Dr. Justine Dol is the inaugural Dr. Margaret Oulton Accelerate Chair in Women+ Health Research, which was funded in part through a generous gift from Dr. Margaret Oulton. Based at IWK Health, Dr. Dol is leading innovative research to improve women+ health in the Maritimes and beyond. In summer 2026, she shared an update with the IWK Foundation.
Over the past year, I've been leading several projects that move towards our shared goal of improving women+ health through innovative, patient-centred research.
First, we've been advancing Essential Coaching Postpartum, an evidence-based text messaging program that supports parents during the first six weeks after birth. We're completing a randomized controlled trial evaluating its impact on birthing and non-birthing parents and recently reached our 50% recruitment goal! We are also translating the program into French, Arabic, and simplified Chinese so more families can access trusted, culturally appropriate health information during the postpartum period. This work has the potential to improve access to evidence-based support during the postpartum period while complementing the care already provided by our health-care teams.
Second, we launched the Maritime Women+ Health Priority Setting Partnership study (www.maritimewomenshealth.com), which has the goal to identify the most important unanswered questions that should guide future women+ health research in the Maritime provinces. More than 1,750 people from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island submitted over 6,000 research questions about the health issues that matter most to them. This project is helping ensure future research is driven by the priorities of women+, families, clinicians, and communities, so that research funding is directed toward the areas where it can have the greatest impact.
Finally, we're wrapping up a study with women+ who have received early pregnancy loss care at the IWK’s Early Pregnancy Complication Clinics (EPCC) to understand their care experience. Pregnancy loss affects many families, yet many describe feeling unsupported and unsure where to find reliable information or appropriate care. By working directly with those who have lived experience, we hope to better understand their needs and identify opportunities to improve care, communication, and support during an incredibly difficult time. Through partnering with clinicians in the EPCC, the findings from this work will have direct impact on clinical care for future patients.
Essential Coaching Postpartum could become a Nova Scotia-specific digital health program that supports parents during a critical life moment with trusted, evidence-based information during the transition to parenthood. By translating the program into additional languages, we're also working to make that support more accessible and equitable for families from diverse communities.
The Maritime Women+ Health Priority Setting Partnership is putting the voices of women+, families, health-care providers, and communities at the centre of research decisions. The research priorities identified through this work will help ensure that future research investments focus on the issues identified by community members that have the greatest potential to improve health and healthcare across the region. The IWK Foundation survey found gaps in women+ health care, and our goal is to turn those gaps into research questions so we can address them in a scientifically rigorous way.
Our early pregnancy loss research addresses an area that has historically received too little attention despite affecting many families. By better understanding people's experiences and support needs, we hope to inform improvements in care, communication, and access to resources so that no one has to navigate pregnancy loss feeling isolated or unsupported.
I'm most excited about moving beyond individual research projects to building an ecosystem for women+ health research in Atlantic Canada. The Maritime Women+ Health Priority Setting Partnership is a great example because it gives women+ and communities a direct voice in shaping future research. That means future studies, and ultimately future healthcare innovations, will be driven by the questions that matter most to the people we're trying to serve.
The Accelerate Chair provides a unique opportunity to bring people together around a shared vision for improving women+ health across the Maritime provinces. One of the most important aspects of the role is building strong partnerships between researchers, clinicians, patients, and health system leaders so that research is grounded in real-world challenges and can be translated more quickly into better care.
The Chair is also helping strengthen connections across the Maritimes by bringing together women+ health researchers from different disciplines and institutions. By fostering collaboration rather than working in silos, we're creating opportunities to share expertise, develop larger research initiatives, and tackle complex health challenges that could not be addressed alone.
Looking ahead, I hope the Chair helps establish Nova Scotia, and the IWK in particular, as a national leader in women+ health research. By investing in collaboration, innovation, and research that is driven by the priorities of women+ and families, we can build a stronger research ecosystem, attract new partnerships and funding, and ensure that discoveries made here improve care not only across the Maritimes but also influence women's health nationally and beyond.
One of the things that makes this Chair unique is that it's embedded within the healthcare system. This creates opportunities to identify challenges directly from patients and clinicians, develop solutions alongside them, and evaluate those solutions in real-world settings where they can have immediate impact.
A hallmark of the Accelerate Chair research is that we partner with patients—not just as participants, but as collaborators. People with lived experience help shape our research questions, study design, implementation, and knowledge sharing, ensuring our work addresses the needs and priorities of the communities we serve.
The Chair is also helping build research infrastructure that extends beyond individual studies. Through initiatives like the Maritime Women+ Health Priority Setting Partnership, we're creating a roadmap for future women+ health research across the Maritime Provinces, ensuring that future discoveries are grounded in the priorities identified by women+, families, clinicians, and communities themselves.
I believe that's an important shift: not simply conducting research about women+, but conducting research with women+ to build a health system that better reflects their needs and experiences.