Dr. Brignardello-Petersen is an Assistant Professor, and the Associate Chair, Education, at the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI); at McMaster University.

Training

Dr. Brignardello-Petersen obtained a DDS degree from the University of Chile in 2007, and practiced dentistry before moving to Canada in 2010. Dr. Brignardello-Petersen received an MSc (2012) and a PhD (2016) degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Healthcare Research at the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, at the University of Toronto. She also holds an MSc degree in biostatistics from the University of Chile (2015). After spending two years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at HEI, she joined as a full-time faculty member in 2018.

Research interests

The focus of Dr. Brignardello-Petersen’s research is the methodology for the development of evidence synthesis to inform decision-making. She has led the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) Network Meta-analysis project group for the past five years, and is the first author of six out of the seven articles that describe official GRADE guidance to assess the certainty of the Evidence from Network Meta-Analysis.

In addition, Dr. Brignardello-Petersen is one of the leads of a living Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis for the prevention and treatment of COVID 19, for which she has secured almost 2M in funding from grants as the nominated principal applicant, mostly from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This project supports the development of treatment recommendations by the World Health organization.

Finally, Dr. Brignardello-Petersen collaborates with several research teams in the development of methodological studies and projects related to the development of systematic reviews and practice guidelines.

Teaching

Dr. Brignardello-Petersen supervises MSc and PhD students from the Health Research Methods program at HEI. She also provides research opportunities for a number of undergraduate students per year. In addition to coordinating and teaching in courses related to evidence synthesis, systematic reviews, and guideline development methodology at HEI, she has taught courses for many organizations and institutions, including courses about Evidence Based Dentistry (at the University of Chile, the University of Toronto, and the University at Buffalo), the development of systematic reviews and guidelines (at the Pan-American Health Organization, and the American Dental Association, among others) and about GRADE as an instructor of courses and workshops offered by the MacGRADE Centre.

Other scholarly activities

Dr. Brignardello-Petersen has served as a guideline methodologist for several organizations, including the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization, the American Society of Hematology, and the Saudi Center for Evidence-Based Health Care. She is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Dental Association, as well as one of the Editors of the Book “How to use evidence-based dental practices to improve your clinical decision making”, published by the American Dental Association in 2020.

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