Dr. Anna Banerji is a passionate leader in Global and Indigenous health. She strongly believes in the need for education and advocacy for these diverse populations. She has written statements for the First Nations, Inuit and Métis committee for the Canadian Paediatric Society and over the past 20 years she has been researching respiratory tract infections in Inuit infants. A pediatric Infectious and tropical disease specialist by training, most of her clinical work is with immigrant and refugee and internationally adopted children. She was the Vice Dean’s obvious choice for the new Director of Global and Indigenous Health at CPD.
Since assuming the role, Dr. Banerji has created the Indigenous Health Conference: Challenging Health Inequities. The inaugural conference held in 2014 had the objective of increasing the number of culturally competent health care providers who work with Indigenous populations. Most of the conference was told through Indigenous voices. It was sold out and attracted national media attention.
Dr. Banerji is no stranger to conference success. In 2007 she launched the Canadian conference on Refugee Health that has evolved into the largest clinical conference on refugee health globally as the conference merged with the American counter-parts to become the North American refugee health conference.
Dr. Banerji leads with passion and conviction. Her many years of dedication has allowed her to build a network and trust working with Indigenous and Refugee populations.
“It has been a privilege for me to be working with other like-minded people who are working towards improved health for both Refugee and Indigenous populations.”
As she continues to work with CPD, her goal is to expand into more international work as well as continuing to build upon the successes of Indigenous and Refugee conferences.
