Faculty Profile

Dr. Laura Duncan has a PhD in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University and prior to her faculty appointment, she was Research Coordinator for the 2014 Ontario Child Health Study. Her program of research aims to generate evidence and measurement tools that support a population health approach to the assessment of child and youth mental health need and the provision of services to address these needs. She develops and evaluates brief, practical measurement tools that can be used to assess child and youth mental health need, and explores how data collected via these measures, combined with administrative and Census data, can be used to plan and evaluate service responses to children’s mental health need. She also guides research, evaluation and information system development at McMaster Children’s Hospital Child and Youth Mental Health Program and works in close partnership with Hamilton community mental health agencies.

Dr. Duncan holds an Early Career Award from Hamilton Health Sciences Research and received a New Investigator Research Grant from the SickKids Foundation and CIHR-Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH) to co-develop, implement and evaluate an intake assessment tool (the Mental Health Questionnaire for Children and Youth: MHQ-CY) that can form the basis of a community-wide prototype Child and Youth Mental Health Information System. She is also a Co-Principal Investigator on a project to develop a deep-learning healthcare system in child and youth mental health.