Donya Razavi

Faculty Fellow, Faculty of Health

Faculty Fellow

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Dr. Donya Razavi (she/her) is a Sessional Assistant Professor in the School of Global Health with over 15 years of experience in global health, health policy, and health systems research. Her work focuses on advancing health equity and improving health care access and outcomes for equity-deserving populations.

She has conducted research on a broad range of topics, including health sector priority setting and resource allocation, community and stakeholder engagement in health system decision-making, primary health care and interprofessional collaboration, humanitarian health, and sexual and reproductive health.

Donya is passionate about bridging global health concepts with local health challenges. She brings her extensive practical experience into both the classroom and her research, drawing on her work within academia, NGOs, the Ontario health sector and communities to inform evidence-based teaching and policy-relevant research.

She has worked within Ontario’s health system, including with Ontario Health Teams, where her focus was on improving access to primary care for populations historically facing barriers—particularly Black and Indigenous communities, as well as individuals experiencing housing precarity, those identifying as 2SLGBTQ+, refugees, and people who use substances. She also led a newcomer engagement initiative exploring the experiences of recent immigrants with Ontario’s primary health care system, identifying barriers to access, and developing strategies to improve service delivery and support.

Internationally, Donya has worked with the Canadian Red Cross, supporting domestic and global programs, with a particular focus on menstrual hygiene management in humanitarian contexts such as South Sudan.

Donya holds a PhD in Health Policy from McMaster University, where her research examined public and vulnerable populations’ participation in health system priority setting in Uganda.

Research Keywords

global health; health equity; priority setting; health policy; marginalized populations

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