Adalsteinn Brown

Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, DPhil, AB is the Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, and former Co-chair of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.

He grew up in London, Ontario, and moved to New York in 1996 to co-found a healthcare consulting firm with offices on Park Avenue.¹⁾

Due to his high-level positions and affiliations (particularly as Dean of the DLSPH), Brown “would effectively be the boss, and hold power over” several current Medical Officers of Health in Ontario including Eileen de Villa, Barbara Yaffe, Lawrence Loh, Vinita Dubey, Lisa Berger, and Avis Lynn Noseworthy.²⁾

On August 3, 2022, Brown stepped down as co-chair of the OST to focus on his work as Dean of the DLSPH. Upton Allen took his place.³⁾

Brown was named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 for his work on healthcare performance. selected by a panel of 29 business and community leaders assembled by Caldwell Partners International, an executive search firm in Canada. Brown was 32 years old at the time.

“Caldwell compiled a preliminary list of candidates from more than 1,400 nominations, a record. The panel then rated the finalists on six criteria: vision and leadership, innovation and achievement, community involvement, impact and strategy for growth.”⁴⁾

The National Board of Directors that selected him included representatives from the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Bell Canada Enterprises, National Bank of Canada, Astral Media (absorbed by Bell Media), the University of Toronto, St. Michael's Hospital, and the Government of British Columbia.

In his U of T financial disclosures for 2018-2019 and his OST forms, Brown reports receiving $25,000.00 from CorHealth (since absorbed by Ontario Health) for “consulting on information management requirements.”^{5) 6)}

Brown returned to Ontario in 1998 to join the Hospital Report Project, where he completed reports until 2001.⁷⁾ The 1998 and 1999 reports were funded by the Ontario Hospital Association, and the 2001 report was prepared by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) with “methodological advice from researchers at the University of Toronto.”

The project measured financial performance, patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, management investment and innovation in Ontario hospitals.

In his 2001 profile, Brown lists his research interests to include “the cost-effectiveness of emerging technologies and the effective communication of performance information to consumers.” He states that he had “worked with a wide range of private sector clients in Canada, the U.S., and the Far East on strategy in health care, health care financing, and quality improvement topics.”

Brown served as an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Ontario.⁸⁾

Brown is the Co-chair of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.⁹⁾ Despite the Table's claims of independence, a University of Toronto profile claims Brown “has worked collaboratively with the Ontario Premier and his cabinet on resilience and recovery measures and efforts.”¹⁰⁾

In mid-December, Brown stated that “an accelerated booster campaign doesn't go far enough to keep the hospital system from becoming overwhelmed” by the Omicron Variant of SARS-CoV-2. He contradicted himself multiple times when attempting to claim the COVID-19 vaccine “booster shots” were effective, while also claiming two doses also offered protection. He also advised that families should only “associate with” people who are vaccinated.¹¹⁾

However, as noted by Canuck Law, “all of these measures to 'prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed' [are] based on false pretenses, since Brown’s recent work shows he ALREADY KNEW there was a capacity problem in Ontario hospitals.”¹²⁾

Brown is on the Board of Directors of Ontario Health.¹³⁾

Brown is the former head of strategy and assistant to the Deputy Minister for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care.¹⁴⁾

Brown is the former head of policy and science for the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.

Brown has held senior leadership positions in policy and strategy within the Ontario government.¹⁵⁾

He is also on the Premier's Council, which was created in 2018 to “provide the Premier of Ontario and the Deputy Premier and Minister of Health and Long-Term Care with strategic priorities and actions”.¹⁶⁾ He was on the team that authored a report determining that Ontario's hospital system was already under strain well before COVID-19 or the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. Canuck Law notes, “Even back in 2018, 2019, the Premier’s Council openly admitted that the Ontario Health Care system was overburdened, and was unable to meet current needs, let alone projected increases. Adalsteinn Brown is on that Council. When he headed up [the] Ontario Science Table the following year, did he simply forget his own report?”¹⁷⁾

Brown is a scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital.¹⁸⁾

Brown is the Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Prior to becoming Dean, he was the Director of the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Dalla Lana Chair of Public Health Policy also at the University.

He is also the director of the Institute for Pandemics, which he said will “ramp up research and training for more agile, equitable preparation, resilience and recovery from pandemics.”^{19) 20)}

Brown is a Senior Fellow at Massey College.

The school is funded by Canadian National Railway (a Bill Gates company), CBC/Radio Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) (funded by Microsoft, RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), BMO Financial Group, CIBC, Facebook, General Motors, Ivey Foundation, Manulife, Scotiabank, TD Bank Group, and the Hamilton Community Foundation),²¹⁾ Dalhousie University, Global Affairs Canada, Brian Hodges, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (the national security arm of the Canadian government), University of Toronto, the Privy Council Office, United Way, Environment Canada, the Massey Foundation, Suncor Energy, TD Bank Group, the Toronto Foundation, University of Alberta, Bell Canada, the Rockefeller Foundation, CIBC, the Ford Foundation, the Government of Japan, Green Shield Canada, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, IBM, Ipsos, Lionsgate, the Mastercard Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Novo Nordisk, the Rogers Foundation, and many others.^{22) 23) 24) 25)}

Brown has been an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and an Instructor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario.²⁶⁾

Brown was paid by the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) as a member on their COVID-19 Expert Committee.²⁷⁾

He received his undergraduate degree in government from Harvard University and his doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

During his time working as the principal investigator on the Hospital Report Project with the University of Toronto, Brown was completing his doctorate in the Faculty of Clinical Medicine at Oxford on differences in hospital utilization and health care system performance in the UK and Canada.²⁸⁾

• December 5, 2018: Public health emergency preparedness: a framework to promote resilience²⁹⁾
  • Co-authored by Bonnie Henry (who would act as Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia, Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic), and Brown's OST Co-Chair Brian Schwartz.
  • Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

• October 2018: Development of Enriched Core Competencies for Health Services and Policy Research³⁰⁾
  • Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (CIHR-IHSPR) via its Institute Strategic Grant and by a CIHR-IHSPR Institute Community Support Grant held by Dr. Adalsteinn Brown and Dr. Stephen Bornstein

• February 20, 2017: Evaluating investment in quality improvement capacity building: a systematic review³¹⁾
  • Funded by Improving & Driving Excellence Across Sectors (IDEAS Initiative), which is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and partnered with the University of Toronto, Health Quality Ontario (HQO), Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), McMaster University, Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Queen's University, University of Ottawa, and Western University.³²⁾