Ruth Elwood Martin

Dr. Ruth Elwood Martin worked as a family physician in British Columbia’s provincial correctional centres 1994 – 2011. She initiated a prison cervical cancer screening pilot in 2000, and later became co-investigator on ‘HPV-FOCAL’, an evaluation study of HPV primary screening in British Columbia. In 2005 she became the Inaugural Director of the UBC Canadian Collaboration for Prison Health and Education (CCPHE), a network of academic, community and prison persons interested in improving the health of individuals in custody, their families and communities. In 2005, she helped to initiate participatory health research with women in prison, correctional staff and academics, to address concerns raised by the women themselves, which is the focus of two books, Arresting Hope and Releasing Hope (Inanna, 2014 and 2019), and several academic paper publications.

Information about the Canadian Collaboration for Prison Health and Education and the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) Prison Health Member Interest Group can be found in the links below.