Danielle Washington, the first student in York University’s PhD in Nursing program to be awarded the Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral (CGS-D) Award, was honoured for her research, titled “Exploring the Mental Well-Being of Black Women Living in Poverty and at Risk of Intimate Partner Violence.”
The CGS-D is one of the two listed awards within the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Doctoral Research Award program and includes $35,000 of funding to support students pursuing a doctorate in a health-related field in Canada.
“I am very grateful for the CIHR doctoral award. The financial support will allow me to increase my focus on my doctoral studies,” says Washington, whose doctoral work is being supervised by Nazilla Khanlou, professor and Women’s Health Research Chair in Mental Heath. “I am also thankful for the support of Dr. Khanlou and the School of Nursing professors at York University who have been and continue to be very instrumental in my graduate journey.”
In the upcoming year, Washington – a registered nurse in the mental health field, with experience working with marginalized populations – will use the three-year funding to carry out research focusing on the mental well-being of Black women who experience poverty and intimate partner violence.
She aims to promote an understanding of the interplay between poverty, intimate partner violence and mental well-being for Black Canadian women, while identifying the facilitators and barriers Black women encounter when accessing support services. Washington plans to engage in knowledge translation and dissemination activities throughout her research career and incorporate her research findings into ongoing advocacy, health policy development and mental health initiatives. She looks forward to seeing how her research will contribute to the Canadian health-care field during and beyond the tenure of her award.