Dr. Ripudaman Minhas

As the founder of an innovative social media program sharing children’s health information in almost a dozen languages, Dr. Ripudaman Minhas has supported thousands of newcomer immigrant and refugee families with evidence-based, culturally-sensitive information to inform child and youth development. Now, the Developmental Pediatrician and former Director of Pediatric Research at St. Michael’s Hospital is being recognized for his efforts on an international stage.

Minhas is the 2025 recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Excellence Award, which recognizes a pediatrician who demonstrates excellence in advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in pediatric medicine. For Minhas, that includes his work on Our Kids’ Health, which has quickly grown from an idea to an established online presence, with almost one million followers across all chapters and social media platforms.

We sat down with Minhas to learn more about this award, his research and how he’s battling pediatric health misinformation online.

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Congratulations! President of the AAP Susan Kressly said that “pediatricians throughout North America have benefited deeply from your knowledge, wisdom and dedication.” What does this international recognition mean to you?

It’s an honor to have this work recognized on an international platform like the AAP. It’s a testament to the need for this work, the value for the families it serves and the involvement of various champions who are a part of our efforts to advance health equity for children from diverse backgrounds. It means a lot, especially in the climate right now, with the change that we’re seeing in some parts of the world around equity, diversity and inclusion work, to be recognized by a large American organization like the AAP.

Your research interests are in the development, behaviour, disability, and rehabilitation of children in urban settings and in newcomer immigrant and refugee families. Where did this interest come from?

I’ve always been interested in how families, children and youth participate in and navigate the complexities of our mainstream systems based on who they are and the experiences they’ve had. Some of this interest comes from my own personal experiences, being a newcomer to Canada as a young child and seeing how my family navigated this journey. The interest also comes from working as a pediatrician and supporting families from a diversity of backgrounds and social locations, trying to help them understand how to navigate these systems and make the right decisions for their children.

Why is it important that we invest in research in this area, especially now, in 2025?

We’ve become more aware of how different families participate in the health care system in different ways. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work but instead, serves to widen inequities. Research and advocacy that centers the experiences and voices of communities is key to bridging that gap between health care providers, institutions, researchers and the people who we’re creating interventions for. We also know that providing a better environment early in a child’s life can improve safety, resilience and educational achievement, which feeds into improved employment and economic outcomes down the line. Empowering families early on can help with multi-generational impact.

How did you come up with the idea for Our Kids’ Health?

Our Kids’ Health was born in the early days of the pandemic, when we were seeing the health information landscape changing rapidly. Updates were developed for people with a high level of health literacy and fluency in our official languages. Communities who spoke other languages or who couldn’t employ the recommendations because of socioeconomic conditions or mistrust of the system were highlighted as COVID-19 hotspots or framed as being non-compliant.

As a pediatrician, I was fielding questions from parents who were having a hard time finding credible, evidence-based and culturally sensitive supports that were translated into their languages. We wanted to dilute the misinformation online and show up in spaces where parents were looking. I’m Punjabi Canadian so we launched our initial chapter, Punjabi Kids’ Health, which shared health information online in English and Punjabi. After the first year, we got funding to scale up and replicate this model for 10 cultural linguistic communities.

There are 10 – soon to be 12 – cultural chapters for Our Kids’ Health. That seems like a lot of work. How do you and your team do it?

The magic is in our communities and our team. Each channel is led by a community coordinator who brings personal and professional experience. The coordinator engages with other health care providers, community agencies and community advisory boards to develop content. We’re deeply community-led and community integrated, which helps us keep our fingers on the pulse and make sure that we’re listening to communities’ priorities and understanding when things need to be adapted or personalized.

How do you decide which chapters to include?

We’re data-driven so our first chapters were based on census data that told us who’s in – and coming – to Canada. We looked at the largest Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) cultural linguistic communities and did a pilot with the Inuit community. We’re hoping to branch out to more Indigenous communities, but we want to make sure we do that right, with a shared model of creating content and honoring diverse ways of knowing and caring for families. Funding is also an important driver, allowing us to add more chapters to serve more families.

How do you want parents to use Our Kids’ Health?

We want families to involve Our Kids’ Health in their social media diets. Our website was also developed so that parents can easily search to find what they’re looking for. In many of the communities we serve, there are several different grown-ups who are involved in childcare and household decision-making, so we want them to share our resources. By providing English and secondary language content, everyone in the family can be on the same page. We also hear from practitioners who share our resources with their patients.

You’re using a social media solution to battle health misinformation often found on social media. What shifts have you noticed in the narratives online around pediatric health, or the level of misinformation on social media in recent years?

Some of the trends have really been troubling. We’re seeing world leaders question the pillars of how health care has been delivered, and people who lack credentials and formal training are sharing their opinions or personal experiences on a large platform. These opinions can gain momentum and start being praised by others as a credible source of information. That leads to confusion and questioning of science and other historically credible sources.

Social media has become a bit of a battleground to dispel myths and bring in more credible sources of information. Myth-busting is important for families who are already marginalized due to their cultural linguistic identity. If we don’t do that, we’re going to see a widening of inequity because communities who don’t see themselves reflected in the health care system are more likely to feel othered by information that’s sent in traditional or conventional ways.

The award you’ve received from the AAP recognizes your work on Our Kids’ Health, but also on an annual conference called the Canadian Children, Youth and Communities (CCYC) Health and Equity Conference. Could you tell us a bit more about this?

CCYC is a digital conference that was developed in partnership with the Continuing Professional Development group at the University of Toronto. The conference brings together health care professionals, community agency workers, people with lived experience and self-advocates, who are doing health equity work with children and youth. This is a space that’s otherwise pretty siloed so we offer a virtual platform to bring people together.

You’ve accomplished a lot over the course of your career. What’s been the greatest challenge you’ve encountered?

Some of the biggest challenges are in building trust with communities. A lot of my work focuses on bridge building and centering the voices that can help guide us in how we create health interventions for communities who’ve otherwise been left behind. Our work in research, health systems design and advocacy needs to partner with end-user communities to make sure that interventions are relevant and sustainable, and that there’s a plan in place to gradually handover projects to communities in a shared ownership model. These models are so important, but building trust takes time. That’s tricky when we’re working with tight deadlines.

What’s been one of the most rewarding or fulfilling parts of your career?

Social media-based work has been really exciting, getting to see the reach of this work. We had over a million views on Our Kids’ Health content last year. We also receive a lot of messages from people who are impacted by our work. Their questions help us build new content but it’s also touching to hear stories of how our resources have helped change how their family looks.

What’s next for you?

We’re really excited to grow Our Kids’ Health to include more cultural linguistic chapters. We’ll be launching YouTube this year and we’ve been working on some exciting partnerships with agencies and experts in different areas of child and youth health to provide more types of content. We’re also training a cohort of Digital Health Youth Fellows, who are young people from different communities who’ll be working as content creators. We know that young people also face health misinformation online, so we’re looking to create inclusive content for youth.

One other project we’re working on is a lullaby library. For many communities, important cultural storytelling has been lost through migration and colonization. Cultural storytelling is important for caregiver and child bonding and cultural self-identity. We’ve been partnering with Elders, community leaders and storytellers from the diverse communities to build an online library of multilingual cultural stories and songs that can support families in reclaiming their stories.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

By: Anna Wassermann

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