Holly Witteman is a health informatics researcher. She is a Full Professor (professeure titulaire) in the Department of Family & Emergency Medicine at the Université Laval, in Quebec City, Canada.[1] Witteman is the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Human-Centred Digital Health (Santé numérique axée sur les personnes).[2]

Research career

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Witteman's research explores person-centred digital health, with a focus on human-computer interaction in health education, risk communication and decision making.[1] She previously completed a PhD in human factors engineering at the University of Toronto, where she was a fellow in Health Care, Technology, and Place, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Social Science in Medicine at the University of Michigan.[1][3]

In 2019, Witteman led a study, published in The Lancet, which found that when grant reviewers at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research primarily assessed the applicant as a scientist (rather than their proposed research), there were significant differences in success between male (13.9% success) and female (9.2%) principal investigators.[4][5][6][7][8] In a later study, Witteman found that when the Canadian Institutes of Health Research implemented data-driven gender policy interventions in a second COVID-19 funding competition (April-May 2020), the funding competition received more grant applications from female scientists, and received and funded more grant applications which considered sex and gender in their study design.[9][10]

In June 2020, Witteman received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant ($311,296) to investigate how Canadians perceive COVID-19 risk-reduction messages (such as the two-meter rule), and create digital health materials, such as videos and web applications, to help people better understand the science about COVID-19.[11][12]

Witteman has published over 150 academic publications, which have been cited over 3,800 times, resulting in an h-index and i10-index of 30 and 67 respectively.[13] She has spoken about different aspects of academia and the COVID-19 pandemic for various media outlets, including gender bias in academic grant applications, ableism, vaccine hesitancy, and the confusing COVID-19 vaccine roll-out for people with chronic health conditions in Quebec.[5][7][6][8][9][14][15][16][17][18] Witteman has previously co-authored an open letter calling for the Canadian Common CV (CCV) to be abandoned, which was signed by over 2,000 CCV users.[19]

Personal life

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Witteman has two children, and has been living with a chronic condition since 1983 (Type I Diabetes).[5][9][20]

Selected academic publications

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  • Shared decision making: examining key elements and barriers to adoption into routine clinical practice. France Légaré, Holly O Witteman. Health Affairs. 2013.
  • “You get reminded you’re a sick person”: personal data tracking and patients with multiple chronic conditions. Jessica S Ancker, Holly O Witteman, Baria Hafeez, Thierry Provencher, Mary Van de Graaf, Esther Wei. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2015.
  • A three-talk model for shared decision making: multistage consultation process. Glyn Elwyn, Marie Anne Durand, Julia Song, Johanna Aarts, Paul J Barr, Zackary Berger, Nan Cochran, Dominick Frosch, Dariusz Galasiński, Pål Gulbrandsen, Paul KJ Han, Martin Härter, Paul Kinnersley, Amy Lloyd, Manish Mishra, Lilisbeth Perestelo-Perez, Isabelle Scholl, Kounosuke Tomori, Lyndal Trevena, Holly O Witteman, Trudy Van der Weijden. The BMJ. 2017.
  • Are gender gaps due to evaluations of the applicant or the science? A natural experiment at a national funding agency. Holly O Witteman, Michael Hendricks, Sharon Straus, Cara Tannenbaum. The Lancet. 2019.
  • COVID-19 gender policy changes support female scientists and improve research quality. Holly O. Witteman, Jenna Haverfield, and Cara Tannenbaum. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Holly Witteman – Research Center". Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  2. ^ Government of Canada, Industry Canada (2012-11-29). "Canada Research Chairs". www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  3. ^ "Holly Witteman, PhD". CBSSM -- Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. 2013-04-15. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  4. ^ Witteman, Holly O.; Hendricks, Michael; Straus, Sharon; Tannenbaum, Cara (2019-02-09). "Are gender gaps due to evaluations of the applicant or the science? A natural experiment at a national funding agency". The Lancet. 393 (10171): 531–540. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32611-4. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 30739688. S2CID 72334588.
  5. ^ a b c "Women academics worry the pandemic is squeezing their research productivity". University Affairs. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  6. ^ a b "Bias against funding Canada's female scientists revealed in study". CBC News. 2019-02-07.
  7. ^ a b Guglielmi, Giorgia (2018-01-26). "Gender bias goes away when grant reviewers focus on the science". Nature. 554 (7690): 14–15. Bibcode:2018Natur.554...14G. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-01212-0.
  8. ^ a b Huang, Echo. "Bias against women may be preventing the best research from getting funded". Quartz. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  9. ^ a b c Langin, Katie (2021-02-09). "Pandemic hit academic mothers especially hard, new data confirm". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  10. ^ Witteman, Holly O.; Haverfield, Jenna; Tannenbaum, Cara (2021-02-09). "COVID-19 gender policy changes support female scientists and improve research quality". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (6): e2023476118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11820234W. doi:10.1073/pnas.2023476118. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 8017703. PMID 33531366.
  11. ^ Government of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2008-11-20). "Funding Decisions Database". webapps.cihr-irsc.gc.ca. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  12. ^ "Researchers investigate the effectiveness of public health messaging during the pandemic". University Affairs. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  13. ^ "Holly Witteman". scholar.google.ca. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  14. ^ "Confusion about vaccine booking in Quebec". Toronto.com. 2021-04-14. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  15. ^ Haelle, Tara (2020-09-18). "It's Okay to Have Questions About a Covid-19 Vaccine. Here's What to Ask". Medium. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  16. ^ "Women don't call their research 'novel' or 'excellent' as often as men do". CBC News. 2019-12-17.
  17. ^ "Budget 2018 gives a major boost to fundamental research in Canada". University Affairs. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  18. ^ "Starting with why: Explaining the science behind COVID-19 to enhance public health". The Seeker Newsmagazine Cornwall. 2020-11-17. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  19. ^ "Kill the Canadian Common CV, researchers urge the tri-council". University Affairs. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  20. ^ "Holly Witteman". Diabetes Action Canada - SPOR Network. 2019-02-05. Retrieved 2021-06-06.