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2025 GH Day
May 21, 2025Global Health Day (GHD)
All Incoming and Current Residents and Fellows from across all programs and specialties
are invited to attend the
12th Annual Postgraduate Medical Education (PGME) Global Health Day
on
DEATH, EVIDENCE AND EVERYTHING ELSE
Reflections on the scholarship of Professor Prabhat Jha
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This day is focused on the key themes and areas of research relevant to Professor Prabhat Jha’s ~30 years of research in global health. Professor Jha is taking leave from University of Toronto (as of September 2025) to become Nuffield Professor of Population Health and Head of Department at University of Oxford. The day is intended to stir discussion and debate to inform future directions for large scale mortality and evidence studies, outline global collaborations needed and inspire new and future global health leadership and inquiry.
REGISTER NOW
Wednesday, May 21, 1pm-4:30pm via Zoom
Registration is complimentary but required.
Please see final program from this link.
Information from j.kopelow@utoronto.ca
PGME Global Health Day recognized the
PGME Global Health Education Initiative 2025 graduates.
The Global Health Education Initiative (GHEI).
A two-year curriculum for medical trainees led by PGME
Local training. Global impact.
All residents and fellows from across all programs and specialties are invited to apply for the GHEI.
Next program starts September 2025. GHEI details and application from this link.
With best from,
2025 PGME Global Health Day Resident Planning Committee
Dr. Keshini Abeyewardene, Family Medicine PGY1
Dr. Sandra Ileana Pérez Álvarez, Program Radiation Oncology Fellow
Dr. Yenny Rodriguez, Cardiac Prevention and Ambulatory Care PGY2
Dr. Pamela Denisse Soberanis Pina, Medical Oncology Fellow
Dr. Meshach Asare-Werehene, Clinical Chemistry Fellow
and from Postgraduate Medical Education Global Health
Judy Kopelow, Manager, Global Health Initiatives, Postgraduate Medical Education
Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Dr. Barry Pakes, Global Health Academic Lead, Postgraduate Medical Education
Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Director, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency Program
with thanks to
Centre for Global Health Research community
Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto
and
Dalla Lana School of Public Health
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Program at a Glance
12TH ANNUAL PGME GLOBAL HEALTH DAY
1:00 PM WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
RECOGNITION OF 2025 GHEI GRADUATES
presented by
Dr. Meredith Giuliani, Associate Dean
Postgraduate Medical Education, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Dr. Barry Pakes, Global Health Academic Lead
Postgraduate Medical Education, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Committee Member
Dr. Keshini Abeyewardene, Family Medicine PGY1
1:10 PM DEATH, EVIDENCE AND EVERYTHING ELSE
Presented by Professor Prabhat Jha
Chaired by Dr. Arthur Slutsky
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Committee Member
Dr. Sandra Ileana Pérez Álvarez, Program Radiation Oncology Fellow
Professor Prabhat Jha is the founding director of CGHR. He is also the Inaugural University of Toronto Endowed Professor in Disease Control, Canada Research Chair at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, co-investigator of the Disease Control Priorities Network, and expert advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on HIV/AIDS control in India and to various governments around the world on disease control strategies. Prior to founding CGHR, Prabhat headed the World Bank team responsible for developing the Second National HIV/AIDS Control Program in India. He also served as a senior scientist for the World Health Organization, where he led the work on health and poverty for the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health. Prabhat has published widely on tobacco, HIV/AIDS, premature mortality, and the health of the global poor. Two of his ground-breaking publications on tobacco control policy led to the first-ever global treaty on tobacco control, now signed by over 160 countries. Among other projects at CGHR, Prabhat is currently leading one of the world’s largest prospective studies of premature mortality called the Million Death Study. Please see details on Million Death Study from this link. Professor Jha is newly Appointed Nuffield Professor, Population Health Head, Nuffield Department of Population Health, Oxford University (as of September 1. 2025) Announcement from this link.
Dr. Arthur Slutsky is past Vice President of Research at Unity Health Toronto. Under his leadership, Unity Health (and St. Michael’s Hospital) greatly expanded its research capabilities and resources and in 2011 opened its leading-edge research facility, the Keenan Research Center in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. Dr. Slutsky obtained a BASc and MASc in Engineering before graduating from medicine at McMaster University. Subsequently, he was a pulmonary/critical care fellow and an Assistant Professor at Harvard and returned to the University of Toronto in 1984. He has received numerous research awards including the Recognition for Scientific Accomplishments Award of the American Thoracic Society (ATS). He is past Director of the interdepartmental Division of Critical Care Medicine at University of Toronto. His primary investigative areas of interest are translational research and clinical trials in intensive care and mechanical ventilation has led to him being acknowledged as a world leader in his field.
1:55 PM HALVING PREMATURE MORTALITY BY 2050
Presented by Professor Sir Richard Peto
Chaired by Dr. Arthur Slutsky
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Resident Committee Member
Professor Sir Richard Peto, FRS, is Emeritus Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1989 for introducing meta-analyses of randomised trials, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1999 for services to epidemiology, and received in 2010 and 2011 the Cancer Research UK and the BMJ Lifetime Achievement Award. Richard Peto, Rory Collins and others in the Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) have, by their large, randomised trials, large prospective studies and worldwide meta-analyses, increased substantially the estimated importance of blood lipids, blood pressure and smoking as causes of premature death. Peto has recently collaborated in major studies of alcohol in Russia and of malaria in Africa and India. His investigations into the worldwide health effects of smoking and benefits of stopping at particular ages have helped to communicate effectively the vast and growing burden of disease from tobacco use. In addition, his work has helped change national and international attitudes about smoking and public health, contributing to many smokers stopping this harmful activity. He was the first to describe clearly the future worldwide health effects of current smoking patterns, predicting one billion deaths from tobacco in the present century if current smoking patterns persist, as against ‘only’ 100 million in the 20th century.
2:25 PM ECONOMICS, EVIDENCE AND MORTALITY REDUCTION
Presented by Professor Dean Jamison
Chaired by Dr. Arthur Slutsky
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Resident Committee Member
Professor Dean Jamison is Emeritus Professor in the Institute for Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. In addition to UCSF, Dean has been with UCLA and the University of Washington and served as the T. & G. Angelopoulos Visiting Professor in the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (2006-2008). Dean previously worked at the World Bank as a research economist and as manager of the Bank’s Education Policy Division and of its Health, Nutrition and Population Division. Dean was lead author for the Bank’s 1993 World Development Report, Investing in Health. Dean studied at Stanford (M.S., Engineering Science) and at Harvard (Ph.D., Economics, under K.J. Arrow). In 1994 he was elected to membership in the Academy of Medicine of the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Dean served as co-chair with Lawrence H. Summers of The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (The Lancet, December 2013). Most recently, he led work on the nine-volume Disease Control Priorities series from the
World Bank and was lead author of its synthesizing publication.
2:50 PM PANEL DISCUSSION ON AVOIDABLE MORTALITY
Panelists include
Dr. Sonia Anand as related to Cardiovascular Health
Dr. Ronald Carson Marsh as related to Malaria Research: In Adult Trials
Dr. Patrick Brown as related to Particulate Matter 2.5 Research and Geospatial Methods
Reactions from Professor Sir Richard Peto
Chaired by Dr. Adalsteinn Brown
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Committee Member
Dr. Sonia Anand is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at McMaster University, is the Director of the Chanchlani Research Centre focused on Health Equity Research and is a Senior Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute. Dr. Anand received a Doctor of Medicine from McMaster in 1992, Internal Medicine Training at McMaster and a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1996. After additional clinical training in thrombosis and in vascular medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Anand works as a vascular medicine specialist at Hamilton Health Sciences and McMaster University.
Dr. Anand further received her master’s in clinical Epidemiology at McMaster in 1996 and Ph.D. in Health Research Methodology at McMaster in 2002. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Ethnic Diversity and Cardiovascular Disease and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario/Michael G. DeGroote Chair in Population Health Research. Her present research focuses upon the environmental and genetic determinants of vascular disease in populations of varying ancestral origin, women and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Anand’s work is widely published amongst academic journals with over 475 scientific publications, and in 2019 she was inducted as a Fellow to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. In 2020 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Diabetes from the South Asian Health Foundation, UK. In 2021, Dr. Anand joined the National Heart and Stroke Foundation as a Board member. In 2022, Dr. Anand received the Margolese National Heart Disorders Prize and was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2023, she was awarded the YWCA Women of Distinction award. As of July 2023,
Dr. Anand has taken on the role of Associate Vice-President, Global Health. In 2024, Dr. Anand was awarded the Jack Hirsh Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement from the Department of Medicine at McMaster University and the Robert Beamish Leadership Award at the 26th Annual Naranjan Dhalla Cardiovascular Awards Day.
Dr. Ronald Carson-Marsh completed his first degree in Medicine in 2008 from the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), Sierra Leone and his Master of International Public Health from the University of Queensland, Australia. He holds a postgraduate certificate on Health Systems Planning from the Tokai University, Yokohama, Japan. Ronald worked as a medical officer in many hospitals and served as Case Management pillar lead during the Ebola epidemic (2014 – 2016) in Kono, Sierra Leone. He was awarded ‘Young Alumni Excellence Award 2016’ by the Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Australia. Due to his administrative and clinical experience, he worked as the District Medical Officer in two districts and served as the overall technical lead for the COVID-19 response in Bo district 2020 – 2021. He has also served as the programme manager, National Malaria Control Programme. Ronald has published articles on Mortality Surveillance and Antimicrobial Resistance.
Dr. Patrick Brown is a Biostatistician leading the geospatial research team at CGHR, as well as Associate Professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences at the University of Toronto. His research interest combines statistical methods for spatial and spatio-temporal data, statistical computing and soware for spatial modeling, and understanding spatial variation in the declining rate of mortality worldwide.
Professor Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown has served as the Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) since 2017. His research now focuses on the use of evidence and data in public policy. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, a dozen book chapters and over 100 reports, editorials and commentaries. Prior to serving as Dean, Steini was the Director of the Institute of Health Policy, Management
and Evaluation (IHPME) in the DLSPH, an Assistant Deputy Minister in two different Ontario government ministries, and worked in startup and Fortune 500 companies in the US. He received his undergraduate degree in government from Harvard University and his doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is also a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
3:15 PM PANEL DISCUSSION ON ECONOMICS AND EVIDENCE.
Panelists include
Dr. Beverley Essue as related to Future of Cost Effectiveness Analysis
Dr. Anna Dare as related to Future Surgical and Cancer Based Therapies
Dr. Xuyang Tang as related to Evidence on COVID
Reactions from Professor Dean Jamison
Chaired by Dr. Anna Dare
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Committee Member
Dr. Beverley Essue is an Associate Professor of Global Health Systems in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She holds a Visiting Scientist appointment at the Institute for the Advanced Study of the Americas, University of Miami and is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health, India. She is a global health systems researcher and health economist who leads interdisciplinary research focused on strengthening financial risk protection, supporting effective and equitable priority setting and advancing equity, including gender equity, across global health systems. Her research tackles some of the most pressing issues facing global health and is conducted with a network of collaborators and partnerships across low-, middle- and high-income countries. She has led work for key global health initiatives including the Disease Control Priorities series and the Lancet Taskforce on Non-Communicable Diseases. She co-chairs the Scientific Advisory committee for the Lancet Commission on Gender Based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People and co-leads the Economics working group for this Commission. She is also a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Cancer and Health Systems and a Scientific Advisor to the Lancet Commission on Breast Cancer. In 2020 she wasrecognized on the list of Canadian Women in Global Health for her scholarship and contributions to the field.
Dr. Anna Dare is Surgical Oncologist, Division of General Surgery, St. Michael’s Hospital and Global Surgery Lead, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto.
“The question “who counts?” is at the heart of my global surgery work. For all our scientific and technological progress, we still lack basic health information – who dies and what from, who needs surgery and who receives it – for the majority of people living in low- and middle- income countries. Within Canada, the absence of key demographic and socioeconomic information in our health data conceals important and addressable variation in surgical access and outcomes for individuals and communities. Our global surgery research program focuses on quantifying the global burden of surgical conditions, understanding their health and economic impacts, and strengthening national health systems so that countries can better meet the surgical needs of their populations. İis includes running large scale population-based prospective cohort studies, such as India’s Million Death Study, hospital-based registries with linked biobanking in Nigeria, and the GlobalSurg studies which run in more than 90 countries. İe results are then used to design pragmatic trials of system-level interventions. Within Ontario, we are using similar methods to understand inequities in access to cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment, and to evaluate interventio bundles. İe evidence generated is used to inform decisions for how best to plan for, finance and deliver surgical services. Our goal is to increase access to surgical care and improve outcomes for those most in need across the health system, within Canada and internationally. We work at multiple levels to do this: with patients, communities, surgical providers, hospitals, universities, Ministries of Health, NGOs and multilateral agencies (e.g WHO, World Bank). To ensure sustainability, we are training the next generation of health system researchers, thinkers and leaders through programs such as our Princess Margaret Global Oncology Leadership Development course and our Temerty-Ukraine National Health Leadership program.
Dr. Xuyang Tang is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Global Health and Research, where she focuses on social epidemiology. Her research examines how demographic and social factors shape health outcomes, with a focus on disparities in morbidity and mortality. She explores the structural determinants of health—such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and access to care—to uncover the systemic challenges that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Her work spans various domains, including cause-specific mortality and health behaviors, aiming to provide insights that drive equitable health policies. More recently, Dr. Tang has studied the health impacts of COVID-19, particularly among marginalized communities. Her research analyzes disparities in infection rates, vaccination intentions, and pandemic-related behavioral changes to assess the crisis’s long-term effects on public health. By generating evidence-based insights, she seeks to inform policies that reduce health inequities and improve outcomes for at-risk populations. Through her work, Dr. Tang contributes to advancing global health policies that prioritize social justice and equity in healthcare systems.
3:40 PM REFLECTIONS ON STATE OF THE FIELD
Presented by Professor David Naylor
Followed by Q&A, Discussion and wishing Professor Jha well on his journey.
Introductions by PGME Global Health Day Committee Member
Professor David Naylor, medical researcher, higher education leader and Rhodes Scholar
David Naylor served as president of the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2013. After two years at University College, he entered medical school and received his MD from U of T’s Faculty of Medicine in 1978. He earned his PhD in the Faculty of Social and Administrative Studies at Oxford University in 1983 and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1986. Naylor joined the Medical Research Council at Toronto General Hospital in 1987, and the Department of Medicine at U of T in 1988, becoming dean of Medicine and vice-provost for Relations with Health-Care Institutions at U of T from 1999 to 2005. He is the co-author of approximately 300 scholarly publications, spanning social history, public policy, health economics and epidemiology and biostatistics, as well as clinical and health services research in most fields of medicine. He has also been active as a policy advisor to governments in Canada and abroad for 25 years. Among other contributions, he served as chair of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health in 2003. More recently, he was a member of the Global Commission on the Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century, and he served on the federal Review of R&D Spending in Canada. Naylor is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a Foreign Associate Fellow of the U.S. Institute of Medicine and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is also the recipient of various national and international awards for excellence in research and leadership in clinical medicine, public policy, public health and health care.
4:00 PM NETWORKING LED BY
PGME GLOBAL HEALTH DAY RESIDENT PLANNING COMMITTEE
All PGME Residents and Fellows are invited to attend.
Chaired by Dr. Yenny Rodriguez, Cardiac Prevention and Ambulatory Care PGY2
4:30 PM END
Global Health Day Learning Objectives
• develop a deeper understanding of motivations and processes for effective global health activism
• develop deeper understanding of impact of global health on global economics, communities and societies
• encourage participation and engagement in advancing global health
• create a forum for peer-to-peer discussion, to share global health concerns, education under the lens of advancing
new global health research
• identify inequities and and strategies to enhance the future of global health
• encourage further practice, research and scholarly work on global health
The University of Toronto and collaborators, represent extraordinary leadership in global health education, research service and advocacy across disciplines, locally, nationally and internationally. This Global Health Day symposium showcases many of these leaders and celebrates the accomplishments of our PGME Global Health Education Initiative graduates.
Special Recognition of …
Centre for Global Health Research community
Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto
and Venus Bona Jaraba, Administrator, Centre for Global Health Research
Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto
and
Dalla Lana School of Public Health
Special Thanks to …
Dr. Patricia Houston, Vice Dean, Medical Education, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Dr. Meredith Giuliani, Associate Dean, Postgraduate Medical Education
and the
Postgraduate Medical Education community