Research Program
The Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing (HECW) program is developing a transformative research initiative that employs an engaged community partnership approach to expand our understanding, practice, delivery and participation in services to improve health for all members of our communities.
The HECW program is led by Professor Karen Soldatić (CERC). With her exceptional, internationally renowned research portfolio focusing on health equity and community wellbeing in Australia and globally, and her wide international network of expert collaborators, Prof. Soldatić will collaborate closely with Canadian health-care institutions, service providers, and civil society organizations to aim for a health care delivery paradigm shift – one that challenges a siloed, expert-driven approach to health and wellbeing and moves instead towards a community-engaged, preventative model of wellbeing.
Uniquely applying a critical disability intersectional lens, the CERC’s research program aims to embed community knowledge into health-care institutions, systems, and models of delivery to promote inclusivity and accessibility for diverse and marginalized populations who have faced long-standing exclusion, discrimination, and stigmatization from the health system. Recognizing the critical significance of disability – as both production and outcome of health inaccessibility – is core to this research program and cuts across all dimensions – research design, project advisory, discrete scientific lines of inquiry, data collection methods and analysis, communities of engagement, and knowledge sharing and implementation strategies.
Four Research Streams for Health Equity and Community Wellbeing:
- Social Determinants of Health and Community Wellbeing;
- Health Equity and Accessibility;
- Indigenous Health and Disability;
- Digital Health Technology and Methods.
Our Research Objectives:
- Develop an evidence base of existing and emerging community-driven actions that render health and health systems inclusive, equitable, and accessible to sustain broadscale community wellbeing;
- Lead the development of health-related digital technology research design and operationalization as pathways for scaling local or community-based health initiatives to broad-scale institutional levels, nationally and globally, while balancing the risks associated with the digitalization of health systems, infrastructure and services for the extension of health inequities and risk mitigation strategies;
- Through the cross-cutting research themes and knowledge mobilization activities, facilitate national and international collaboration, and knowledge sharing and exchange on community-based health work, with a focus on developing actionable frameworks that are sustainable for community wellbeing across Canadian urban, rural, and remote regions;
- Develop and pilot novel methodologies that integrate and are responsive to community and institutional approaches and structures that facilitate and generate socially driven approaches aligned with EDI principles, specifically focusing on health equity and the social determinants of health (inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility);
- Design and disseminate innovative methods and knowledge sharing approaches that amplify and centre marginalized voices, accounting for intersectional structural relationships across different equity deserving groups that promote long standing wellbeing.
Our Training and Development Objectives:
- To provide opportunities for high-level academic training to graduate students, emerging, as well as stakeholders through both online and onsite training activities and research training partnerships, as well as through dedicated research funding opportunities.
- To create and sustain opportunities for collaboration and networking among Canadian and international academics and research centres, as well as community stakeholders, developing research opportunities that promote knowledge sharing and cross-collaborative learning;
- Develop a sustainable, globally connected network of health equity researchers and contribute to the development of new research talent that reflects the diversity of populations facing health equity challenges around the world.