Dr. Lindsey Richardson, PhD, is a Research Scientist with the BC Centre on Substance Use and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She is a medical sociologist whose research focuses on the dynamics and impacts of employment, income generation, and poverty among people who use drugs.

Dr. Richardson is currently the Principal Investigator of: 1) the Cheque Day Study, a randomized controlled trial examining the drug-related impacts of alternative social assistance disbursement; 2) the Assessing Economic Transitions (ASSET) Study, a cohort study examining the impacts of broadly-defined economic engagement among inner-city residents; and 3) the Research Participation Study, a project examining the social and structural influences on and outcomes related to participation in drug use research. Her mixed-methods research links observational studies, the implementation of social and structural interventions, and research evaluation approaches with the overarching goal to address socioeconomic drivers of drug-related harms and health inequity.

Dr. Richardson holds Master’s and Doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of Oxford, where she was a Trudeau Foundation Scholar. She has been supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Scholar Awards. Her work is currently supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundation Scheme Grant, and she holds a Canada Research Chair in Social Inclusion and Health Equity.