Marina Morrow

Associate Professor

Biography: 

Dr. Morrow’s PhD is in Community Psychology from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. Dr. Morrow is currently a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar. Since the completion of her PhD she has taught in three Canadian universities, most recently at the University of British Columbia in the Women’s Studies Program. Before coming to SFU, Dr. Morrow worked as a Research Associate with the BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health (BCCEWH) at BC Women’s Hospital where she was head of a research program on women, mental health and health policy. Dr. Morrow maintains an affiliation with the BCCEWH and is also a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Research Interests: 

Dr. Morrow’s research interests are in critical health policy with foci on the following four themes: 1) Mental health reform, service provision and access to health services, 2) Mental health and social inequity, 3) Mental health and citizen engagement and, 4) Globalization, neoliberal reforms, gender and health. The goals of her research are:

• To better understand the social, political and institutional processes through which health and mental health policies and practices are developed and how social and health inequities are sustained or attenuated for different populations.
• To develop interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral research approaches to mental health services and policy research through unique research involvement models.
• To contribute to the development of theoretical frameworks and new models for mental health policy and program development, with the goal of improving mental health care and mental health outcomes for diverse populations.

Dr. Morrow strongly supports public scholarship and collaborative research partnerships with community-based organizations, health care practitioners, advocates and policy decision makers and her research has been published in a variety of academic journals and policy and research reports. Her most recently published article is “Mental Health Reform, Economic Globalization and the Practice of Citizenship” in the Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health.

Dr. Morrow has a number of research projects underway, the most recent of which is a three-year study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, examining the experiences of men and women being relocated from Riverview Psychiatric Hospital to smaller facilities throughout BC and the impact on their families, care providers and the larger community.

Teaching Interests: 

Dr. Morrow’s teaching interests include; health and social inequities, the social determinants of health, health and globalization, gender, racialization, health and the body, historical conceptions of mental health and mental illness and critical engagement with qualitative research methodology in the sciences and social sciences.

Publications and Activities