Dr. Monica Aggarwal is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, with cross-appointments to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She is also an Affiliate Professor at the Centre of Health Services and Policy Research, School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Monica is Founder and Director of the Integrated Primary Care Systems Lab, which leads a pan-Canadian program of research on primary care transformation spanning governance, workforce and team-based care, digital health, equity, research impact and system performance.
As an internationally recognized health services and policy researcher, Dr. Aggarwal works at the intersection of evidence, policy, and implementation. Her work is anchored by the Aggarwal-Hutchison Framework, which defines the structural attributes of high-performing primary care systems. Published in The Milbank Quarterly and recognized for its citation and readership, the framework guides the Lab’s research, evaluation, and knowledge translation, and informs the design of policies and interventions that build stronger, more integrated primary care systems.
Her research has been supported by CIHR and SSHRC and published in leading peer-reviewed journals. In 2025, she delivered the third annual Anne Crichton Lecture at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, addressing Canada’s primary care crisis and a path toward high-performing primary care systems.
A trusted voice in Canadian health policy, she has advised federal and provincial governments, translating research into impact on investments, policies, strategies, and standards in primary care. She currently chairs the Health Standards Organization’s Primary Health Care Services Technical Committee and serves on the board of the Centre for Effective Practice.