Holly Witteman

Witteman's research explores person-centred digital health, with a focus on human-computer interaction in health education, risk communication and decision making.[1] She previously completed a PhD in human factors engineering at the University of Toronto, where she was a fellow in Health Care, Technology, and Place, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Social Science in Medicine at the University of Michigan.[1][3]

In 2019, Witteman led a study, published in The Lancet, which found that when grant reviewers at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research primarily assessed the applicant as a scientist (rather than their proposed research), there were significant differences in success between male (13.9% success) and female (9.2%) principal investigators.[4][5][6][7][8] In a later study, Witteman found that when the Canadian Institutes of Health Research implemented data-driven gender policy interventions in a second COVID-19 funding competition (April-May 2020), the funding competition received more grant applications from female scientists, and received and funded more grant applications which considered sex and gender in their study design.[9][10]

In June 2020, Witteman received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant ($311,296) to investigate how Canadians perceive COVID-19 risk-reduction messages (such as the two-meter rule), and create digital health materials, such as videos and web applications, to help people better understand the science about COVID-19.[11][12]

Witteman has published over 150 academic publications, which have been cited over 3,800 times, resulting in an h-index and i10-index of 30 and 67 respectively.[13] She has spoken about different aspects of academia and the COVID-19 pandemic for various media outlets, including gender bias in academic grant applications, ableism, vaccine hesitancy, and the confusing COVID-19 vaccine roll-out for people with chronic health conditions in Quebec.[5][7][6][8][9][14][15][16][17][18] Witteman has previously co-authored an open letter calling for the Canadian Common CV (CCV) to be abandoned, which was signed by over 2,000 CCV users.[19]

Witteman has two children, and has been living with a chronic condition since 1983 (Type I Diabetes).[5][9][20]

• Shared decision making: examining key elements and barriers to adoption into routine clinical practice. France Légaré, Holly O Witteman. Health Affairs. 2013.
• “You get reminded you’re a sick person”: personal data tracking and patients with multiple chronic conditions. Jessica S Ancker, Holly O Witteman, Baria Hafeez, Thierry Provencher, Mary Van de Graaf, Esther Wei. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2015.

• A three-talk model for shared decision making: multistage consultation process. Glyn Elwyn, Marie Anne Durand, Julia Song, Johanna Aarts, Paul J Barr, Zackary Berger, Nan Cochran, Dominick Frosch, Dariusz Galasiński, Pål Gulbrandsen, Paul KJ Han, Martin Härter, Paul Kinnersley, Amy Lloyd, Manish Mishra, Lilisbeth Perestelo-Perez, Isabelle Scholl, Kounosuke Tomori, Lyndal Trevena, Holly O Witteman, Trudy Van der Weijden. The BMJ. 2017.
• Are gender gaps due to evaluations of the applicant or the science? A natural experiment at a national funding agency. Holly O Witteman, Michael Hendricks, Sharon Straus, Cara Tannenbaum. The Lancet. 2019.
• COVID-19 gender policy changes support female scientists and improve research quality. Holly O. Witteman, Jenna Haverfield, and Cara Tannenbaum. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021.