Dr Natalie Greaves is a Tenured Lecturer in Public Health and Coordinator of the MPhil/PhD programme in Public Health and Epidemiology. She also coordinates the Social and Preventative Medicine Clerkship, and Health and the Environment course in the MBBS curriculum and the Primary Health Care and Qualitative Research courses in the Masters in Public Health Programme.
Natalie is an alumna of UWI herself, being awarded her MBBS in 2002, with honours in Surgery; receiving the Barbados Medical Practitioner’s Lionel Stuart award for Excellence in Surgery. In 2005 she was the recipient of Barbados National Development Scholarship and Shakespeare-Day Hospice Research Scholarship (both in Palliative Care).
In 2013, she obtained her PhD in Primary Health Care Management with a focus on Palliative Day Care from Warwick Medical School, UK and in 2014 she completed the National Cancer Institute’s Summer Curriculum on Cancer Prevention and Control. Most recently in May 2019 she completed the Palliative Care Education and Practice Course (Centre for Palliative Care, Harvard Medical School) and is actively developing palliative care education and research in the context of Public Health within the faculty.
Natalie has devoted much of her career to the development of palliative care services and education in the Caribbean. She was a founding director of the Barbados Palliative Care Association (2011), Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Chronic Pain Management with the Ministry of Health Barbados (2011-2018), and section lead for Palliative Care for the Barbados National Cancer Control Rapid Action Plan (2015-2018). She is currently a steering committee member of the Caribbean Palliative Care Association and a board member of the International Association of Hospice and Palliative Care (2023-). Natalie was also appointed as an Honorary Medical Officer of Health for the Ministry of Health and Wellness of Barbados in Dec 2021 (her responsibilities include writing cancer screening guidelines for the island).
Natalie has had the privilege as serving Qualitative Researcher at The George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre for 2017-2018. Her current research revolves around public health policy, particularly in the areas of cancer prevention control and palliative care. Natalie has brought her research expertise to the infectious disease and planetary health space, aiding in the exploration of resilience mechanisms amongst the peoples of small island/ big-ocean states. She has the good fortune of currently collaborating with colleagues regionally and internationally including those from UWI-Mona, St Augustine, Harvard University, University of Miami and Northern Caribbean University.
Project title: Design and Development of the Gender-Based Public Health Surveillance Protocol
Date: April 2026-July 2026
Role: Co- PI
Funding- Caribbean Public Health Agency
Project aim: To perform an analysis of the current incorporation of gender into surveillance mechanisms within a subset of the OECS to inform regional surveillance policy
Project title: Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC).
Date: January 2024-July 2026 (Writing output stage July 2026- current)
Role: Co-PI, Barbados Site
Funding- Sub-award to Barbados in collaboration with University of the Trinidad and Tobago trough Pfizer to Barbados
Project aim: To understand the lived experiences including patient health care navigation and health system factors affecting Caribbean Women with metastatic Breast Cancer (Sites- Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada)
Project title: Generating insights into the national climate and health policy ecosystem in diverse geographies to drive climate action among policy stakeholders
Date: February 2024- July 2026 (Writing output stage)
Role: Consultant Researcher- Site Lead-Dominica
Funding- Sub-award to the Caribbean Institute for Health Research in collaboration with George Mason University through the Wellcome Trust (2023-2025)
Project aim: To investigate the factors influencing the integration of climate and health policy across SDGs- (The project is multisite- including US, UK, Kenya, India, Brazil, Jamaica, Guyana, Dominica and Barbados)
Project title: Barbados School Nutrition Policy (BSNP) Implementation Assessment- (Year 1)
Role: PI
Date: April 2023-March 20226 (Writing output stage)
Funding: Bloomberg Philanthropies through The Caribbean Institute for Health Research
Project title: Cop2 (Planet and people) Road Map for Care and Change.
Role: Lead Qualitative researcher regional Dialogues in COP2 Latin America and the Caribbean community member
Date: October 2022- Dec 2025
Funding: Kokoro Change; Pinterest; Greenwall Foundation; Bright Funds through Billion Minds Project, Columbia University (NB- this was done as a social impact project)
Project title: Connecting Climate Minds (global dialogues in climate change).
Date: December 2022- Jan 2026 (Writing output phase)
Role: Researcher-Regional hub development group and Caribbean and Latin American Group-Technical Advisor
Funder: Wellcome trust
Project title: African Cancer Genome Registry- Barbados. (An AC3 project)
Date: December 2022- Inception May 2023- current
Role: Co-PI, PI-Prof Simon Anderson
Funder: Pfizer through Fox Chase Cancer Centre
Project aim: To describe the molecular and clinical characteristics that persons diagnosed with breast and prostate cancer in Barbados
Project title: The international registry in men with advanced prostate cancer (IRONMAN)
Date: April 2021- current
Role: Co-PI, PI-Prof Simon Anderson
Funder: Fox Chase Cancer Center- AC3
Project aim: To describe the molecular and clinical characteristics that affect men with a diagnosis of prostate cancer in Barbados
Social and Preventative Medicine, Primary Health Care, Qualitative Research Methods, Health and the Environment, Health Services Management, Epidemiology of Priority diseases (Palliative Care), Communication in Palliative care, Medical sociology of death and dying.
Natalie’s, dominant research methodology is Qualitative research including applying these principles to systems dynamic modeling
