Pat McGrath
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University and Founder and Chair of the Board, Strongest Families
Patrick McGrath is a clinical psychologist, scientist, senior health administrator and social entrepreneur. He currently is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, at Dalhousie University and Scientist at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia and a Clinical Psychchologist at the Centre for Mental and Psychological Health in Ottawa.
His career has been devoted to translating research into care. His system of child and youth mental health, Strongest Families sees over 9000 families a year with outstanding results. His work in pediatric pain has resulted in better measures of pain and better treatments for headache and recurrent abdominal pain. Translating Research into Care grants in the Nova Scotia Health system, has resulted in dozens of innovations improving care for patients.
His research now focuses on the use of technology to deliver care. He develops interventions and conducts pragmatic randomized trials to evaluate the interventions.
He has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, 50 book chapters and 14 books. He has received numerous national and international awards and recognitions for his research, mentoring and advocacy including being appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, being elected as fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He was co-winner of the Principal Award of the Manning Foundation in 2013, and the Governor General’s Innovation award in 2017 for the Strongest Families e-health system (www.strongestfamilies.com). He is Chair of the Board of the not for profit, Strongest Families Institute that delivers mental health care to families each year across Canada and in Finland and employs 100 people. His newest company is 90Seconds, a novel health information strategy.
He currently leads major grants in developing and evaluating apps for Family Doctors to prescribe to their patients; a coached intervention for caregivers; a coached program for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and mental health problems. He is developing e-health interventions for PTSD. He leads the Royal Society of Canada, working group on COVID-19 and mental health and the working group on developmental disabilities. In his private practice, he sees children and adults for therapy for anxiety, depression, PTSD and grief.
