CHWN Leads
CHWN Director:
Ivy Lynn Bourgeault is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa and a uOttawa Research Chair in Gender Diversity and the Professions. Ivy previously held CIHR Chairs in Health Human Resources, funded by Health Canada, and Gender, Work and Health Human Resources, a program of the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health Research.
Theme leads:
Neeru Gupta is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, and a member of the editorial board for the Human Resources for Health journal. Her interests lie in research to accelerate gender and social equity towards achieving the Quadruple Aim for health systems improvement: care, health, cost, and meaning in work. Her current projects include the use of population-based survey and administrative datasets to assess gender imbalances and wage gaps in the health professions.
Kathleen (Kate) Leslie is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Disciplines at Athabasca University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Health Studies at Western University. Kate is a registered nurse and lawyer whose research interests include professional regulation. Her current research projects focus on mandatory reporting obligations of health professionals, international comparisons of regulated scopes of practice, and qualitative case studies examining health professional regulatory reform.
Sarah Simkin (MD, CCFP(FPA), MSc) is a family practice anaesthetist and health workforce researcher. She uses health administrative and other data to address a diverse range of health workforce issues and questions. She has a particular interest in health workforce planning and in optimizing data to support health system decision-making.
Dax Bourcier is a pediatrics resident working at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. During his MD/MSc and as a Board member of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, he was awarded the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and Canadian Medical Association leadership awards for his work on health human resources. Through an optimistic and collaborative approach, he is dedicated to the realization of a national learning health system to sustain equitable, inclusive and public health care in Canada.
Integrated Care Models Optimizing Scope
Gayle Halas is an Assistant Professor and Rady Chair in Interprofessional Collaborative Practice at the University of Manitoba,Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. Her research focuses on team-based primary health care, and the communication and interactions that enable collaborative practice, particularly for addressing complex needs and care. Her current research explores patient/public/caregiver experiences of team-based care, and transitions in care that are informed by stakeholder experiences and perspectives.
Mobility, Migration & Integration
Margaret Walton-Roberts is Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo in the Geography and Environmental Studies Department and affiliated to the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is an editor with Gender, Place and Culture and Studies in Social Justice. Her research interests include global migration, gender, and social and economic integration, including the labour market integration of health workers, particularly nurses.
Healthy Work Environments & Retention
Brenda Gamble is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ontario Tech University, and Ontario Tech University’s Principal Investigator for the Canadian Atlas of Palliative Care – Pilot Study. Brenda’s research focuses on the allied health workforce in the community/institutional settings, youth resilience, second victim experiences, and access to services in the community. A recent example of her contributions to workers in the community is illustrated by the co-development of a simulated learning experience for health workers and community members to reduce stigma related to dementia to support safe learning and work environments.
Arthur Sweetman is a Professor in the Department of Economics at McMaster University where he holds the Ontario Research Chair in Health Human Resources. He is also a member of McMaster’s Center for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA). His research is primarily at the intersection of health economics and labour markets.
Sector leads:
Audrey Laporte is a Professor of Health Economics and the Director of the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Professor Laporte is President-Elect of the International Health Economics Association and Director of the Canadian Centre for Health Economics which strives to be a focal point for health economics research in Canada. She is an Adjunct Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and is an Associate Editor of Health Economics, co-Editor of International Journal for Reviews in Empirical Economics and co-Editor of Healthcare Papers.
Katherine Zagrodney is a Senior Research Associate – Quantitative Lead within the Research and Innovation department at VHA Home HealthCare as well as a Research Associate at CHWN working on the minimum data standard CIHR-funded project. She has a PhD in Health Services Research specializing in Health Economics from IHPME, University of Toronto. Her work examines health human resource challenges from a labour economics perspective, with much of her research focusing on home care, Personal Support Workers (PSWs), and wage policies.
Caroline Chamberland-Rowe is a PhD student in the Health Systems Management Program at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, a CIHR Health System Impact Fellow working with the Champlain Maternal Newborn Regional Program and a Trainee with the Canadian Health Workforce Network.
Mental Health and Substance Use Health
Mary Bartram, PhD, RSW is the Director, Mental Health and Substance Use and COVID-19 Policy with the Mental Health Commission of Canada and recovery, and mental health and substance use workplace planning. Recent projects focus on equity in access to psychotherapy in Canada, substance use sectors. Mary has completed postdoctoral research at the University of Ottawa and McGill University.
Kwame McKenzie is CEO of Wellesley Institute and a full Professor at the University of Toronto. As a leader, policy advisor, administrator, clinician, educator and academic with over 260 peer reviewed papers, 6 books, he has worked across a broad spectrum to improve mental health, population health and health services for three decades. He has advised health, housing, education and social services ministers in Canada and UK. He has worked as a consultant to the WHO and has completed terms as a Commissioner of Human Rights in Ontario and a member of the Executive of the Royal College of Psychiatry UK. He has worked as a columnist for The Times and The Guardian and a presenter for the BBC.
Maria Mathews is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. Her graduate training is in health services administration.Maria’s research interests include the physician workforce, primary health care, and care in rural communities. Recent studies have examined the training and retention of international medical graduates in Canada and the work and training of family practice nurses. Her current projects assess programs designed to increase the number of Indigenous physicians in Canada and health impacts of physician turnover in rural communities.
Lindsay Hedden is an Assistant Professor of Health Systems Learning in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and Associate Scientific Director of the University Health Sciences Network of British Columbia. Her work is at the intersection of primary care and workforce planning. Using physician billing, she has studied why the availability of community-based primary care has declined, despite a substantial increase in the number of primary care physicians per capita. Her current projects focus on 1) examining the effects of the increasing corporatization and privatization of primary care on equity, accessibility, and quality of care; and 2) exploring the growing role of virtual care in the primary care setting, including implications for costs, service volumes (depending on the extent to which virtual care duplicates or substitutes for office visits), accessibility, and continuity of care.