Speaker

Sahr Wali

Summary

Digital health tools are often designed with good intentions, yet frequently fall short of supporting meaningful care in underserved communities. Drawing on a series of case studies from community-partnered work, this seminar explores how conventional approaches to digital design fail to capture the realities of diverse care contexts.

Through examples from Northern Ontario and Uganda, Dr Wali will highlight the importance of presence, pace, and perspective, demonstrating how relational engagement and the integration of diverse knowledge systems underpin the success of digital health programs. In particular, the talk will examine how Indigenous approaches to reflexive co-design, grounded in relationship-building and reciprocity, fundamentally influence both the processes and outcomes of digital innovation.

By bringing together principles from user-centred design and community-based research, these approaches shape not only how tools are designed, but also how success is defined, shifting the focus from adoption and efficiency towards relevance, trust, and lived experience. In doing so, the seminar reflects on how these experiences challenge dominant assumptions in digital innovation and design research, and considers what it means to move towards more contextually grounded, equitable, and meaningful approaches to digital health.

Speaker’s bio

Dr. Sahr Wali is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and a Scientific Associate at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, University Health Network. She is the recipient of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Researcher award for her work advancing culturally safe cardiac care pathways for racialized and socially disadvantaged communities in Ontario.

Dr. Wali leads a program of community-engaged research spanning Northern Ontario and Uganda, focused on developing digitally enabled, community-first models of cardiac care. Her work challenges conventional approaches to digital health innovation by integrating Indigenous and Western knowledge systems to support more equitable, holistic care delivery. Through interdisciplinary and cross-sector partnerships, her research aims to redesign health systems to better serve structurally marginalized populations.

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