Mahsa Jessri

Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, Clinical Epidemiology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; & Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON

PhD (Vanier Scholar), Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON

M.Sc., Nutrition and Metabolism, Human Nutrition Division, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB

Dr. Jessri’s research program is uniquely at the intersection of nutritional sciences and population and public health. The overarching goal of her research program is to provide the evidence-base and decision tools to inform nutritional guidelines and polices for reducing the burden of chronic diseases.

Currently, Dr. Jessri’s program is focused on:

• Dietary pattern modelling and health and healthcare outcomes (with a focus on systems approach)
• Population health impact assessment of foods, nutrients, dietary habits and policy
• Nutritional monitoring and population surveillance
• Development of robust methods and strategies for addressing the challenges in assessment and analysis of complex dietary and lifestyle data
• Design and development of personalized nutrition risk assessment tools

Dr. Jessri’s research lab offers a stimulating place for research on nutritional epidemiology for population health. If you are interested in joining the team, please contact us via email to express your research interests.

HUNU 531/631: Food Nutrition and Health Graduate Seminar Series

FNH 398: Research Methods in Human Nutrition

Past Courses:

POP 8910 (PhD Core Course): “Scientific Paradigms in Population Health/ Paradigmes scientifiques en santé des populations”, Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa

For a comprehensive list of publications, click here.

Jessri M PhD, Jacobs A RD, Ng AP MSc, Bennett C MSc, Quinlan A MSc, Nutt C RD, Brown J MSc, Hennessy D PhD, Manuel DG MD. Development and Evaluation of the Dietary Pattern Calculator (DiPaC) for Personalized Assessment and Feedback. Can J Diet Pract Res. 2023 Oct 12:1-7. doi: 10.3148/cjdpr-2023-013. Online ahead of print. Read more.

Gilbert SZ, Morrison CL, Chen QJ, Punian J, Bernstein JT, Jessri M. Algorithm-based mapping of products in a branded Canadian food and beverage database to their equivalents in Health Canada's Canadian Nutrient File. Front Nutr. 2023 Feb 16;9:1013516. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.1013516. eCollection 2022. Read more.

Jessri M, Hennessey D, Eddeen AB, Bennett C, Sanmartin C, Manuel D. Dietary Patterns Attributable Mortality and Life Expectancy Lost in Canada: Evidence from Canadian National Nutrition Survey Linked to Routinely-Collected Health Administrative Databases. Am J Epidemiol. 2022 Oct 26:kwac189. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwac189. Online ahead of print. Read more.

Lazarova SV, Jessri M. Associations between dietary patterns and cardiovascular disease risk in Canadian adults: a comparison of partial least squares, reduced rank regression and the simplified dietary pattern technique. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022 May 2:nqac117. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/nqac117. Online ahead of print. Read more.

Jessri M, Hennessey D, Bader Eddeen A, Bennett C, Zhang Z, Yang Q, Sanmartin C, Manuel D. Sodium, Added Sugar and Saturated Fat Intake in Relation to Mortality and Cardiovascular Disease Events in Adults: Canadian National Nutrition Survey Linked with Vital Statistics and Health Administrative Databases. Br J Nutr. 2022 Apr 8:1-33. doi: 10.1017/S000711452200099X. Online ahead of print. Read more.

Lazarova SV, Sutherland JM, Jessri M. Adherence to emerging plant-based dietary patterns and its association with cardiovascular disease risk in a nationally representative sample of Canadian adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022 Mar 10:nqac062. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/nqac062. Online ahead of print. Read more.

Discovery Award-Banting Research Foundation

Royal Society of Canada (RCS) Alice Wilson Award (2018)

Emerging Leader in Nutrition Science, American Society for Nutrition

Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship

Dr. Mahsa Jessri is an Assistant Professor in Food, Nutrition and Health Program, the University of British Columbia, where she leads the “Nutritional Epidemiology for Population Health” research group. Previously, Dr. Jessri was a CIHR Banting Fellow with the Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa; and Health Analysis Division, Statistics Canada. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Canada Award and Medal (2018) for her research leadership.Dr. Jessri has expertise in nutritional and chronic disease epidemiology, dietary pattern modelling and health, dietary assessment, public and population health, machine learning, and preventive nutrition and dietetics.
Professional Affiliations:

1) Faculty, Centre for Health Services and Policy Research
2) Canada Research Chair in Nutritional Epidemiology for Public Health
3) Associate Member, UBC School of Population and Public Health
4) Core Advisor, Nutrition Science Advisory Committee, Health Canada