Sara Shearkhani

Dr. Sara Shearkhani is a Health Services Researcher with expertise in evaluation science, health equity, and integrated care. She completed her CIHR Health System Impact Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 2022 at East Toronto Health Partners (East Toronto Ontario Health Team), where she led initiatives to embed evaluation frameworks within integrated care systems and helped drive innovation in equity-focused service design.

Dr. Shearkhani holds a PhD in Health Services Research (specializing in Outcomes and Evaluation) from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and a Master’s degree in Economics. During her doctoral studies, she was a Fellow at both the Health System Performance Network and the Canadian Frailty Network, where she investigated healthcare utilization and the economic impacts of family caregiving. She was recognized as one of Ontario’s Faces of Change in 2014 and received the Canada Cares Award in 2017.

Her work focuses on leveraging evaluation and mixed-methods research to build learning health systems, reduce health disparities, and foster more equitable care delivery in marginalized communities.

Research Interests:

• Integrated care
• Learning health systems
• Equity in health outcomes for marginalized populations
• Healthcare utilization and cost
• Community-focused research

Approach:

• Mixed-methods research

Opportunities:
Dr. Shearkhani is currently accepting Master’s students with a passion for learning quantitative methods, cost-effectiveness analyses, and qualitative research.

Current projects:

1. Title: A Quantitative Evaluation of An Integrated Care Approach to Address Capacity Issues at a Community Hospital Funded by: TD Community Health Solutions Grant. The Michael Garron Hospital Foundation Approach: Quantitative/Matching/Regression
2. Title: Advancing an Equity-first Research Agenda in an East Toronto Ontario Health Team Funded by: The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Approach: Mixed Methods/ Survey/Focus group/ Co-design
3. Title: A Formative Evaluation: Utilizing Community Health Ambassadors to Create a Health and Equity Database in East Toronto Funded by: Michael Garron Hospital and East Efforts Approach: Mixed Methods/ Survey/Focus group/ Co-design
4. Title: Using Neighborhood Equity Heatmaps to Identify High Users of MGH’s Emergency Department: A Data-Driven, Collaborative Decision-Making Practice to Reduce Health Inequities in East Toronto Funded by: TD Community Health Solutions Grant. The Michael Garron Hospital Foundation Approach: Mixed Methods/ Equity Heatmap/ Co-design
5. Title: Advancing population health by exploring health equity data collection and use in an integrated care setting: A case Study of East Toronto Health Partners Funded by: TD Community Health Solutions Grant. The Michael Garron Hospital Foundation Approach: Qualitative/Interviews
6. In the works: Inequities in cancer screening; Inequities and immigrants’ health