Biography:

Dr. Schummers is a reproductive epidemiologist and health policy researcher. She completed her doctorate in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2018 and her postdoctoral fellowship with the BC Ministry of Health and the Department of Family Practice at UBC in 2021. She joined the Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation in UBC’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences as an Assistant Professor of Health Outcomes in 2022 where she leads the Reproductive Population Health Data Research team. She serves as the Director of Epidemiology with the Contraception and Abortion Research Team.

In collaboration with clinicians, policymakers, and patients, Dr. Schummers conducts epidemiologic and health policy research to examine reproductive health service access and population health outcomes. Funding by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the BC Ministry of Health and others, Dr. Schummers’s program of research is centered on evaluating impacts of reproductive health policy and practice changes on health services access and population health outcomes. Notable projects include examining abortion policy and practice after of Canada’s globally unique regulatory approach to the medical ‘abortion pill’ mifepristone, effects of universal public contraception coverage on contraception use and access, optimal pregnancy spacing for high-risk obstetric populations, and the epidemiology of miscarriage using Canadian linked administrative data. Dr. Schummers has published her research in the New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ, CMAJ, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Open, and other high-impact medical journals and has received widespread national and international media coverage, including CBC (the National, 6PM news, Early Edition), NPR, Globe and Mail, and others.