Associate Professor in Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba
Dr. Elias is an associate professor in Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba and former co-director and founding member of the Manitoba First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research. Her research interests include gender health, mental health, social determinants, health info-structures, Indigenous and inter-trans disciplinary health research, and research ethics. She conducts multilevel quantitative and mixed-method studies into the social, cultural, biological, economic, political and historical determinants of health. Dr. Elias is a strong advocate of team collaborations and has contributed as a principal, co-principal and co-investigator to more than 38 grants exceeding $18 million. Dr. Elias is a research affiliate with the UM Centre for Human Rights Research (CHRR) and is working with like-minded colleagues to advance the health rights of populations. Dr. Elias has initiated and led three noteworthy national CIHR grants to understand through novel data linkage approaches the determinants of health disparities in First Nations communities.
Dr. Elias has developed a health disparity research program that involves linking the federal Indian Registry System to the Province of Manitoba health and social, administrative databases to make transparent the gap in health status between First Nations and all Other Manitobans and to illustrate where progress has been made. She is a member of the International Indigenous Health Measurement Working Group and is working with academic and government researchers from Canada, United States, New Zealand and Australia to liberate health and social information for indigenous people worldwide in keeping with the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples. Dr. Elias is also the lead investigator of “Translating to the Community: A social epigenetic nutritional study of FASD.” This CIHR and MLLC funded study is linked to an international FASD consortium developing an early diagnostic biomarker tool for FASD and associated co-morbidities. This study is framed to advance the rights of children and adults living with FASD. In addition, she is a member of the CHRR water rights consortium and has collaborated with University of Manitoba researchers (academic leads) to secure national funding from CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC to advance First Nations water rights in Canada. Dr. Elias teaches health survey research methods and the social organization of health in the Department of Community Health Sciences.
