Biography
Dr. Farah M. Shroff is a Canadian public intellectual with expertise in global public health research and education.
From July 2021 to July 2022, she is a Harvard School of Public Health Takemi Fellow in International Health and is based in Boston.
Dr. Shroff works in the Department of Family Practice and the School of Population and Public Health in the UBC Faculty of Medicine. The emphasis in her research is on visioning and developing Health for All. Her main areas of research are holistic health, and healthy community development within a social justice framework. Her main areas of research are integrative health approaches, and social/environmental justice from a feminist anti-racim lens. Her research is predicated on the notion that all people, regardless of ability to pay, have a right to health and health services. She has an ongoing interest in the role of global social movements in creating better conditions for health.
She is a women’s health researcher and educator, focusing on gender equity, reproduction, midwifery, HIV, sexuality, mental well-being and so forth and is a member of the Women’s Health Research Institute and the UBC Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity.
Dr. Shroff’s passion about the health and human rights of women, children and the environment led her to found Maternal and Infant Health Canada (MIHCan), a global public health collaborative that focuses on improving the lives of women and young ones through education, research and innovation. MIHCan works to uplift women, who in turn uplift families, communities and nations. Mothers’ love is profound and transformative. The world needs more kindness, caring and compassion. In 2021, MIHCan was honoured to present at the World Health Organization annual event, The World Health Assembly 74. MIHCan’s panel was titled Women Power, Politics and the Pandemic: celebrating Women’s leadership and featured Dr Marcia Castro (Harvard), Dr Satya Lakshmi (National Institute of Naturopathy, India), Dr. Soha Bayoumi (Hopkins), Dr Agnes Binagwaho (Former Rwandan Minister of Health). To learn more about MIHCan: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Website, Linktree.
Her book, The New Midwifery: Reflections on Renaissance and Regulation, an edited collection, was published in 1997. Since then, Dr. Shroff has written about yoga, Ayurveda, housing, innovations/transformations in health care, palliative care, women’s health, HIV/AIDS, health policy, nursing issues, registered massage therapy, international health and more.
Dr. Shroff is the Principle Investigator of the ZXX Project, an oral herstory participatory action insider study. Profiles of Parsi and Zarthusti womxn and information about this ancient cultural community can be found on the ZXX website. She also writes poetry, autobiography and literary reviews.
During the pandemic, Dr Shroff made the COVID-19 pivot and began writing about mental wellbeing, housing, women’s health and other topics related to the virus. Some of her work can be found here.
UNESCO reached out to Dr Shroff with a request to write a high level contribution to their Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems about Ayurvedic medicine, to be published sometime in 2022-23.
As an international health policy fellow, she attended the World Health Organization’s Assembly in 2020, with her co-authored paper on housing and health being presented there. Health policy is one of her main passions.
She has a longstanding commitment to global health status improvements and has worked in Nigeria, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, India, Thailand and many other countries. She is currently working on various research projects: a global womxn’s health policy study; working class women and mental health promotion and others.
Health justice in Canada and around the world is a significant focus of Dr Shroff’s work. As such she is an active member of the Canadian chapter of the International People’s Health Movement.
Dr. Shroff runs Shroff consulting, a consulting company for research, writing, planning, policy, meeting facilitation and other work. She is a yoga teacher who has taught in 50 countries. She also teaches dance, self defense, meditation, laughter yoga and other integrative health practices. She is also a facilitator of Teatro do Oprimido, a social justice theatre technique.
As a member of various organizations, she enjoys working in communities to bring about greater cohesiveness, human rights and joy.
In 1993, she was an inaugural faculty member in Canada’s first university program to educate midwives in Ontario–a program that was rated a world leader. Her book, The New Midwifery: Reflections on Renaissance and Regulation, an edited collection, was published in 1997. Since then, Dr. Shroff has written about various aspects of health policy, HIV/AIDS, nursing issues, registered massage therapy, international health, innovations/transformations in health care, mental well being, yoga, and more. She also writes poetry and literary reviews.
Unusual in global health work, she has a particular interest in ayurveda, yoga, meditation and other natural forms of health promotion and disease prevention, as well as a practical one, as she teaches yoga, dance, self-defence, laughter, meditation and other mind-body arts.
She is regularly featured in the media and had a television spot called “Dr Shroff Talks about Holistic Health”. Radio Canada currently features Dr Shroff as their public health expert.
Speaking French, Spanish, English and some Farsi and Gujarati, she has a longstanding commitment to global health status improvements and has worked in Nigeria, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, India, Thailand, the Arctic and elsewhere.
To learn more about Dr. Shroff’s research and projects, please visit: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Publications: Google Scholar
Contact:
320-5950 University Boulevard, Department of Family Practice, UBC
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3
Canada
farah.shroff@ubc.ca