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Contact Info
phesc.dlsph@utoronto.ca
Marie Klaassen
Toronto Public Health

Associate Director, Child Health & Development

Education
Bachelor's Degree, Bachelor of Science in Nursing - University of Toronto

Marie Klaassen is a nurse with 28 years of public health experience at Toronto Public Health (TPH). She has worked in communicable disease control, maternal and infant health, policy and planning, technology and information management, early years and school health. After a decade of progressive management experiences, Marie currently holds the position of Associate Director, Child Health and Development. In this position Marie is interconnected with stakeholders and partners across the province and across the child and family service sector in Toronto. 

As the current co-chair of the provincial PHEY (Public Health Early Years) group, Marie has had the opportunity to bring together and collaborate with partners at Public Health Ontario, ALPHA, OMOH and senior management in public health units across Ontario to address and advocate on issues related to child health outcomes, within the context of the new OPHS. 

Within TPH, Marie is an organizational leader and strong proponent for advances in population health strategies in front-line public health practice as well as building multi-level capacity to better identify and work with those in need of more intensive support.

"Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity. Indeed, since the creation of the first nucleated cells, evolution has proceeded through ever more intricate arrangements of cooperation and co-evolution. Partnership - the tendency to associate, establish links, live inside one another, and cooperate - is one of the hallmarks of life."

Fritjof Capra, The Systems View of Life (2014)