Dr. Fatimah Jackson-Best is a public health researcher with a specialization in mental health and whose work focuses on communities in the Caribbean and Canada. Born in Toronto, Ontario she also has dual citizenship in Barbados.
Dr. Jackson-Best holds an Honours BA in Social Anthropology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies (2006), an MA in Anthropology (2009), and a graduate diploma in Health Services and Policy Research (2009) from York University in Toronto, Canada. One year after starting her PhD at the University of Toronto in 2009, Dr. Jackson-Best moved to Barbados to begin her dissertation research on “Maternal Depression in Barbados: Exploring How Black Women Experience, Understand, Manage and Cope with Self-Reported ‘Baby Blues’ and Postpartum Depression”. While pursuing her PhD, Dr. Jackson-Best worked extensively with the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (Cave Hill) first to provide research support and later as the Project Coordinator of a training programme called the Caribbean Institute in Gender and Development (CIGAD). The programme has trained 300 men and women across the region in feminist theory, research methods, and sexuality studies. During her time at UWI Cave Hill, Dr. Jackson-Best also taught Qualitative Methods and Social and Behavioural Sciences in the Faculty of Medical Sciences.
After receiving her PhD from the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health (2015), Dr Jackson-Best took an appointment as Global Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Health Sciences. Her research was an analysis of stigma and Intersectionality frameworks across published literature on mental illness, HIV/AIDS, and physical disability. Her PhD and postdoctoral research have been published in peer reviewed journals such as BMC Public Health, JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, and the Journal of International Women’s Studies.
Dr. Jackson-Best also does research consultancy work in Canada and the Caribbean, and recently worked with the Trinidadian NGO I Am One to pilot ‘Your Story’, a study exploring the lived experiences, social supports, and healthcare needs of LGBTQ people in the Caribbean. Currently she is the Project Manager for Pathways to Care, an initiative that seeks to improve mental health and addictions services for Black youth and their families in Ontario through research, strategic collaboration, and policy. Dr Jackson-Best believes that while there is no ideal way to do a PhD (aside from completing it) or to use the degree once completed, by thoughtfully using the privileges and resources each of us is afforded we can translate graduate training into lasting social change.