Current Positions

Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine
Canada Research Chair

Education

Postdoctoral fellowship, the George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation, University of Manitoba
PhD, College of Pharmacy, University of Manitoba
MSc, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Jordan
BSc, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Jordan

Research Focus

My research uses health and non-health administrative data in Manitoba to gain new insights into child health and its relationship with social and educational indicators. Specifically, I focus on characterizing mental disorders and the effects of psychotropic treatments in children. My research also aims to improve the accessibility and validity of administrative data for health and social research.

Research Interests

My research interests are data science, maternal and child health, mental health and pharmacoepidemiology. The first theme of my research program as a CRC in Population Data Science and Data Curation will build research-ready linked cohorts from data contained in the Repository of administrative data in Manitoba. Due to my own and the large interest of the Manitoba research community in child health, the first one will be a birth cohort that will include children born in Manitoba since 1970 with linkages to family members and data from health, social services and education. This cohort will be prepared to support research with pre-defined populations and variables to facilitate population-based research into the interplay of child health, social policy and educational outcomes. The second theme will develop and validate methods to identify mental disorders during childhood from administrative data, such as mood and anxiety disorders and ADHD, to facilitate accurate identification of mental disorders and improve the quality of mental health research relying on administrative data. The third theme will provide new population-based insights into determinants and outcomes of mental disorders in children and the long-term effects of psychotropics on health, social and educational domains.