Dr. Ashleigh Domingo

My interest in community leadership and strategies for health promotion reflects my passion for working with communities to strengthen capacity and identify solutions that catalyze change. My research program is community-based, partner-centred, and applied, with the goal of promoting health. Food security, nutrition, and health equity are cross-cutting areas explored at the intersection of food, health, and the environment. Using mixed-methods, participatory approaches and implementation science, my research also aims to mobilize evidence into practice broadly related to health promotion and chronic disease prevention.

• HBSc – University of Toronto
• MSc – University of British Columbia
• PhD – University of Waterloo

Applying participatory approaches to meaningfully engage community partners in research and processes to mobilize knowledge into practice is a key focus of my community-based research portfolio. I collaborate with communities and an interdisciplinary team of researchers on equity-centred and health-promoting initiatives. Project activities draw upon research supported by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (tri-agency program), Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund (funding program of the Public Health Agency of Canada), and the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative.

Current research projects

Minwanjigewin: Towards food security and food sovereignty: Together with Ne’ikaaniganna Inc, Cambium Indigenous Professional Services, Community partners, and the University of Guelph, our project aims to enhance capacity for Community-led actions on food security and food sovereignty. This work is supported by the Ontario Agri-Food Research Initiative (2024-2027) jointly funded by the Governments of Canada and Ontario under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

Food is Medicine: Centring Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Co-design of a Community Food-Health Program: This project is an extension of Minwanjigewin and builds on partners' experience to inform a novel food is medicine program using social prescribing to enhance and leverage Community resources to meet the cultural food security, health, and wellness needs of Communities. This work is supported in part by funding from the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF).

Food Uniting Neighbours (f.u.n.): Interventions to improve food access and healthy eating: This community-based project builds on a Design Phase project where six interventions were co-designed and pilot-tested to improve food access in the Onward Willow neighbourhood. As the next phase of the work, we continue to deepen our engagement in the Onward Willow community and expand our co-design model in Centre Wellington. This work is supported in part by the Public Health Agency of Canada Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund.

Produce prescription program implementation and evaluation: In collaboration with Unison Health and Community Services, this project aims to strengthen a community-based food prescribing intervention for promoting healthy food access.

Connecting the Dots: Mobilizing rural knowledge to knowledge users: This initiative aims to advance connections between rural knowledge producers and end-users across rural Ontario. This research is funded by the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, a collaboration between the Government of Ontario and the University of Guelph.

Domingo, A., Yessis, J., Zupko, B., McEachern, L. W., Valaitis, R., Skinner, K., & Hanning, R. M. (2024). Scale up of the learning circles: a participatory action approach to support local food systems in four diverse First Nations school communities within Canada. BMC public health, 24(1), 2222. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19391-z

Domingo, A., Little, M., Beggs, B., Brubacher, L. J., Lau, L. L., & Dodd, W. (2024). Examining the role of community health workers amid extreme weather events in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review. Public health, 236, 133–143. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2024.07.023

Domingo, A., Yessis, J., Charles, K. A., Skinner, K., & Hanning, R. M. (2023). Integrating knowledge and action: learnings from an implementation program for food security and food sovereignty with First Nations communities within Canada. Implementation Science, 18(1), 34.

Domingo, A., Charles, K. A., Jacobs, M., Brooker, D., & Hanning, R. M. (2021). Indigenous community perspectives of food security, sustainable food systems and strategies to enhance access to local and traditional healthy food for partnering williams treaties first nations (Ontario, Canada). International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(9), 4404.

Domingo, A., Spiegel, J., Guhn, M., Wittman, H., Ing, A., Sadik, T., ... & Batal, M. (2021). Predictors of household food insecurity and relationship with obesity in First Nations communities in British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario. Public Health Nutrition, 24(5), 1021-1033.

• SCMA*2110 Research Methods in Kinesiology
• HHNS*3000 Special Topics in Lifestyle Medicine