Noralou Roos, OC, PhD

Dr. Noralou Roos is a professor emerita in community health sciences at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba and a founding director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.

She received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to create Canada’s first data laboratory, containing population-based data on health, education, and social services, and held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair.

Citations to Roos’s work place her among the top 100 Canadian scientists according to the Institute for Scientific Information.

She was a member of the Prime Minister’s National Forum on Health and the Interim Governing Council, setting up the Canadian Institutes for Health Research; she received the Order of Canada; and she was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

She has worked with Health Canada and groups across the country to fund and implement a research network to monitor post-market Drug Safety and Effectiveness (with a $31 million commitment from the Minister of Health in 2009, and $10/million a year ongoing funding).

She worked on a CIHR funded project with the media to ensure evidence on high profile health policy issues is accurately communicated. The policy experts were made up of more than 80 academics and researchers from across Canada and internationally.

Dr. Roos worked with them to publish over 2,800 commentaries in Canadian newspapers.

Currently she is co-director of the Winnipeg Foundation supported Get Your Benefits project to work with health care providers and community groups to ensure poverty is diagnosed and treated by helping people access the benefits for which they are eligible.

Education

• PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1968)
• AB with distinction and departmental honors, Stanford University (1963)

Awards

• 150 Manitoba Women Trailblazer Award (2021)
• Vanier Medal from the Institute of Public Administration (IPAC), 2020)
• Biomedical Science Ambassador Award, Partners in Research (PIR) National Award (May 2016)
• Election to Fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS) (May 2011)
• Canada Research Chair in Population Health, Tier 1, 2001 – 2007, $1,400,000
• Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Associate Award, 1988 to 2002; $361,000
• National Health Research Scientist, (NHRDP), 1973 -1998, $1,224,342
• Sears-Roebuck Foundation Federal Faculty Fellow, National Centre for Health Services Research and Development (1972)
• Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellow (1966 -1967)
• NDFL Language Fellow, University of California (Summer 1964 and 1966)
• Woodrow Wilson Fellow (1963-1964)