Dean, Elizabeth

Dr. Elizabeth Dean is Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Canada. Her academic and clinical careers and experiences have spanned over 30 countries. Because ‘lifestyle-related conditions’ are pandemic globally, her research has increasingly focused on knowledge translation by health professionals and integrating knowledge of cultural diversity in promoting health and wellness with attention to culture as a means of positively influencing lifestyle and health behavior change. This includes exploiting non-pharmacologic interventions (healthy lifestyles including health education and exercise) as ‘first-line’ interventions to prevent, reverse as well as manage these chronic conditions; conditions that are associated with enormous human suffering and unsustainable societal cost. Professor Dean has over 120 publications (related publications appear in abstract) and is co-editor and an author of ‘Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Physical Therapy: Evidence to Practice’ now in its 5th edition and translated into Portuguese and Korean. Professor Dean has served as Cardiovascular and Respiratory Senior Therapist with the Kuwait Dalhousie Project in Kuwait and has served as a visiting professor with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She holds visiting professorships with Mälardalen University, Sweden, and the University of Iceland. Her clinical practice focuses on people with complex co-morbid conditions.