As PRC-RH Director, Rima is responsible for creating a brave and supportive environment that allows all PRC-RH faculty, staff, students and all our partners to implement projects, be excited about our work, and think up innovative ideas to improve rural health equity.

Rima’s research and practice focus on mental health, refugee and immigrant wellbeing, and substance use. She advocates for an emphasis on social, structural, and commercial determinants of health to promote equity, and justice. Rima applies principles and methods of Community-Based Participatory Research; uses frameworks and tools of implementation science; and emphasizes knowledge transfer to practice and policy.

Please comment on what one of the PRC-RH values means to you.

Amplifying community voice feels particularly important to me, as it has the potential to flip power dynamics, expose different ways of knowing and doing, connect heart and mind, and lead to more relevant, kind, and effective practices and policies.

What PRC-RH-related work are you excited to share?

One of the PRC projects that I am particularly excited about is uplifting the experiences of our public health workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic through our Harnessing Knowledge, Elevating Learnings project. In the face of huge challenges, our public health responded heroically, and creatively. Their stories can inform future responses to this and other pandemics.