Mark J Dobrow

I am a health policy and health systems researcher whose work focuses on learning health systems, embedded research, and the relationship between evidence and decision-making in complex health system environments. My academic training reflects a longstanding interest in health systems. I completed a BComm in Health Care Administration at the University of Saskatchewan, an MSc in Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in Health Services and Policy Research at the University of Toronto (IHPME). I also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was a Harkness Fellow with the Commonwealth Fund’s International Program in Health Policy and Practice.

Across academic and health system leadership roles, my work has centred on how health systems learn and adapt. I have held embedded roles within provincial and national organizations, including Cancer Care Ontario, the Health Council of Canada, and Health Quality Ontario, where I established and led research and analytic units to support policy development, performance measurement, and system improvement. These experiences continue to shape my research, which examines how evidence is generated, interpreted, and applied within real-world policy and organizational contexts.

A consistent theme in my work is building partnerships that connect academic research with health system needs. I have led initiatives designed to co-produce evidence with decision-makers and strengthen ongoing learning within organizations. I am currently Principal Investigator on a CIHR-funded research project examining multiple dimensions of learning health systems, including case studies of organizational and system learning undertaken in collaboration with public sector health system partners, Indigenous governments, and communities.

Alongside this work, I have maintained a longstanding research focus on cancer screening policy and governance. An important contribution in this area is a CMAJ paper outlining consolidated principles of screening, building on the seminal work of Wilson and Jungner. The paper argues that screening decisions span distinct domains, from epidemiology and test performance to program design and system capacity. These domains draw on diverse forms of evidence, including research, contextual, and experiential evidence. Screening policy therefore cannot rely on a single standard of evidence, but instead requires careful attention to how different forms of evidence are recognized, integrated, and justified in decision-making. This perspective continues to inform both my screening research and my broader work on learning health systems.