Isabelle Malhamé and her team will help implement the new National Women’s Health Research Initiative to address under-researched and high-priority areas of women’s health

SOURCE: Government of Canada and RI-MUHC

On August 24, 2023, the Government of Canada announced an $8.3M investment from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)’s Institute of Gender and Health and Women and Gender Equality Canada for the Pan-Canadian Women’s Health Coalition – Hubs.

Isabelle Malhamé, MD, M.Sc., a clinician scientist at the Centre for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), worked with Rohan D’Souza, MD, PhD, of McMaster University in a collaboration with the Canadian Perinatal Programs Coalition. They have received funding of $840,000 over four years to develop a Hub as part of a Pan-Canadian Coalition for Women and Gender Diverse People’s Health. This virtual Hub, regrouping over 60 stakeholders from across the country, will be dedicated to reducing pregnancy-related near-miss events and deaths.

“The Hub will bring together several key and often underrepresented groups across Canada,” says Dr. Malhamé. “Racialized, gender-diverse and Indigenous health service users, clinicians, policy makers, researchers and persons with lived experience of pregnancy will meaningfully engage and co-create knowledge mobilization activities to reduce severe maternal morbidity and mortality. These activities will be grounded in the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion. The Hub will also strive to be sustainable and to represent a training platform for the next generation of researchers committed to improving the quality of pregnancy and postpartum care.”

The CIHR will support 10 virtual Hubs across Canada that will link and form the coalition with a coordinating centre. The objectives include the mobilization and scale-up of newly generated and existing knowledge and models of care. As well, the Hubs will work to maximize research impact within and beyond the Coalition, build capacity for women's health research through training and mentorship opportunities embedded within the Hubs, and engage in community-based priority setting activities as well as identifying future critical areas of women's health research based on community, regional and national needs.

The Hubs will focus on key priority areas, such as the health of Indigenous peoples, gender-diverse people, women living with HIV, and women who are incarcerated. The Hubs will also focus on reproductive health, prevention of violence against women and girls, and achieving greater equity in health services.

Congratulations to Isabelle Malhamé, and to all the teams awarded funds to improve health care for women and gender-diverse people.

September 11, 2023

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