities.
Publications on measurement of health inequalities:
- Harper, Sam, Nicholas B. King, “Invited Commentary: Best Practice for What?” The Milbank Quarterly 91(1): 205-209.
- Nicholas B., Sam Harper, Meredith Young (2012). “Use of relative and absolute effect measures in reporting health inequalities: structured review.” BMJ 345: e5774.
- Sam Harper, Nicholas B. King, et al. (2010) “Implicit Value Judgments in the Measurement of Health Inequalities.” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 88(1): 4-29.
- King, Nicholas B., Sam Harper, et al. (2011). “We’ll Take the Red Pill: A Reply to Asada” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 88(4): 623-637.
- Harper, Sam, Jay Kaufman, and Nicholas B. King (2012). “Increased risk of coronary heart disease in female smokers.” The Lancet 379(9818): 801-2.
- King, Nicholas B., Jay S, Kaufman, and Sam Harper (2010). “Relative Measures Alone Tell Only Part of the Story.” American Journal of Public Health 100(11): 2014-2015.
- Kaufman, Jay, Sam Harper, and Nicholas B. King (2011). “A More Complete Picture of Higher Cardiovascular Disease Prevalence Among Blacks Compared to Whites.” The American Journal of Medicine 124(5): e5-e6.
Publications on equity & efficiency in public health:
- King, Nicholas B., Sam Harper, Meredith E. Young. “Who Cares About Health Inequalities? Cross-country Evidence from the World Health Survey.” Health Policy and Planning. 2012: 1–14.
- King, Nicholas B. (2012). “Case Discussion: Health Inequities in First Nations Communities and Canada’s Response to the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic.” Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Institute of Population and Public Health. Population and Public Health Ethics: Cases from Research, Policy, and Practice. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
- King, Nicholas B. (2009) “Equality and Inequality in American Health Care.” in Eileen E. Morrison, Ed., Health Care Ethics: Critical Issues for the 21st Century (Sudbury, MA.: Jones & Bartlett): 339-354.
Publications on infectious disease, bioeterrorism, and microbial life:
- King, Nicholas B. (2012). “Invited Commentary: Biodefense and the Production of Knowledge Rethinking the Problem.” Journal of Medical Ethics. doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-100545 2012
- Huttenhower, C., Dick Gevers, et al. (+multiple authors including Nicholas B. King) (2012). “Structure, Function and Diversity of the Human Microbiome in an Adult Reference Population.” Nature 486 (14 June): 207–214.
- Methé, Barbara A., Karen E. Nelson, et al. (+multiple authors including Nicholas B. King) (2012). “A Framework for Human Microbiome Research.” Nature 486 (14 June): 215–221.
- King, Nicholas B. (2008) “Networks, Disease, and the Utopian Impulse.” In S. Harris Ali & Roger Keil, Ed., Networked Disease: Emerging Infections in the Global City (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell): 201-213.
- Aiello, Allison, Nicholas B. King, and Betsy Foxman (2006) “Antimicrobials and the Ethics of Drug Development.” American Journal of Public Health Vol. 96, No. 11: 1910-1914.
- King, Nicholas B. (2005) “The Ethics of Biodefense.” Bioethics 19(4): 432-446.
- King, Nicholas B. (2004) “The Scale Politics of Emerging Diseases.” Osiris 19: 62-76.
- King, Nicholas B. (2003) “Immigration, Race, and Geographies of Difference in the Tuberculosis Pandemic,” in Matthew Gandy & Alimuddin Zumla, Eds, Return of the White Plague: Global Poverty and the New Tuberculosis (London: Verso Press).
- King, Nicholas B. (2002) “Security, Disease, Commerce: Ideologies of Post-Colonial Global Health.” Social Studies of Science 32(5/6): 763-789.
- King, Nicholas B. (2002) “Dangerous Fragments.” Grey Room 7 (Spring): 72-81.
Other Publications
- Nicholas B. King, Veronique Fraser (2013). “Untreated Pain, Narcotics Regulation, and Global Health Ideologies.” PLoS Medicine. 10(4): e1001411.
- Young, Meredith E., Nicholas B. King, Sam Harper, Karin R. Humphrey (2013). “The influence of popular media on perceptions of personal and population risk in possible disease outbreaks.” Health, Risk, and Society 15(1): 103-14.
- King, Nicholas B., Jay S. Kaufman (2012). “More Author Disclosure: Solution or Absolution?” Epidemiology Nov; 23(6): 777-9.