Master's of Public Health Program Stream

Scientific Lead: Dr. Laura Rosella

Project Description: Type 2 diabetes presents a high and growing burden in Peel region, with an incidence rate of 1,192 per 100,000, representing an increase of 182% since 1996. Some population groups are disproportionately affected by diabetes, such as certain ethnicities and socioeconomic groups, and this represents a health equity problem. Historically, much of diabetes prevention has focused on individual-level interventions that address modifiable lifestyle risk factors and pharmacotherapy interventions for those at high risk. The need for multi-level interventions to address the inequity in diabetes is increasingly being recognized. It is important to consider that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach because there is heterogeneity within the population with socioeconomic and lifestyle risk factors and heterogeneity across communities. We aim to review and synthesize the available literature on multi-level diabetes prevention interventions that address lifestyle and socioeconomic risk factors. In doing so, we will compile evidence-based multi-level interventions that can inform diabetes prevention planning in Peel Region and beyond. We will also integrate these interventions into novel modelling approaches to inform diabetes prevention.

Scientific Lead: Dr. Baiju Shah

Project Description: CarePoint Health is an inter-professional care team in Mississauga including nurses, dietitians, social workers, physiotherapists, psychologists and pharmacists. Although few family physicians in Mississauga are attached to team-based primary care funding models, CarePoint Health provides the benefits of team-based care to the patients of family physicians who are not in these models. The objective of this project will be to evaluate the impact of this expanded access to an inter-professional team on the care of patients with diabetes. Using provincial healthcare administrative databases, we will compare diabetes quality of care metrics of the patients of family physicians before and after they became affiliated with CarePoint Health, and between patients of CarePoint Health-affiliated family physicians and other family physicians in Mississauga. 

Scientific Lead: Dr. Ghazal Fazli

Project Description: In Peel Region type 2 diabetes (T2D) prevalence is 15.7%, and even up to 20% in some communities, compared to 10% for Ontario. A major challenge in addressing rising diabetes rates is delayed or potentially missed diagnoses. This is a specific issue in Peel region where recent data on primary care attachments indicate that most residents are not connected to a primary care provider. While involvement of patients in health research has increased tremendously, meaningful partnerships with patients to co-develop solutions for disease prevention are lacking. This work will engage with communities’ impacted the most by T2D to understand the barriers, inequities and lived experiences of racialized and marginalized communities who do not have access to a primary care provider and are unable to undergo diabetes screening and co-develop optimal and equitable community-based diabetes screening intervention