Dr. Christopher Perlman is an assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on understanding and improving the quality of healthcare for vulnerable health populations, particularly older adults and persons with mental health conditions. These populations deal with health, social, and economic needs within often fragment health and social support systems. To begin addressing this, Dr. Perlman has developed assessment and methodological tools for using health information to support clinical, management, and policy decision making in healthcare. For instance, he has developed care planning tools for mental healthcare to identify youth and adults at risk for various health and system related outcomes. He is also interested in the measurement of healthcare quality, with specific research examining risk adjusted outcome indicators for comparing mental health providers. Currently, Dr. Perlman has two primary areas of research interest. The first is how administrative and clinical data can be translated to inform decision making at multiple levels, including shared decisions between clinicians and patients as well as between providers in different health sectors. A second interest is on the use of systems approaches for examining the relationship between neighbourhood characteristics, access to health services, and quality of care.
