Rate My Professor Natasha Saunders

Dr. Natasha Saunders is a Clinician-Investigator in the Division of Paediatric Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She also serves as a Senior Associate Scientist in the Child Health Evaluative Sciences Program at the SickKids Research Institute and as an Adjunct Scientist at ICES. Dr. Saunders received her MD from the University of Toronto in 2008, completed her pediatrics residency at SickKids, earned an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research from the University of Toronto, and completed postdoctoral training at ICES. Her clinical practice focuses on general paediatric hospitalist medicine and outpatient consultant general paediatrics, with particular attention to children and youth with complex comorbid physical and mental health conditions.

Dr. Saunders’ research uses large linked health and administrative databases to examine mental health system performance, access to and quality of care for immigrant children and youth, injury epidemiology including paediatric firearm injuries, and paediatric primary care delivery. She has held leadership roles such as Associate Editor at Archives of Disease in Childhood and has received awards including the Claire Bombardier Award and the Thomas and Edna Naylor Award from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, as well as the Restracomp Award from the SickKids Research Training Centre. Dr. Saunders has led or collaborated on multiple CIHR-funded projects addressing topics such as firearm injuries among children and youth, mental health outcomes following physical assault in childhood, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on paediatric care access and mental health service use.