Andrew Longhurst

Program: PhD (Human Geography)

Supervisor: Dr. Eugene McCann

Committee: Dr. Damien Contandriopoulos (University of Victoria); Dr. Kendra Strauss (Simon Fraser University)

Education

• MA, Geography, Simon Fraser University
• Thesis: Policy Frontiers: City-Regional Politics of Poverty and Drug Policy Mobility
• BA (Hons.), Geography, University of British Columbia

Awards

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Doctoral), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2020)

Research

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography. As a geographer and health policy researcher, my research is concerned broadly with the spatial, political-economic, and social dimensions of health care policymaking. I use a comparative political economy approach to study the movement and implementation of market-oriented health policy reforms and health services restructuring in Canada and the UK.

My doctoral research examines comparative primary care reform in British Columbia, England, and Scotland. The research seeks to explain how funding reforms in the three jurisdictions – including local experimentation ­­­­– are reshaping the roles of government, civil society, and the private sector in care provision and the governance of public health care systems. It seeks to understand what effects these changes have on citizens served by these public health care systems, and how political struggles over the marketization of public health care are expressed through, and influenced by, primary care reform. Using a mixed-methods, case study approach, this research seeks to explain how the political and economic aspects of primary care reform shape whether jurisdictions are successful – or not – in their efforts to improve population health and contain health care costs within a context of fiscal pressure.

I am also a research associate with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and publish health policy and health services research on a variety of topics, including health care funding, privatization, surgical wait times, pandemic response, seniors’ care, physician compensation and primary care reform. I am a frequent commentator on health policy issues, and my research and commentaries have appeared in/on CBC News, CKNW, CTV, Global, The Globe and Mail, Healthy Debate, Policy Note, Policy Options, The Province, The Toronto Star, The Tyee, The Vancouver Sun, among others.

Publications

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Banerjee, A., McGregor, M., Ponder, S., & Longhurst, A. (2021). Long-Term Care Facility Workers’ Perceptions of the Impact of Subcontracting on their Conditions of Work and the Quality of Care: A Qualitative Study in British Columbia. Canadian Journal on Aging 41(2), 264-272.

Sturm, T., Mercille, J., Albrecht, T., Cole, J., Dodds, K., & Longhurst, A. (2021). Interventions in critical health geopolitics: Borders, rights, and conspiracies in the COVID-19 pandemic. Political Geography 91.

Ponder, C. S., Longhurst, A., and McGregor, M. (2020) Contracting-out care: The socio-spatial politics of nursing home care at the intersection of British Columbia’s labour, land, and capital markets. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 39(4), 800-817.

Longhurst, A., Ponder, S., & McGregor, M. (2019). Labour Restructuring and Nursing Home Privatization in British Columbia, Canada. In P. Armstrong & H. Armstrong (Eds.), The Privatization of Care: The Case of Nursing Homes (pp. 102-122). London: Routledge.

Longhurst, A., & McCann, E. (2017). Political struggles on a frontier of harm reduction drug policy: Geographies of constrained policy mobility. In S. Williams & B. Warf (Eds.), Drugs, Law, People, Place and the State: Ongoing Regulation, Resistance and Change (pp. 109-123).

London: Routledge. [Invited reprint from Space & Polity article]

Longhurst, A., & McCann, E. (2016). Political struggles on a frontier of harm reduction drug policy: Geographies of constrained policy mobility. Space & Polity, 20(1), 109-123.

Longhurst, A. (2012). Aestheticization and Consumption in Advanced Capitalism: The Woodward’s Redevelopment as a Landscape of Class Power. Trail Six 6, 2-18

Selected Research Reports

Longhurst, A. (2022). The Concerning Rise of Corporate Medicine. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office. 15 pp.

Longhurst, A. (2020). Assisted Living in British Columbia: Trends in Access, Affordability, and Ownership. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office. 48 pp.

Longhurst, A., and Cohen, M. (2019). The Importance of Community Health Centres in BC’s Primary Care Reforms: What the Research Tells Us. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office. 9 pp.

Longhurst, A. (2019). How (and how much) doctors are paid: why it matters. Policy Note. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office.

Longhurst, A. (2017). Privatization and Declining Access to BC Seniors’ Care: An Urgent Call for Policy Change. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office. 32 pp.

Longhurst, A., Cohen, M., McGregor, M. (2016). Reducing Surgical Wait Times: The Case for Public Innovation and Provincial Leadership. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office. 56 pp.

Longhurst, A. (2014). Precarious: Temporary Agency Work in British Columbia. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—BC Office. 44 pp.

Selected Commentaries and Interviews

Lavergne, R., McCracken, R., Hedden, L., Contandriopoulos, Longhurst, A. (2022, Nov. 16). Increasing doctor pay in BC could help the shortage, but history suggests otherwise. The Globe and Mail.

Dellplain, M. (2022, Oct. 19). The Plan to Stay Open: Relief for our beleaguered health-care system or a move to further privatization? Healthy Debate.

Longhurst, A. (2022, Aug. 29). BC must hold for-profit health clinics accountable. The Tyee.

Daflos, P. (2022, Aug. 24). ‘A nasty issue that has festered’: BC pays almost $400m to private clinics. CTV News Vancouver.

Owen, B. (2022, Jul. 13). Trudeau says Ottawa wants to make sure health spending delivers ‘tangible results’. The Globe and Mail.

Longhurst, A. (2021, Dec. 18). BC needs to get serious about Omicron. The Tyee.

Brown, J., Arya, A., Longhurst, A. (2021, Sep. 15). How can we start to make Canada’s long-term care homes about care, not profit? Policy Options.

Longhurst, A. (2020, Feb. 5). BC needs to significantly boost supply of public assisted living for seniors. The Vancouver Sun.