Notisha Massaquoi named a 2023 YWCA Toronto Woman of Distinction
Notisha Massaquoi, a world-renowned researcher in health equity, has been recognized with a 2023celebrating women who further gender equality in their field.
An assistant professor in the department of health and society at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Massaquoi helped establish several organizations serving Black communities in Canada, including , and the She also served as the executive director of WHIWH for 22 years.
“Health equity for me is the understanding that people with the lived experience of the inequity are the only experts that can help you find solutions,” she says.
In 2020-21, Massaquoi was a at U of T’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and researched the relationship between violence and health in Black communities. After joining οScarborough she founded the, dedicated to researching health-care inequalities faced by the Black community in Toronto and co-creating solutions
“People can’t be complacent and say ‘Well, we're better off than we were 20 years ago.’ We all still have to be outraged at inequity. And then we all have to act on that collective outrage,” Massaquoi says.