Faculty & Staff

Yoshitaka Iwasaki
Ph.D., Professor

Dr. Iwasaki’s research examines health, life quality, and cultural/diversity issues including the roles of leisure in coping with stress, healing from trauma, and promoting mental health. His research team has extensively used (among many other approaches) the principle of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) that values power-sharing, co-learning, mutual capacity-building, and co-ownership of research to work with culturally diverse community partners (e.g., Indigenous community advocates, health professionals) and to gain insights into the lived experiences of various non-dominant population groups including racial/ethnic minorities with disabilities. The voices of those marginalized cultural groups are integrated with academic and professional perspectives to advance understanding about the holistic aspects of active living, health, and life quality and its determinants that transcend the academic-community-practice boundaries across various life domains (e.g., leisure, family, work). People-oriented and community-based knowledge and outcomes from such trans-disciplinary research are being translated into culturally sensitive and strengths-based practical solutions with the aim of social change and health care system transformation.

Dr. Iwasaki has over 60 publications to his credit in the past 10 years, in the form of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and others. For example, his work has been published in Social Science & Medicine; Social Indicators Research; Journal of Community Psychology; Psychology, Health & Medicine; Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin; Journal of Health Psychology; Ethnicity & Health; Journal of Leisure Research; and Leisure Sciences. His research team’s funding total is over $4.47 million since 1996 (including the support by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Health Research Council of New Zealand). For example, he has currently been involved in a seven-year international project, titled “Resilient Indigenous health workforce networks: Constructing an international framework” to work with Aboriginal and Maori researchers and community partners, using culturally grounded and Indigenous-guided “decolonizing” methods.

Dr. Iwasaki has received a number of honors and awards in recognition of his scholarly achievements including prestigious Rh Award (Outstanding Contributions to Scholarship and Research) in the Social Science Category at the University of Manitoba in 2004, and Establishment Award by the Manitoba Health Research Council (2002-05). Dr. Iwasaki is completing the final year of his six-year tenure as the Editor of Leisure/Loisir: Journal of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies (CALS). Currently, he also serves the editorial board of International Journal of Stress Management (IJSM) (4th year), and is an Associate Editor of both Journal of Leisure Research (JLR) (7th year) and Therapeutic Recreation Journal (TRJ) (4th year). He sits on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies (CALS). Dr. Iwasaki has been an invited paper presenter at various international, national, and university conferences, and his work has been spotlighted and exposed to media nationally and internationally.

Areas of Specializations:
Culture, Diversity, and Health
Stress/Trauma and Coping/Healing
Leisure, Active Living, and Quality of Life

Education:
University of Waterloo, Canada, Ph.D. (1998) & M.A. (1995)
University of Maryland, USA, B.Sc. (1993)

Selected Recent Publications:

Iwasaki, Y., Bartlett, J., MacKay, K., Mactavish, J., & Ristock, J. (2008). Mapping nondominant voices into understanding stress-coping mechanisms. Journal of Community Psychology, 36(6), 702-722.

Iwasaki, Y. (2008). Pathways to meaning-making through leisure in global contexts. Journal of Leisure Research, 40, 231-249.

Iwasaki, Y. (2007). Leisure and quality of life in an international and multicultural context: What are major pathways linking leisure to quality of life? Social Indicators Research, 82, 233-264.

Bartlett, J., Iwasaki, Y., Gottlieb, B., Hall, D., & Mannell, R. (2007). Framework for Aboriginal-guided decolonizing research involving Metis and First Nations persons with diabetes. Social Science & Medicine, 65(11), 2371-2382.

IIwasaki, Y., & Ristock, J. (2007). The nature of stress experienced by lesbians and gay men. Anxiety, Stress and Coping: An International Journal, 20, 299-319.

Iwasaki, Y. (2006). Counteracting stress through leisure coping: A prospective health study. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 11, 209-220.

Iwasaki, Y., MacKay, K., & Mactavish, J., Ristock, J., & Bartlett, J. (2006). Voices from the margins: Stress, active living, and leisure as a contributor to coping with stress. Leisure Sciences: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 28, 163-180.

Iwasaki, Y., Bartlett, J., & O’Neil, J. (2005). Coping with stress among Aboriginal women and men with diabetes in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Social Science and Medicine, 60, 977-988.

Iwasaki, Y., & Mactavish, J. (2005). Ubiquitous yet unique: Perspectives of people with disabilities on stress. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, 48, 194-208.

Iwasaki, Y., Mactavish, J., & MacKay, K. (2005). Building on strengths and resilience: Leisure as a stress survival strategy. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 33, 81-100.

Iwasaki, Y., Mannell, R. C., Smale, B. J. A., & Butcher, J. (2005). Contributions of leisure participation in predicting stress coping and health among police and emergency response services workers. Journal of Health Psychology, 10, 79-99.

Mactavish, J., & Iwasaki, Y. (2005). Exploring perspectives of individuals with disabilities on stress-coping. Journal of Rehabilitation, 71(1), 20-31.

Iwasaki, Y., Bartlett, J., & O’Neil, J. (2004). An examination of stress among Aboriginal women and men with diabetes in Manitoba, Canada. Ethnicity and Health, 9, 189-213.

Iwasaki, Y., MacKay, K., & Ristock, J. (2004). Gender-based analyses of stress among professional managers: An exploratory qualitative study. International Journal of Stress Management, 11, 56-79.