Announcing the 2022 Applied Public Health Chairs

Dear colleagues,

Happy New Year!

A year ago, the CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health (IPPH) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) announced the third launch of the Applied Public Health Chair (APHC) program in partnership with the CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR), the CIHR Healthy Cities Research Initiative (HCRI) and the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Initiative. Today the Minister of Health formally announced the investment in the APHC program and pointed to it ability to increase capacity to create innovative and equitable public health solutions and to work with decision-makers to implement these solutions.

I am thrilled to announce the seven mid-career researchers that make up the newest cohort of Applied Public Health Chairs and to offer them my congratulations.

Eve Dubé, Université Laval, Faculté des sciences sociales (Quebec)

Chair aim: Develop our understanding of vaccine hesitancy in the general population and health professionals, as well as develop and evaluate solutions to promote informed vaccination decisions.

Mark P. Gilbert, BC Centre for Disease Control, University of British Columbia (British Columbia)

Chair aim: Build strong community relationships and create better and more accessible testing for sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI) and establish an STBBI research hub.

Matthew Herder, Health Law Institute, Schulich School of Law - Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia)

Chair aim: Improve the system of infectious disease innovation and create the legal, procedural, and policy framework to prepare Canada for future public health interventions.

Andrew D Pinto, Unity Health Toronto, Centre for Urban Health Solutions (Ontario)

Chair aim: Advance upstream prevention in primary healthcare to promote health and health equity nationally and internationally through interventions that seek to reform the fundamental social and economic structures that distribute wealth, power, opportunities, and decision-making.

Kelly Skinner, University of Waterloo, Faculty of Health (Ontario)

Chair aim: With an emphasis on community action, self-determination, and knowledge sharing, better understand the intersections between food security, climate change, and Indigenous communities in the NWT, northern regions in Canada, and globally, the circumpolar north.

Kate E Storey, University of Alberta, School of Public Health (Alberta)

Chair aim: Develop an Indigenous youth mentorship program with innovative methodology and knowledge sharing in partnership with Indigenous youth.

Meghan Winters, Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Health Sciences (British Columbia)

Chair aim: Improve urban environments for all genders by integrating gender equity into healthy city interventions and by creating a change-maker program that includes local decision-makers.

We were pleased to receive many excellent applications in each pool. As you can see, this is an extraordinarily talented group of researchers from across the country representing many diverse areas of public health research and tackling many different pressing public health challenges. We are excited to see what they accomplish over the next six years.

Finally, we have made several updates to the Chair program to improve responsiveness, adaptability, and integration of the program within the ever-evolving public health ecosystem. One important change is that we will be launching smaller, but more frequent, competitions. As such, we have already begun planning for the next launch of this competition. Be sure to stay tuned for more information.

Best,

Marisa Creatore, MSc, PhD
Associate Scientific Director, Institute of Population & Public Health
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

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