Our Story

SAHRC began in 2016 when a group of people interested in improving engagement of South Asians in Canadian health research put their heads together. After a series of visioning meetings, the collaborative was formed under the leadership of Dr. Sonia Singh. Surrey Memorial Hospital Foundation provided startup funding to hire a coordinator, Dr. Aven Sidhu, who helped established the vision and objectives of the collaborative and guided the Steering Committee toward the decision to focus on research priority setting. Patient partners and community members were regularly consulted, and the SAHRC published and presented the research priorities in 2019. These are fundamental in going forward with research among folks of South Asian ancestry — what better thing to study than topics that the South Asian community itself has identified as a priority?

After a break during the COVID-19 pandemic, SAHRC resumed its work around supporting researchers, partners, and potential participants of South Asian ancestry to better network and enhance Canadian health research. The next project completed was a qualitative investigation of ideas from Canadian health research teams who worked with folks of South Asian ancestry. Thematic analysis forms the basis of best practices in Canadian research among South Asians, and sets groundwork for further research.

With the research priority setting and best practice work, SAHRC has now focused energy on building the network and bringing people together around these ideas as well as their own. Thank you for reading, and we hope you consider joining the work!

Meet the Team

Yvonne Lamers

Co-Lead
Dr. Lamers holds a Canada Research Chair in Human Nutrition and Vitamin Metabolism. She is a faculty at the University of British Columbia, and her research interests relate to underlying mechanisms of nutrition and disease risk. The overarching theme of her research is nutrient adequacy.
Nitasha Puri

Co-Lead
Dr. Nitasha Puri is a clinical assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and Medical Lead at the Roshni Clinic in the Department of Addiction Medicine and Substance Use Services at Fraser Health .
Her clinical and research interests include substance use among racialized populations, healing and recovery, and health equity. Originally trained in family medicine, she completed the clinical and research fellowships at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, and is currently involved in teaching, clinical research, clinical service provision, and policy and guideline development.
Dr. Sonia Singh

Past Lead, Steering Committee Member
Dr. Sonia Singh is a hospitalist physician and osteoporosis consultant based at Peace Arch Hospital (PAH) in White Rock, British Columbia. In 2007, she spearheaded the opening of Fraser Health’s multi-disciplinary Healthy Bones Clinic at PAH. She leads a knowledge translation research team that started the first Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) in BC at PAH in 2015. Sonia holds a research fellowship from the PAH Foundation and holds academic appointments at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University.
She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Osteoporosis Canada, the co-chair of the International Fragility Fracture Network Special Interest Group in Secondary Fracture Prevention and the co-chair of the BC Coalition of Osteoporosis Physicians FLS Special Interest Group.
Aven Sidhu

Past Coordinator, Steering Committee Member
Aven Sidhu is a medical graduate from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Bahrain and has been a member of SAHRC since 2018. He is currently working as a Research Coordinator within Fraser Health and is completing his Master of Science (Public Health) with the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine. His research interests include mental health and substance use, community engagement, and health promotion through policy.
Arun Garg

Steering Committee Member
Dr. Arun Garg is a global Physician with a passion for Healthy Civil Society. A consultant medical biochemist from 40 years at Fraser Health is a Clinical Professor of Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Cooperation and Engagement office of Global Medicine. He also is an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Services in the Faculty of Health Science at Simon Fraser University and Program Medical Director of the South Asian Health Institute at Fraser Health. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry from the University of Saskatchewan, Doctor of Medicine from the University of British Columbia. He founded Canada India Network Society in 2010 to foster collaboration between two nations through a vision of healthy civil society.
Deljit Bains

Steering Committee Member
Deljit Bains, RN, BSc, MBA brings over 30 years of health care experience. She has held a variety of health care roles in acute care, education and population based community care and is currently the Director for Surgical Services, and Medical Device Reprocessing at FHA. She has worked in both public and private healthcare. Her goals for SAHRC is helping to improve health and health outcomes for the South Asian population in a culturally appropriate way through innovative evidence based care, research and local, national and international partnerships.
Rableen Nagra

Steering Committee Member
Rableen Nagra (She/Her) has more than 10 years of patient engagement and leadership experience in various health care and non-profit settings, such as Fraser Health Authority, BC SUPPORT Unit, Canadian Red Cross, Heart & Stroke Foundation and BC Cancer Agency. She is passionate about community engagement and empowering patients to engage in health care and research. She has completed Masters of Arts in Healthcare Leadership with a focus on value-based leadership. In addition to being a Primary Care manager at Fraser Health, she is also the Vice President of the board for the Association of Neighborhood houses of BC (ANHBC).
Jagbir Kaur

Steering Committee Member
Jagbir is a Clinical Nurse Specialist at BC Cancer and a PhD in Nursing Student at the University of British Columbia. Broadly her research interest is centered on enhancing equity-oriented care in the cancer sector. Her doctoral research is focused on examining the unmet needs of Panjabi-Sikh oncology patients during the treatment phase of the cancer experience.
Alia Januwalla

Steering Committee Member
Alia Januwalla is the Knowledge Translation Specialist with the BC SUPPORT Unit Fraser Centre. Alia works with researchers and public partners across the Fraser-Salish region to promote the use of integrated knowledge translation strategies in patient-oriented research projects. Alia is especially interested in embedding Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion across knowledge translation activities. As a member of the South Asian community, Alia hopes to support SAHRC's goals of advancing South Asian engagement in health research by leveraging researcher-partner relationships and identifying opportunities for collaboration.