Dr. Farah N. Mawani
Health System Impact Fellow Profile

Name:
Farah N. Mawani
Host Partner Organization:
Dignitas International
Name of Host Partner Organization Supervisor:
Joshua Berman
Location (city, province):
Toronto, ON
Academic Institution:
University of Alberta
Name of Academic Supervisor:
Stephanie Montesanti
Duration of Fellowship:
1 year
Title of Fellowship / Program of Work
Working with Canadian and global Indigenous, excluded, and underserved populations to strengthen health systems’ response to non-communicable disease inequities
Contact Information:
Website: dignitasinternational.org;
Social media page(s): Twitter: @farahway, LinkedIn: Farah Mawani, Facebook: Dignitas International

Biography

This fellowship gives me an invaluable opportunity to grow my contribution to reducing health inequities between and within countries. I have combined rigorous academic training with practical professional experiences, across Canada, and in multiple other countries, providing me with a unique skill set to influence Canadian and global health policy and practice. I received a CIDA Award for Canadians for my MSc Thesis on Cultural Determinants of Maternal Morbidity among the Maasai in Kenya, a CIHR Institute of Gender and Health Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Research Award, CIHR Research in Addictions and Mental Health Policy & Services (RAMHPS) Fellowship, Statistics Canada Tom Symons Research Fellowship, CP Shah Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology, and a Graduate Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Funds (OSOTF) Institute for Work and Health Graduate Fellowship for my doctoral thesis work on the association of underemployment to mental health inequities between immigrants and Canadian-born individuals.

Fellowship Program of Work

This program of work will address Dignitas International’s (DI) Impact Goal Developing Solutions to Emerging Health Challenges, focusing on the growing Canadian and global challenge of non-communicable disease (NCD)-related health and mental health inequities between and within countries. It will implement a key goal of the global Knowledge Translation Platform for Equity-focused Health Evidence and Research (KT-PEER) network of Indigenous, Canadian, South American and African collaborators. The integrated knowledge translation (iKT) framework used to develop this program of work maximizes its future impact, within the KT-PEER network countries and globally. I am excited to lead this program of work within an experiential learning fellowship hosted at DI, supervised by Joshua Berman, DI’s Global Health Incubator Director and KT-PEER Network Director, with academic supervision from Dr. Stephanie Montesanti, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, University of Alberta (SPH UofA) and KT-PEER Academic Lead. It provides me with an incredible opportunity to further develop my competencies in 1. Leadership, mentorship and collaboration; and 2. Understanding health systems and the policy making process, to increase the scope of my influence on reducing health inequities, while advancing KT-PEER’s work to drive evidence-informed NCD strategies, surveillance, policies, and practice in Canada and globally. I am especially excited to collaborate with Indigenous, excluded, and underserved populations to shape innovative, sustainable solutions to global health challenges.

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