Centre of Excellence for Women's Health

The Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health is in its 3rd decade of research and knowledge exchange to improve women’s health. We continue to pursue the goal of “closing the loop” between research and practice to bring about social change and health improvement for women. We collaborate with researchers, service providers, policy makers and community-based advocates across Canada and internationally. We lead virtual collaborations through online research networks, virtual communities and web-based collaboratories. Our work is guided by three approaches that together help build tailored services and personalized health care for all women: We encourage and contribute to the building of sex and gender science to improve or redress gaps in understanding women’s health and the many under-researched conditions, issues or diseases that impact female bodies. We use sex and gender-based analysis+ (SGBA+) to identify the differential impacts of gendered norms, identities and stereotypes on the health and well-being of women, girls, men, boys and all gender groups. We aim for gender transformative solutions that increase gender specific knowledge, undermine gender stereotyping, and reduce gender blindness in health programs and policies.