Dr. Anna Johnson, PhD, joined the Canadian Cancer Trials Group in 2022 as the Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, Indigenization, and Accessibility (EDIIA) Lead. In this role, Anna provides strategic leadership for the short and long-term planning of CCTG's health equity priorities and supports CCTG in embedding health equity and accessibility into its clinical trials, research activities, and network. She is committed to building reciprocal relationships and collaborating with communities underrepresented in clinical trials in order to build trust, understand community research priorities, and improve equitable access to trials. She led three pan-Canadian EDIIA Working Groups with clinicians, clinical research personnel, patient partners, and CCTG staff and faculty which focused on developing recommendations for improving health equity in trial design, methodology and data management, operations, and in CCTG’s network. These working groups developed recommendations that guide CCTG’s approach to addressing equity and diversity in clinical trials and ultimately led to the creation of CCTG’s permanent Health Equity Standing Committee which Anna chairs. She is also the Senior Investigator for a CCTG study collecting social determinants of health variables from participants on CCTG trials to inform targeted strategies to improve equitable access to trials for underrepresented communities.

Anna is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Queen's University and enjoys mentoring students and deepening their understanding of the importance of health equity. Prior to joining CCTG, she worked in Indigenous justice and earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Guelph.