Marcia Hills RN, PhD, FAAN
Professor at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Human and Social Development
University of Victoria
British Columbia, Canada
Honorary Postdoctoral Scholar
Marcia Hills is a Professor at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She was the founding Director of the BC Collaborative Nursing Program, a program that united five diverse schools of nursing by using health promotion and caring as their curriculum framework and an emancipatory pedagogy as their educational approach.
Marcia was the founding Director of the Centre for Community Health Promotion Research (2002-2009) at the University of Victoria and amongst her endeavours, she was the Principal Investigator of a 5 year research project Transforming Primary Health Care from Rhetoric to Reality: Collaborative Action for Health and Social Change and a three year research project In from the Margins: Collaborative Action to Improve Access to Appropriate Health Services for People Living with HIV/AIDS, Hepatis C and Alcohol and Drug Misuse. Both projects were supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and aimed to transform health care systems towards a primary health care and person-centered caring approach.
Marcia was a Co-Chair (2002-04) and then president (2004-08) of the Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research (CCHPR), a Co-Chair of its Education and Training subcommittee, and is currently the President of the Canadian Association of Teachers for Community Health (CATCH). She is a globally elected member of the Board of Trustees for the International Union for Health Promotion & Education (IUHPE) (2001-2013). She is also a member of the Board of the North American Region of IUHPE and was elected to serve as their VP for research and technical development (2010-2013). She was a member of the IUHPE Global Health Promotion Effectiveness Steering Committee (2005 – 2009) and co-chaired the North American Region Health Promotion Effectiveness Project (2005-2009). In these capacities, she has been engaged in several projects related to participatory evaluation; health sector reform; health promotion effectiveness; the effectiveness of community action strategies; and the education of health professionals in primary health care, health promotion and collaborative, participatory educational and research methodologies.
Marcia is a Faculty Associate at the Watson Caring Science Institute and is currently the Chair of the Faculty Council for the Institute and the Co-ordinator of the newly developed Doctoral Program. She co-authored (2011) with Jean Watson, Creating a Caring Curriculum: An Emancipatory Pedagogy for Nursing and is currently writing two books: Collaborative Action Research & Evaluation (CARE): A Catalyst for Health and Social Change (Hills & Carroll); and Caritas Nurse® as Professional Coach (Hills & Watson).
As a Visiting Scholar and a WHO Fellow she worked and studied in Australia and England and at the National School of Public Health in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Marcia has consulted extensively in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Brazil, and Canada in the areas of health promotion, primary health care, emancipatory caring curriculum development, women’s health, health promotion, curriculum development, and participatory action research and evaluation.
Marcia is a Senior Watson Caring Science Sabbatical Scholar.