Rebecca Saah
Positions
Full Professor
Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Community Health Sciences
Adjunct Professor
Affiliations
Full Member
Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education
Contact information
Web presence
Location
Private: Private
For media enquiries, contact
Please email me directly for media inquiries.
Background
Educational Background
Doctor of Philosophy Behavioural Health Sciences and Addiction Studies, University of Toronto, 2008
Master of Arts Sociology, York University, 1998
Bachelor of Arts English and Sociology - Joint Honours, McGill University, 1995
Biography
As a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences and a trained public health sociologist, I lead a nationally and internationally recognized research program in youth substance use, harm reduction, and drug policy. My work is grounded in approaches and methodologies designed to elicit perspectives that often go unheard in public health, especially from youth and young adults. I am committed to fostering meaningful and equitable community-academic research partnerships and have a long history of substance use research projects that engage youth and families through qualitative and arts-based methods.
Over the past decade, my research career at the University of Calgary has focused on the public health implications of cannabis legalization in Canada, youth cannabis use, and developing harm reduction-informed cannabis education and policy. I am widely recognized for my leadership in youth cannabis research through TRACE (Teens Report on Adolescent Cannabis Experiences), Canada’s first and longest running ethnographic youth cannabis research program (2006-2025). I also led Canada’s first community-engaged research project with bereaved parents whose young adult children died from drug poisoning (overdose), work that led to national recognition, international replication, and the Excellence in Community-Campus Research Partnership Award from Community-Based Research Canada and SSHRC in 2021.
I was born and raised in downtown Toronto (Cabbagetown/Regent Park), and before moving to Alberta lived in Montreal, Saskatoon, and Vancouver. Following postdoctoral work at the UBC School of Nursing and the BC Ministry of Health, in 2016 I came to Calgary to take up a tenure track position in the Cumming School of Medicine, as "Qualitative Social Scientist - Health Equity." I received tenure in 2021 and was promoted to professor in 2025.
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