Area of Expertise: Inter-professionalism; Collaborative Working; Midwifery Education

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Qualitative methods, Midwifery experiences of complicated pregnancies, decision making regarding place of birth, nutrition and exercise during pregnancy, interprofessional working and learning, transition to practice

LEARN MORE ABOUT DIABETES, OBESITY AND HYPERTENSION IN PREGNANCY RESEARCH NETWORK (DOH-NET) http://doh-net.ca 

Area of Expertise: Inter-professionalism; Collaborative Working; Midwifery Education

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Qualitative methods, Midwifery experiences of complicated pregnancies, decision making regarding place of birth, nutrition and exercise during pregnancy, interprofessional working and learning, transition to practice

LEARN MORE ABOUT DIABETES, OBESITY AND HYPERTENSION IN PREGNANCY RESEARCH NETWORK (DOH-NET) http://doh-net.ca 

RESEARCH INTERESTS: midwifery services; health disparities; access to care; midwifery scope of practice; health care service implementation; health policy; perinatal health surveillance/epidemiology

Dr. Liz Darling is the Assistant Dean of Midwifery at McMaster University and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her qualifications include an Honours BArtsSc (McMaster), a BHSc in Midwifery (McMaster), an MSc in Health Research Methodology (McMaster), and a PhD in Population Health (Ottawa).

She holds a CIHR Early Career Investigator Award in Maternal, Reproductive, Child and Youth Health that supports a mixed methods research program investigating the impact of funding expanded midwifery care models in Ontario. Her research interests include midwifery services, health disparities, access to care, health policy, and perinatal health outcomes. She has particular expertise in the midwifery data collected in Ontario’s perinatal registry (BORN-Ontario). She is committed to building research capacity within the midwifery profession, and currently mentors undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of academic programs.

Dr. Darling practiced midwifery in Ottawa and was a part-time faculty member with the Midwifery Education Program at Laurentian University prior to joining McMaster full-time in 2017. She is also an Adjunct Scientist at ICES-McMaster, and holds an Associate appointment in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University. She has represented the midwifery profession in clinical and research committees at the provincial and national level, including serving as a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System.

She is the recipient of academic awards which include a CIHR Early Career Investigator Award (2019), the Association of Ontario Midwives’ Excellence in Midwifery Research Award (2019), the Joseph De Koninck Doctoral Thesis Award (2015), a CIHR Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2011), and a CIHR Health Professional Fellowship (2011 – declined).

More About Dr.Darling

RESEARCH INTERESTS: midwifery services; health disparities; access to care; midwifery scope of practice; health care service implementation; health policy; perinatal health surveillance/epidemiology

Dr. Liz Darling is the Assistant Dean of Midwifery at McMaster University and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her qualifications include an Honours BArtsSc (McMaster), a BHSc in Midwifery (McMaster), an MSc in Health Research Methodology (McMaster), and a PhD in Population Health (Ottawa).

She holds a CIHR Early Career Investigator Award in Maternal, Reproductive, Child and Youth Health that supports a mixed methods research program investigating the impact of funding expanded midwifery care models in Ontario. Her research interests include midwifery services, health disparities, access to care, health policy, and perinatal health outcomes. She has particular expertise in the midwifery data collected in Ontario’s perinatal registry (BORN-Ontario). She is committed to building research capacity within the midwifery profession, and currently mentors undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of academic programs.

Dr. Darling practiced midwifery in Ottawa and was a part-time faculty member with the Midwifery Education Program at Laurentian University prior to joining McMaster full-time in 2017. She is also an Adjunct Scientist at ICES-McMaster, and holds an Associate appointment in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University. She has represented the midwifery profession in clinical and research committees at the provincial and national level, including serving as a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System.

She is the recipient of academic awards which include a CIHR Early Career Investigator Award (2019), the Association of Ontario Midwives’ Excellence in Midwifery Research Award (2019), the Joseph De Koninck Doctoral Thesis Award (2015), a CIHR Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2011), and a CIHR Health Professional Fellowship (2011 – declined).

More About Dr.Darling

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Evidence-informed maternal health care; mixed methods research synthesis, health policy; health promotion, wellbeing and salutogenesis; the epidemiology of spontaneous birth; interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working; and methods of community engagement in maternal health research.

Ginny’s research interests arise from their clinical training and experience as a nurse and midwife in community health and birth settings. In Canada and the UK, they have worked extensively as a research methodologist specializing in systematic reviews used for health policy knowledge exchange. With others, they have developed innovative methods of research synthesis that bring together different types of research on effectiveness, implementation and people’s perspectives. These research synthesis methods have included the use/development of meta-analysis and meta-regression, framework synthesis and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

Ginny’s research focuses on the fit between health policy, health promotion and public health issues, and community involvement in health intervention development, implementation and evaluation. Ginny has studied issues in parent-child health, including reviews of teenage pregnancy and parenthood, women’s experiences of becoming a mother, the impact of fathers’ involvement on family mental health outcomes, and core outcome set development for neonatal ICU care that used an innovative mixed methods approach. These have all been commissioned by national health policymakers to inform their understanding and decisions.

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Evidence-informed maternal health care; mixed methods research synthesis, health policy; health promotion, wellbeing and salutogenesis; the epidemiology of spontaneous birth; interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working; and methods of community engagement in maternal health research.

Ginny’s research interests arise from their clinical training and experience as a nurse and midwife in community health and birth settings. In Canada and the UK, they have worked extensively as a research methodologist specializing in systematic reviews used for health policy knowledge exchange. With others, they have developed innovative methods of research synthesis that bring together different types of research on effectiveness, implementation and people’s perspectives. These research synthesis methods have included the use/development of meta-analysis and meta-regression, framework synthesis and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

Ginny’s research focuses on the fit between health policy, health promotion and public health issues, and community involvement in health intervention development, implementation and evaluation. Ginny has studied issues in parent-child health, including reviews of teenage pregnancy and parenthood, women’s experiences of becoming a mother, the impact of fathers’ involvement on family mental health outcomes, and core outcome set development for neonatal ICU care that used an innovative mixed methods approach. These have all been commissioned by national health policymakers to inform their understanding and decisions.