Dr. Gina Agarwal is a Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and an Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Aging. She is a practicing Family Physician, Primary Care Epidemiologist, and the McMaster Family Medicine Levitt Scholar. She is a member of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging and the McMaster Institute for Health Equity.
Her research achievements have been recognized with the CIHR-IHSPR Article of the Year Award (2019), the prestigious Mid-Career Researcher Award from the North American Primary Care Research Group (2018), and an Award of Excellence from the College of Family Physicians of Canada (2016).
As the Director of the Vulnerable Individuals in Primary Care (VIP) Research Lab, she focuses on improving primary health care access for vulnerable populations, ensuring people in need receive appropriate care at the right time and in the right place.
As the Principal Investigator of the McMaster Community Paramedicine Research Team, she has driven health system change including the uptake of the innovative Community Paramedicine at Clinic (CP@clinic) program by 51% of Ontario Paramedic Services and its national (e.g. BCEHS) and international (e.g. UK, Australia) scale-up.
She has worked extensively in social housing to improve the health of this vulnerable population and identify healthcare usage patterns. Her quantitative and qualitative research, including complex pragmatic studies, uses rigorous methods to produce novel insight into the unmet health needs of traditionally difficult-to-reach populations and determines cost-effective and targeted healthcare solutions nationally and globally.
She regularly supervises undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students.