Sofia Bartlett

Background

About Sofia Bartlett

I am the Interim Scientific Director for Clinical Prevention Services at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, and an Assistant Professor (Partner) at the University of British Columbia in the School of Population and Public Health. Between these two roles, I lead and help catalyse applied public health research, enhanced surveillance, monitoring, and evaluation to help prevent and respond to communicable diseases. My work is primarily focused on addressing knowledge gaps around the overlap of HIV, viral hepatitis, syphilis and tuberculosis with substance use, incarceration, mental illness, and housing instability. My work aims to inform public health policy and programming, while also advancing the rights and the health of marginalized people, and I work in partnership with government, the health system, private sector, and community to ensure the research needs of these groups are met, while integrating knowledge translation throughout the research process. The scope of my research and work experience covers basic science (viral evolution, phylogenetics, molecular diagnostics, antiviral drug resistance), epidemiology (infectious disease surveillance, screening, treatment effectiveness), and public health (population transmission patterns, prevalence, impacts of policy on equity and health outcomes, implementation science). I have experience working with longitudinal observational and clinical cohort data, retrospective clinical record reviews, and population-level data-linkage studies, in addition to the design and conduct of sero-prevalence and bio-behavioural surveys among people in prison and people who use drugs. I favour study designs that incorporate community-based/participatory methods, integrated knowledge translation/knowledge to action, and implementation science, as I believe these types of research are most likely to result in application or implementation of findings. In addition to my research and health system leadership experience, I have extensive non-profit leadership experience, serving as a non-executive director of Canadian registered charities HepCBC Hepatitis Education and Prevention Society (previous) and Unlocking the Gates Services Society (current). I co-founded the Australian & Papua New Guinean registered charity Grass Skirt Project Ltd. in 2017, and continue to provide leadership for the organisation as a non-executive director.