Paula Braitstein

Dr. Braitstein is an epidemiologist and environmentalist, living and working in the western highlands of Kenya. Originally from Montreal, Paula’s roots are in the community-based HIV/AIDS movement in Canada as an HIV treatment educator and activist. She received her MA in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), and her MSc and PhD in epidemiology from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). In Kenya since 2007, Paula’s major research, education and service priorities have been oriented around major health and social issues in East Africa including HIV prevention and treatment, high HIV risk children youth such as those who have been orphaned (from HIV and other causes), separated, abandoned, and street-connected children and youth. Witness to the massive social, economic and environmental challenges and changes taking place in East Africa, Paula has begun leveraging her successes in population health to direct her research and attention to what is likely to become the single biggest threat to the health and well-being of future human generations: planetary health. Paula is the holder of a prestigious research Chair of Applied Public Health from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and is Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Paula has published widely in the peer-reviewed literature on diverse topics. Her research foci today are concentrated on the HIV prevention-care continuum, specifically HIV implementation research in sub-Saharan Africa, and vulnerable and marginalized children and adolescents, including orphans, street-involved children and youth. She is the Principal Investigator of a ten year observational cohort study funded by the National Institutes of Health funded examining the effect of care environment and care characteristics on orphaned children, called the “Orphaned and Separated Children’s Assessments Related to their (OSCAR’s) Health and Well-Being Study”.