Jeff Walsh

Background

About Jeff Walsh

Having worked in the public health system as a social worker prior to starting my doctorate, I have seen how health care systems charged with caring for people often cause harm for marginalized communities. To promote equitable health systems, my research focuses on the promising practices of palliative care systems that challenge this norm by creating physical spaces and welcoming places at end-of-life for people experiencing homelessness. I am a queer, European Settler doctoral candidate living as an uninvited guest on the stolen and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish Peoples. I conduct embedded, collaborative research with health systems to advance equity for people marginalized and excluded by structural forces like colonization, racism, poverty, and criminalization of substance use and mental illness. My work is grounded in relational and trauma-informed approaches. Through community engagement and partnership, I also aim to highlight culturally inclusive care models that reflect Indigenous perspectives. I use qualitative, intersectional, and community-engaged methods to examine how space, place, and policy shape care experiences—and to generate knowledge that health systems can act on. At the core of my work is a commitment to justice, inclusion, and transforming how health systems respond to people at the margins.