Dr. Iwona Bielska

Jagiellonian University, Poland

Dr. Iwona Bielska is an epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Institute of Public Health at Jagiellonian University, as well as Assistant Professor (Part-Time) in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact (HEI), Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the Department of Public Health Sciences at Queen’s University. She is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP). She has work and research experience in academic and government settings.

Dr. Bielska completed a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded Health System Impact Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Department of HEI and the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA) at McMaster University. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of a grant co-funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement and the National Science Centre, entitled "Establishing evidence-based strategic recommendations for patient-centred health care options for individuals experiencing high use of the emergency department".

Dr. Bielska has been a peer reviewer for national and regional granting agencies. She is knowledgeable about health data analytics to support the equitable distribution of health resources, monitoring of health system performance, health systems planning, and hospital capacity assessments in response to system pressures. Through her employment and education, she has developed a broad understanding of the public health system in Canada and abroad. She has experience conducting quantitative and qualitative studies, as well as analyzing and interpreting research findings from large clinical databases, administrative datasets, and population health surveys.