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Social Accountability

As part of our commitment to communities, research on social accountability is a cornerstone of MERLIN. Understanding the needs and impacts of medical education on the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve is an important part of our mission, and scholarly inquiry in social accountability helps inform programs, supports improved education, and contributes to the larger body of scholarly work in this area

Resources and Recent Publications

There is fantastic work being done in Social Accountability by the MERLIN team. Check out some recent examples of social accountability scholarship and education!

Ross, B., & Cameron, E. (2021). Social accountable medical education: Our story might not be yours. Higher Education Studies, 10.5539/hes.v11n1p114

Wood, B, Fitzgerald, M., Kendall, C., & Cameron, E. (2021). Socially accountable medical education and the learning health system An integrative framework to transform community health and health systems. Learning Health Systems.

Climate Change in Medical School Curricula: A Status Report from Lakehead University written by Lindsay P. Galway, Rike Burkhardt, Paul Berger, and Erin Cameron.

Innovation in times of crisis: how NOSM faculty created curriculum that challenges students to advocate for impactful change.

Innovative app created by NOSM medical students aims to reduce opioid-related deaths.

Current Projects in Northern Ontario

The MERLIN team is leading several projects on Social Accountability, including the following projects:

  • Social Accountability Tools in different contexts – NOSM University is part of a global project to pilot a new social accountability tool: The Institutional Self-Assessment Social Accountability Tool (ISAT) (leads Drs. Erin Cameron, Sophia Myles)
  • Understanding Global and Local Perspectives of Social Accountability through Parallaxic Praxis – with New Frontiers in Research Funding, this project uses arts-integrated research to examine the meaning, purposes, and practices of social accountability (leads Dr. Erin Cameron)
  • Community-Engaged Medical Education in Canada – this study is a mixed methods study to identity meaningful and authentic to community engagement in educational programs (leads Dr. Erin Cameron and Ghislaine Pilot-Attema)
  • Social Accountability as a Framework for Engagement (SAFE) for Health Institutions – this project involves developing and piloting a social accountability tool for health service delivery institutions (leads Drs. Alex Anawati and Erin Cameron)

Feeling inspired? Contact us today to learn more about our projects, get involved, or share your project. We see this as a space for connecting people, places, and projects!

Who are we?

The Social Accountability research group brings together people who are passionate about Social Accountability and understanding better its impacts on education and health. Our goal is to conduct research, to share findings, and to advocate for socially accountable education systems designed to improve population health.

We are situated within MERLIN and the Dr. Gilles Arcand Centre for Health Equity at NOSM University.

Check back here often to stay up to date with our research projects!

Research Groups