BBDC Member Profile

Laura Rosella, PhD, MHSc

January 2019

Laura Rosella, PhD, MHSc, is an epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) at the University of Toronto, where she holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics. She is also the Program Director for the DLSPH PhD Program in Epidemiology, Site Director at ICES U of T, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Rosella completed her undergrad training in Statistics and Life Sciences, a Masters in Community Health and Epidemiology and a PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. She then completed a CIHR Strategic Training Program Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Public Health Policy.

She leads the Population Health Analytics laboratory where she focuses on using linked population health data in new ways to support diabetes prevention. She has developed methodology to develop and validate population risk prediction tools, including the Diabetes Population Risk Tool (DPoRT) and a new methodology to identify optimal cut-offs for diabetes screening that maximizes prevention outcomes in the population. DPoRT has been used by provincial health ministries, public health units, and regional health authorities to support diabetes prevention policy recommendations. She published the first estimates of undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes in Canada and led the largest population-based propensity-matched cohort study to directly estimate attributable health care costs of diabetes.

Dr. Rosella’s current research is focused on understanding how persons living with type 2 diabetes accumulate chronic conditions over their life course and elucidating what factors contribute to mortality outcomes. Using health care utilization data linked with social and behavioural risk factor data, she is examining ways to target persistent health inequities among those with type 2 diabetes and opportunities to improve the way that coexisting chronic conditions are being managed within the larger context of health system planning and delivery.

She has been awarded several national grants and most recently a CIHR Foundation grant in support of her research program. Notably, Dr. Rosella has been recognized as the Brian MacMahon Early Career Epidemiology Award by the Society for Epidemiologic Research, Early Career award from the Canadian Society of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2018.

Dr. Rosella otherwise spends her time her husband and two young children – who keep them very busy (and tired) but full of joy.