Steph Wiafe

PhD in Health Sciences

Steph Wiafe's journey as a health equity researcher is rooted in her lived experiences as a Black-African femme. 

Steph has spent a near-decade working directly with communities facing systemic discrimination and barriers to accessible, affordable, and culturally safe healthcare, by supporting them in asserting their health and human rights. Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, Steph most recently served as Co-Executive Director at Pivot Legal Society, where she provided organizational leadership at the intersection of health equity, human rights, and advocacy.

While completing her Honours Bachelor’s Degree of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa, an Ebola virus outbreak occurred in West Africa. She felt a calling to apply her health research skills to her Honours research project and investigate the impacts of a candidate vaccine for Ebola through the lens of the structural determinants of health and regional cultures. A critical learning she gained from the project was the impact of stigma in shaping public health responses to infectious disease epidemics, which has inspired her work since. She entered the workforce as a public health professional after completing her Master of Public Health at Queen’s University, where she fulfilled her practicum placement in her home country of Ghana, researching healthcare stigma with adolescent single mothers.

Over the following years, Steph expanded her practical skillset in public health, identifying and reflecting upon critical research gaps related to stigma and discrimination, especially among gender expansive, 2SLGBTQIA+, and Indigenous, Black and racialized communities. The aforementioned experiences collectively informed Steph’s doctoral research focus, which examines how intersecting forms of stigma and discrimination interact with resilience and shape biomarkers of aging among women+ (inclusive of transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people) living with and without HIV in BC. Supervised by Dr. Angela Kaida, Steph’s project is nested within the community-engaged BCC3 (British Columbia CARMA-CHIWOS Collaboration) cohort study, where Community Research Associates, Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Users, and community organizations are valued collaborators.

Steph is a recipient of the Faculty of Health Sciences Judy Graves Graduate Award which recognizes a student who addresses health and social equity by advocating for those living on the margins of society. For Steph, receiving this award has affirmed the importance of integrating professional practice with doctoral scholarship. She encourages  public health professionals (at any stage in their career) to recognize the value in their expertise.  Steph notes that experience gained in community, policy, and practice settings offers a strong foundation for health research and can deepen the relevance, responsiveness, and impact of academic inquiry.