Dr. Vanessa Fong’s research career has primarily focused on understanding how to improve health and social services for families of children with disabilities from underserved communities. She has extensive training and experience using integrated knowledge translation (iKT) approaches and has collaborated with not-for-profit organizations, policymakers, and people with lived experience on various projects aimed to improve the health and well-being of people with disabilities and their families.
Vanessa’s doctoral work highlighted major gaps in our understanding of the needs and preferences of racialized newcomer families of autistic children and the need for policies that support culturally-relevant and equity-driven care.
Her postdoctoral work aims to expand on this foundation by using a community-engaged approach to explore the perspectives of racialized newcomer families of children with medical complexity and their experiences accessing and navigating health and social services in BC.