Natasha Sobers-Grannum, MBBS, PGDip, MPH, FRSPH, PhD

Role: Lecturer, Public Health
Email: natasha.sobers@cavehill.uwi.edu

Dr. Sobers is a Lecturer in Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus and Principal Investigator of the Barbados National Registry for Non-communicable diseases which focuses on heart attacks, stroke and cancer. Natasha is a UWI medical graduate, United States Fulbright Scholar and a Bernard Lown Scholar in Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She performs clinical duties in primary health care centres in Barbados. Her Caribbean wide impact includes collaborations with the Pan American Health Organization, Healthy Caribbean and Coalition and CARICOM on the prevention of chronic diseases and promotion of heart health.

Dr. Sobers’ research focuses on exploring health disparities and their impact on trends in cardiovascular diseases and cancers in the Caribbean. She has published in various areas including the influence of gender on diabetes and heart attacks. She won the Caribbean Public Health Agency’s David Picou Researcher Prize in 2018 for her work examining disparities in coronary heart disease and stroke mortality trends in the Caribbean and was co-investigator on a National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities funded study to describe existing health inequities in diabetes, hypertension, breast and prostate cancer in the Caribbean.

More recently, her portfolio includes studies examining the implementation of programs to reduce the incidence of obesity, diabetes and hypertension through clinic and community-based interventions. These studies will ultimately provide evidence to guide the most effective use of scarce resources for health improvement in small island developing states. Dr. Sobers aims to impact the Caribbean health landscape through research and collaboration with policy makers and program implementers.