Nine outstanding Ontario university scholars will share more than $230,000 through the Ontario Women’s Health Scholars Awards to improve the health of women through research into such issues as stroke, eating disorders, autism, postpartum depression and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

“The Women’s Health Scholars Awards are a gateway to important breakthroughs in the understanding of women’s health that will benefit not just women here in Ontario, but all around the world,” says Max Blouw, President of Wilfrid Laurier University and Chair of the Council of Ontario Universities (COU), which administers the awards.

The 2015 recipients include post-doctoral, doctoral and master’s students from eight Ontario universities who will receive scholarships of $18,000 to $40,000 each plus grants of $1,000 to $5,000 to support the research. The awards were established in 2001 through funding from Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

“We thank the Ontario government for funding this crucial university research. These studies improve women’s health and also help the province attract and retain truly outstanding scholars in the field,” says Bonnie M. Patterson, COU President and CEO.

This year’s recipients and their areas of research are:

• Nafisa Jadavji, Carleton University – understanding how dietary and genetic deficiencies in folates and B vitamins can increase risk of stroke and impair neurological function after stroke.
• Melissa Kimber, McMaster University – how to improve outcomes for teenage girls and women with eating disorders and adapt family-based interventions to reduce eating disorders among adolescent girls who were mistreated as children.
• Ami Tint, York University – how to improve services for women with autism spectrum disorder who struggle when the system is geared to meet the needs of young boys.
• Carley Pope, Lakehead University – assessing whether mindfulness-based therapy is an effective intervention for women with postpartum depression and anxiety.
• Kelly Coons, Laurentian University – how to increase knowledge among health care students about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder so that they can help prevent it once they start treating patients.
• Christina van den Brink, York University – how lifestyle factors that are dependent on sex can influence brain health in later life.
• Robyn Jackowich, Queen’s University – how to better understand the menstrual cycle’s impact on chronic vaginal pain affecting more than 15 per cent of women in order to help decrease pain levels.
• Catherine Nevin, Western University – how to better predict which infants who are small for their gestational age are at risk for cerebral palsy, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, autism and schizophrenia.
• Maurice Pasternak, University of Toronto – how to increase delivery of anti-tumor drugs through temporary tears in blood vessels to better fight cancer without having to increase the drug’s dose.

Click here to learn more about this year’s recipients.

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