Daniel Roth

Senior Scientist
Child Health Evaluative Sciences

U of T Positions

Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (status-only)

Associate Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (status-only)

Associate Professor: Department of Nutritional Sciences (status-only)

Member, School of Graduate Studies

Researcher, Centre for Child Nutrition and Health

Daniel Roth received his MD in 2002 from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, British Columbia), completed a paediatric residency (2006) and M.Sc. (2006) at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta), and has a PhD (2011) in global public health and human nutrition from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore, Maryland). Dr. Roth is a clinician-scientist and associate professor in the Division of Paediatric Medicine, Department of Paediatrics at The Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto. He is a Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute and a core faculty member of the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health.  His research focuses on maternal and child nutrition, growth and infectious diseases in low-income settings. He is currently leading an international collaborative study of the early neonatal microbiome and sepsis in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Research

Research over the past 10 years has largely focused on the role of vitamin D in pregnancy, lactation and early childhood, with a particular emphasis on settings with a high prevalence of prenatal vitamin D deficiency (i.e., South Asia). Have led several studies that have documented the low vitamin D status and response to supplementation among pregnant women in Dhaka, and the effects of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy on maternal and child health outcomes. Currently the principal investigator of a large multi-component study of infant sepsis and the microbiome in Bangladesh, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Education

• 1993–1997: B.Sc., McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Major: Microbiology and Immunology
• 1997–2002: MD, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia
• 2005–2006: M.Sc., University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Supervisor: Dr. Sunita Vohra, Subject: Medical Sciences (Paediatrics)
• 2006–2011: PhD, The John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, Supervisor: Dr. Robert Black, Subject: Human Nutrition, Department of International Health

Experience

• 2011–2014: Scientist-track investigator, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON
• 2010–2011: Lecturer, Department of Paediatrics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON
• 2010–2011: Project Investigator, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON
• 2010–2012: Associate Staff Physician, Division of Paediatric Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON
• 2008–2010: Associate Staff Pediatrician (part-time), Division of Paediatric Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON
• 2006–2008: Associate Staff Pediatrician (part-time), Child Health Program, Pediatrics Section, Capital Health Region, Edmonton, AB

Achievements

• 2019: Junior Faculty Researcher Award, Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto
• 2019: Fitzgerald Academy Health Science Research Teaching Award, Fitzgerald Academy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
• 2016: Samuel J. Fomon Young Physician Awarded. American Society of Nutrition
• 2016–2018: Invited member, Scientific Organizing Committee. “Technical Consultation on Global Prevalence and Disease Burden of Vitamin D and Thiamine Deficiencies.” New York Academy of Sciences

1. O’Callaghan KM*, Taghivand M*, Zuchniak A*, Onoyovwi A, Korsiak J, Leung M, Roth DE. Vitamin D in Breastfed Infants: Systematic Review of Alternatives to Daily Supplementation. Advances in Nutrition 2020 Jan 1;11(1):144-159. doi: 10.1093/advances/nmz098.
2. Roth DE, Abrams SA, Aloia J, Bergeron G, Bourassa MW, Brown KH, Calvo MS, Cashman KD, Combs G, De-Regil LM, Jefferds ME, Jones KS, Kapner H, Martineau AR, Neufeld LM, Schleicher RL, Thacher TD, Whiting SJ. Global prevalence and disease burden of vitamin D deficiency: a roadmap for action in low- and middle-income countries. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2018 Oct;1430(1):44-79.
3. Roth DE, Morris S, Zlotkin S, Gernand A, Ahmed T, Shanta SS, Papp E, Korsiak J, Shi J, Islam M, Jahan I, Keya FK, Willan A, Weksberg R, Mohsin M, Rahman QS, Shah P, Murphy K, Stimec J, Pell L, Qamar H, Mahmud AA. Maternal vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy and lactation to promote infant growth. New England Journal of Medicine 2018 Aug 9;379(6):535-546.
4. Roth DE, Leung M, Mesfin E, Qamar H, Watterworth J, Papp E. Vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy: current and future state of the evidence from a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. BMJ 2017; 359: j5237.
5. Roth DE, Krishna A, Leung M, Shi J, Bassani DG, Barros AJD. Early childhood linear growth faltering in low- and middle-income countries as a whole-population condition: analysis of 179 Demographic and Health Surveys from 64 countries (1993-2015). The Lancet Global Health 2017 Dec; 5(12): e1249–e1257.