PHO scientist awarded prestigious Canada Research Chair

Congratulations to Dr. Laura Rosella, who, as an assistant professor at the University of Toronto (UofT), was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics.

As a Canada Research Chair, Rosella’s research will be focused on examining and improving societal health with enhanced prevention strategies, equitable resource allocation and innovative policy design. These domains align with Rosella’s work at PHO, where she has studied chronic disease prevention, including the risk and burden of type 2 diabetes in Canada; the characteristics and determinants of high-cost users of health care systems; and has developed innovative tools for public health practice, including the Diabetes Population Risk Tool (DPoRT).

Her research will continue to develop tools to inform health system planning, and will use data systems to examine how the health system is functioning, including health inequities among Canadians, health system inefficiencies and priorities for action.

The award, a Tier 2 Chair, is given to exceptional emerging researchers acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their fields. The university will receive half a million dollars over the next five years to support her research.

In addition to being a scientist at PHO, and an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at UofT, Rosella is an adjunct scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, and a member of the Banting and Best Diabetes Centre, at the Faculty of Medicine of UofT.