Born:

April 21, 1942

(Pomona, California)

Education:

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1968)

Awards & Honours:

2021: Manitoba 150 Women Trailblazer Award

2020: Vanier Medal - Institute of Public Administration of Canada

See All Awards
Nora Lou Roos

A trailblazer in using big data systems analysis to understand social determinants of health

Nora Lou P. Roos

Unlocked the potential of big data systems analysis to clarify the social determinants of health helping inform effective policies in support of universal health care

Noralou Roos is a trailblazer in using big data systems analysis to understand social determinants of health promoting effective universal health care policies. The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, founded by Dr. Roos and her husband Leslie Roos, tracks the health and health systems use of a million Manitobans for more than 50 years, leading to the development of a data repository making it possible to relate a population’s health care system use to its health care needs. Dr. Roos’ model for assemblage and analysis of administrative health care data serves as a global model supporting after-market safety and effectiveness tracking of new pharmaceuticals, actionable policies for optimal allocation of health care resources, notably children’s health care, and the diagnosis and treatment of poverty. Honoured and imitated by institutions and governments worldwide, Dr. Roos’ work, decades ahead of its time, helped to establish comprehensive large-scale data analysis as the pathway to effective population health care management, providing fundamentally new opportunities for understanding key health and health care research and policy issues. Dr. Roos’ EvidenceNetwork.ca broadly disseminated authoritative population health care information to the public, using media to promote informed public understanding of health care issues.

Key Facts

Founded EvidenceNetwork.ca. publishing over 650 original articles and op-eds in all of the major daily broadsheets across the country

In 2003 the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) noted Dr. Roos’ work as cited in the top half of 1% of published scientists

Founded GetYourBenefits! effort in Manitoba, to encourage physicians and health care providers to diagnose and treat poverty and to help low-income individuals access their benefits

Founding Director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, which receives funding from the provincial Ministry of Health to conduct research that helps inform health policy issues

Professional timeline

Impact on lives today

Providing effective and equitable health care to mass populations is a world challenge, especially urgent for governments supporting universal health care systems. Dr. Roos’ pioneering work in big data systems analysis helps governments generate tools to identify and serve mass healthcare needs. Our individual health and wellbeing require effectively designed policies and institutional alignments responding to the health needs of regional and national populations. The health of all is the health of everyone. Dr. Roos’ systems information analysis remains a model for understanding, sustaining, and improving universal healthcare delivery worldwide.

Nora Lou P. Roos

2024

  • Headshot of Dr. Roos

    Noralou Roos inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

    Ottawa, Ontario

  • Provides input to the Royal Society of Canada for the G7 Science Statement on “Centrality of Digital Health Collaboration to Health Progress”

  • logo

    Becomes Professor Emerita, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba

    Health and Medical Education & Training

  • Nora Lou Roos founds 'GetYourBenefits!' effort in Manitoba

    Public Health, Health Promotion & Advocacy, Women in Medicine, Health Policy

  • Noralou Roos co-authors several e-books on health policy in Canada

    Public Health, Health Promotion & Advocacy, Health Policy, Women in Medicine

    Available on Apple, Kindle, Google Play and Google Books, these include "Making Evidence Matter in Canadian Health Policy" and "Why We Need More Canadian Health Policy in the Media".

  • Is invited to Australia for what becomes a multi-year/city visit to advise on their commitment to expand the use of health administrative data as a research resource

    Health Policy

  • Leads the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

    Health Policy, Leadership in Organizational Development

    This eventually results in the establishment of the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network. Health Canada provided $32 million funding for the first 5 years and ongoing funding of $10 million/year. CIHR ran the program for the first several years and in 2022 it was transferred to CADTH (Canada’s Drug and Health Technology Agency)

  • Noralou Roos MCHP image

    Noralou Roos becomes the Founding Director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy

    Public Health, Health Promotion & Advocacy, Women in Medicine

    She served in this capacity until 2004.

  • Joins the Faculties of Management and Medicine at the University of Manitoba

    The Faculty of Management was renamed the Asper School of Business in 2000. The Faculty of Medicine is now the Max Rady College of Medicine, under Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.

1973

Noralou Roos has singlehandedly done more to develop national capacity for evidence-based health and health care improvement than any other living Canadian.