Dr. Prabhat Jha stands near a series of hallway windows.

Dr. Prabhat Jha

After a long and dynamic research career at St. Michael’s Hospital and Unity Health Toronto, Dr. Prabhat Jha will be embarking on a new position at the University of Oxford as Nuffield Professor of Population Health and Head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health. The appointment, which will start in September 2025, is for an undefined term.

“The Nuffield Department of Population Health is one of the largest academic research centres for population health and clinical trials in the world. It’s conducted transformative, landmark trials in cardiology and breast cancer treatment. It’s completed critical global epidemiology studies on tobacco and other risk factors, and it is home to the U.K. biobank,” Jha said. “I am humbled to be asked to head such a prestigious department.”

Jha is the founding director of the Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR) at Unity Health Toronto and the University of Toronto, which has led global epidemiological studies to improve population health, primarily among low and middle income countries.

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“With terrific support from Unity Health scientific leadership, we’ve been focused for more than 20 years on quantifying the big avoidable causes of death worldwide,” Jha said. “A line we always use is, ‘We count the dead to help the living.’ By studying the patterns of mortality, we can get information on how to reduce premature death.”

Jha and his team at CGHR conducted the Million Death Study in India, one of the largest studies of premature death in the world. The study monitored nearly 14 million people in India between 1998 and 2014, tracked deaths that occurred and the probable cause. The study results have influenced priority setting in India, changed global estimates of disease burdens, and sparked new research on avoidable causes of death.

The team also conducted the Action to Beat Coronavirus (Ab-C) study, which involved heroically creating and mailing out more than 20,000 testing kits during the early days of the pandemic. That study documented how Canada kept infection levels relatively low – at first thanks to high vaccination levels, and then via hybrid immunity from infection and vaccination.

“The Ab-C study showed that we created a sort of ‘Canadian GPS’ for pandemics. This work will continue and carry onward for future pandemics, and this system can be used in other places across the globe,” Jha said. “When we think about population health, there’s no distinction anymore between global health and national or local health; the tools remain the same. You need strong epidemiology, and large trials to test interventions.”

Jha looks forward to his tenure in Oxford, and building bridges to the excellent research at St. Michael’s. He also is eager to start working with the next director of CGHR, who will soon been named. 

Dr. Ori Rotstein, VP Research and Innovation at Unity Health, says Jha’s new appointment is an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the two institutions.

“We have enormous respect for Dr. Jha’s research, which has been world-leading. In addition to advancing his important work as the Nuffield Professor, his appointment will also enable more connections between our two institutions, so as to improve patient care and population health,” Rotstein said.

By: Marlene Leung

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