Celebrating Global Commitment to Health and Well-being
Considering World Health Day on April 7th, The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation would like to take the opportunity to celebrate the global commitment to health and well-being. As we reflect on this occasion, we would like to showcase several impactful research studies and papers from our active Scholars. These contributions not only demonstrate our collective dedication to advancing knowledge in the field of health but also highlight the innovative approaches and insights that our Scholars bring to addressing complex health challenges.
Carlos Ernesto Sanchez-Pimienta (2023 Scholar)
Carlos Ernesto Sanchez-Pimienta is a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, on the Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
As an emerging scholar from Mexico currently living in Canada, he was particularly interested in the Tiohtià:ke Statement’s call to “unlearn and disrupt past assumptions and biases”. He shares his insights into what unlearning colonial assumptions meant for him in the context of health promotion.
His first publication explores Indigenous health promotion in Canada through a case study of M'Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre. His paper reports on insights gained from ceding space to Indigenous voices and knowledge as one way forward to overcoming the limitation of health promotion being framed according to contexts and priorities of Western communities, thus decolonizing the field.
Click here to read more about Carlos Ernesto Sanchez-Pimienta.
Holly Mathias (2023 Scholar)
Holly Mathias is a PhD student and Vanier Scholar in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. She holds a Master’s degree in Health Promotion at the Dalhousie University.
Holly organized and presented at a CIHR-funded national panel and workshop on responding to drug poisoning deaths or 'overdose' in rural Canada. A community report is forthcoming.
She also co-authored the first scoping review of services that support the sexual and reproductive health of pregnant people who use drugs in Canada. This analysis was grounded in a reproductive justice and Sustainable Development Goals framework.
As part of her larger research team (Inner City Health and Wellness Program), she is currently working on a scoping review funded by Canadian Public Health Association to design a "public health approach" to substance use framework.
Click here to read more about Holly Mathias.
Roojin Habibi (2022 Scholar)
Roojin holds a J.D. in French Common Law at the University of Ottawa, a Master’s of Science in Global Health at the McMaster University, and a certificate in Transnational Law at the University of Geneva.
Her latest work focuses on building a framework that promotes and secures human rights in public health emergencies. For the past three years, she devoted her time working to counter the distressing pattern of the vulnerabilities of health care systems across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis intensified pre-existing inequalities, increasing the hardship experienced by marginalized communities.
Click here to read more about Roojin Habibi.