The Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) Program is the first professional doctorate offered at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Students, who require several years’ experience to enrol in the program, rely on their learned practical experiences in progressing through the requirements leading to scholarly work that will translate into changes in public health practice. Along the way, our DrPH students are making an impact, as evidenced by these accomplishments we are proud to share with our community.

DrPH Students Making An Impact

Tashani Parker

DrPH Cohort

Parker facilitated conversations with Black community members to develop National Dementia Guidelines to support family physicians, nurse practitioners and specialists in communicating a dementia diagnosis. The guide shares key considerations and strategies when communicating a diagnosis with Black community members. The guidelines were developed by the Alzheimer Society of Canada in collaboration with The College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia, and PHAC provided funding.

Amy Nakajima

DrPH Cohort

Nakajima was promoted to Associate Professor with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Ottawa, effective May 1, 2023.

Julia Burt

DrPH Cohort

Burt recently published a study in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS) that sought to better understand public perspectives on health data use (i.e., “health data social licence”). This manuscript describes the methodology used to engage with diverse members of the public during the first phase of the project, which was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Burt has been invited to speak at two upcoming conferences: 1) The International Population Data Linkage Network Conference in Chicago in September 2024. The title of this workshop is “Drifts and Shifts – monitoring changes in the social licence for research using health data”, and aims to familiarize participants with social licence concepts, current evaluation methods and prioritize areas for research. 2) The Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR) conference in Ottawa in May, 2024. She will be presenting on Health Data Research Network Canada’s Public Engagement Strategy.

Ronald Carshon-Marsh

DrPH Cohort II

At the invitation of the Africa CDC of the African Union, Ronald recently took part in Technical Workshops on Mortality Surveillance in Ethiopia and Mozambique. Ronald is addressing mortality surveillance in his DrPH dissertation.

More Recently:

Impact 1

Ronald Carshon – Marsh, who just completed his 2^nd year Doctor of Public Health degree has recently published an article titled “Validation of malaria-attributed deaths using verbal autopsy studies: a systematic review” in the peer-reviewed BMC Malaria journal. His work was supervised by his academic supervisor Prof. Prabhat Jha and also co-authored by Profs. Susan Bondy and Theodore Witek. The proposal for this systematic review was inspired and written during Prof. Susan Bondy’s course ‘CHL 4002H Critical Appraisal and the Use of Evidence’. The systematic review was done as an Applied Research Project for the DrPH programme.

In summary, malaria contributes substantially to the persistent burden of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. However, civil registration and vital statistics are weak and incomplete in many low- and middle-income countries and the majority of deaths in these regions occur outside of healthcare facilities, predominantly at home. From the 21 eligible articles reviewed, it was concluded that Minimally Invasive Tissue Sampling (MITS) demonstrated better accuracy compared to Verbal Autopsy (VA) in diagnosing malaria-attributed deaths, particularly in hospital settings. The high specificity of malaria in VA diagnosis suggests population-based estimates of the proportion of deaths due to malaria are broadly plausible. Hence efforts to improve VA by using MITS calibration are justified from a public health perspective. This robust review suggests that further VA studies in malaria endemic areas with MITS and CDA studies in selected populations are highly required to inform policy and practice.

Here is the link to the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12936-024-05035-5

Impact 2

Ronald was invited by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to participate and facilitate in the Collection of Vital Events Information through Sample Registration Systems (COVERS) workshop in Lusaka, Zambia. This event was held from the 22^nd – 25^th July 2024. This is part of the effort to improve the collection and use of mortality data in low resource settings due to the weak Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Sample Registration Systems (SRS) offer a routine and nationally representative data collection platform to regularly update key vital statistics and disease surveillance information. Sixteen country teams from Africa and Southeast Asia attended. In an open discussion forum, Ronald narrated his experience in setting up and implementing the SRS in Sierra Leone with his research colleagues in 2019 and which is still ongoing. He further facilitated many sessions and co-presented the Sierra Leone HEAL-SL project. These valuable information and more technically supported country teams in the development of a feasible and costed action plan for the establishment of sample registration SRS as part of their mortality surveillance program.

Cheyenne Joseph

DrPH Cohort II

Cheyenne was recently awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Award for her exceptional contributions in the field of nursing, rehabilitation, education, and research and her unwavering commitment to the advancement of Mi’kmaq wellness and culture.

Manreet Bhullar  

DrPH Cohort II

Manreet recently published local surveillance efforts in Cleveland to identify fentanyl and fentanyl analogs contributing to overdose deaths, and the changing demographics of the overdose crisis. Her publication in Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports uses similar forensic epidemiology approaches to the ones used in her DrPH dissertation.

Karla Ghartey

DrPH Cohort I

Karla was recently awarded the EPIC Doctoral Award from the Emerging & Infectious Consortium at the University of Toronto.

Anil Thota

DrPH Cohort II

Anil was recently appointed as Deputy Director, Synthesis and Reviews Office at International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). This organization promotes evidence-informed equitable, inclusive, and sustainable development.

Julia Roitenberg

DrPH Cohort I

Julia Roitenberg has been promoted to General Manager and Chief Nursing Officer at York Region Public Health. In her GM and CNO role, Julia will provide leadership on strategic, operational, and administrative matters. Julia is responsible for providing progressive leadership and oversight to the administrative requirements of the Public Health Branch such as strategic and business planning, budget development, and staff engagement.

Eugene Nam

DrPH Cohort II

Eugene Nam has been promoted to Senior Manager, HIV Medical Affairs, at Gilead Sciences Canada. As the Patient Engagement Lead, he works with HIV community-based organizations across Canada to better understand the unmet care and scientific education needs of HIV communities.

Kimberly Harding

Kimberly Harding has recently published her work with Erica Di Ruggiero and her colleagues from Public Health Ontario (PHO) on the topic of Supporting Ontario Public Health units to address adverse childhood experiences in pandemic recovery planning: A priority-setting exercise