John Lavis

Dr. John Norman Lavis, MD, PhD is a Canadian physician based in Toronto, Ontario.

He is a tenured professor in the Department of Health Evidence and Impact at McMaster University. He founded and continues to direct the McMaster Health Forum and has now launched Forum+ to expand the Forum’s work into social systems and supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.^{1) 2)}

Lavis has taken a leadership role in the COVID-19 pandemic through his participation in the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table and the COVID-19 Evidence Network to Support Decision-Making (COVID-END).

Lavis holds an MD from Queen’s University, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD (in Health Policy) from Harvard University.³⁾

Lavis was born June 11, 1965 in Montréal, Quebec.⁴⁾

Lavis attended Queen's University from 1983-1989, earning his MD. He did a rotating internship at North York General Hospital through the University of Toronto from 1989-1990, after which he earned a certificate in Clinical Traineeship in HIV Infection.⁵⁾ He then completed a Master of Sciences in Health Planning and Financing at London School of Economics and Political Science from 1991-1992.

He worked as a research fellow at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) then went to Harvard University for his PhD in Health Policy from 1994-1997. He was hired as a professor at McMaster University in September 1997.⁶⁾ He was given the status of Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto from January 1999 to June 2001. From 2001-2006, Lavis was a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer and Uptake.

Lavis co-developed the Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) alongside the World Health Organization in the mid-2000s, and he remains co-chair of the Global Steering Group.⁷⁾ He founded the McMaster Health Forum in April 2009.⁸⁾ He was made co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy in December 2010. From 2012-2017, Lavis was an Adjunct Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Lavis was awarded the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Evidence-Informed Health Systems in January 2015.⁹⁾ He became a Visiting Adjunct Professor at the University of Johannesburg in April 2018, and was promoted to Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy in December 2018.

Lavis participated as a member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table from 2020-2022, where he was responsible for contributing to guidance for provincial decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario.¹⁰⁾

He is co-lead investigator for the COVID-19 Evidence Network to Support Decision-Making (COVID-END), through which he has gathered evidence syntheses related to protocols for treatment and management of COVID-19.¹¹⁾ In this role, he also co-led Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges, which published the Evidence Commission report in January 2022.¹²⁾

Lavis is co-lead of Rapid-Improvement Support and Exchange (RISE), Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy and Adjunct Professor at the Africa Centre for Evidence at the University of Johannesburg.¹³⁾

He sits as a member of the advisory board for Closing the Gap Healthcare.^{14) 15)}

He also chairs the Partner Executive Group for the Partnership for Evidence and Equity in Responsive Social Systems (PEERSS).^{16) 17)}

He has served as Associate Director of the Michael G. DeGroote Cochrane Canada Centre.¹⁸⁾

Additional affiliations include:¹⁹⁾

• Procter & Gamble Canada Fulbright Scholarship (1994-95)²⁰⁾
• National Health Ph.D. Fellowship (1994-97)
• General Motors/Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Fellowship (1996-97)