Over 13,000 people live with a devastating spinal cord injury (SCI) in British Columbia. People with SCI need specialized care from their family doctors for health issues such as bladder, bowel, skin, pain, blood pressure, fertility, and breathing conditions. However, most family doctors have received little training on how to help a patient with SCI. We will host a Continuing Medical Education event where family doctors and people with SCI can learn about key health issues about SCI and speak freely about their concerns. The Continuing Medical Education content will be developed by doctors with expertise in family practice and spinal cord medicine, as well as by people with SCI who experience these key issues.The event will be broadcast by videoconference and recorded to accommodate people who cannot attend. These activities will complement our existing Spinal Cord Injury Research Evidence (SCIRE) website (scireproject.com) which has a special section for Primary Care and SCI and is accessed by over 300,000 health care providers annually. The Continuing Medical Education event will be posted on our website so that it can continue to be accessed by stakeholders. Lastly, all activities will be evaluated for their impact.
Program: Reach Awards
Mobilizing aging in place (MAP) research
This project will reach policymakers in municipal and regional governments and health authorities with the voices of service users and providers via digital stories, which encapsulate findings from two studies on aging in place. The first study examined the unique role of Seniors Health and Wellness Centres in the lives of rural and remote older adults. The second study developed a web app to link health and community service providers for person-oriented services. Digital stories will be storyboarded by a trainee and created with service users and providers across rural, urban, and remote regions. The team will go âon the roadâ to get feedback on the digital stories from service users and providers before hosting a Knowledge Summit that will connect various sectors and service models. Policymakers will be specially invited, including social planners, health authority decision-makers, and advocacy groups. Digital stories and knowledge translation tools will be available in multiple languages. Overall, the project will enable the Cities of Kamloops and Richmond and other municipalities to lead and implement change with age-friendly policies that support older adults to age in place and respect their diverse voices and experiences.
Exploring the Experiences of First Nations Mental Health and Wellness Services with Sku?7pecen (Porcupine)
In collaboration with Indigenous Nurse Leadership from the community of Stâuxwstews this distinct research approach will honor a formalized a Research Partnership Agreement to uphold Knowledge sovereignty for a community driven knowledge translation project. This work stemmed from Indigenous nurse-led research project completed in May 2023 under the intergenerational mentorship and training provided through the BC Chair program. As per community advisement, this collaborative outcome will showcase Knowledge synthesis, translation, and mobilization activities and events co-led by Stâuxwstews (Bonaparte First Nation). The research team will ensure any Knowledge Translation initiative will have direct benefit to Stâuxwstews community and larger SecwĂ©pemc Nation, located in the interior region of British Columbia. Knowledge Translation initiatives will include workshops, presentations, a community-based event, video production (if appropriate), scholarly publications, and evidence informed dialogue sessions to inform and enhance mental health and wellness care and access to First Nations Peoples within the interior region, with a specific focus on rural and remote First Nations communities.
Youth.hood: Mobilizing research to achieve healthier built environments for youth in under-resourced neighbourhoods
Our proposal will extend the reach of research findings from Youth.hoodâa community-engaged research project exploring how built environments shape social connectedness and health for youth living in under-resourced areas. Youth.hood grew out of the success of our long-standing collaboration (SFU Health Sciences/Urban Studies, South Vancouver Neighbourhood House) to uncover social infrastructure gaps in South Vancouver: inequities that effectively disadvantage the health and resilience of residents. Youth.hood findings tell a compelling story of the role that social infrastructure plays in connectedness, cultural identity, and resilience, and how a lack of active transportation infrastructure, neighbourhood upkeep, and quality youth-friendly spaces create barriers to wellbeing. Our proposal will mobilize findings with an aim to advance healthier built environments for youth in South Vancouver, and inform broader dialogue and practice on planning of healthier cities with and for young people. Through tools and engagement activities co-designed and co-delivered with community, our proposal promises to achieve impacts at multiple levelsâincluding environmental, policy, and practiceâin Vancouver, and for city building more broadly.
Embedded Knowledge Mobilization: Strengthening Oncology Nurses’ Capacity for Effective Advanced Care Planning Conversations
Advance care planning (ACP) is a process that supports patients to reflect on their personal values and preferences towards care, and share these preferences with their healthcare team. ACP supports patient- and family-centered care, ensuring the care a patient receives aligns with their goals and preferences. Recent research conducted at BC Cancer aimed to learn how to better support oncology nurses in conducting ACP across the cancer journey. Study findings provide important insight into (1) local barriers and facilitators for oncology nurses to conduct ACP and (2) changes needed to support nursing-led ACP at BC Cancer.
To translate these findings into clinical practice, we will assemble direct care nurses, nursing leaders, patient and family partners, and relevant knowledge users to inform a nursing practice change that enhances oncology nurses’ ability to conduct ACP. Our approach will involve key activities, including the establishment of a provincial ACP working group to oversee all activities, engagement sessions with direct care nurses to identify barriers and facilitators to the proposed practice change, and targeted implementation strategies such as educational sessions to promote awareness and build ACP proficiency.
Exercise for Healthy Aging: Mobilizing Knowledge with Users and Clinicians in BC
The number of adults over the age of 65 is expected to double in the next 20 years. Maintaining both cognitive function (i.e., thinking abilities) and mobility (i.e., the ability to move) are vital to functional independence and quality of life. Exercise can improve cognitive function and mobility in older adults.
However, many older adults are inactive. Key barriers to exercise include: 1) lack of motivation; 2) medical conditions, such as arthritis; and 3) lack of knowledge on how to exercise safely and effectively. To address these barriers, we will: i) disseminate the latest evidence on the benefits of exercise for cognitive function and mobility via a public forum; ii) deliver interactive workshops during which older adults (and caregivers) will learn how to exercise safely, how to individualize exercises, how to progress exercises, how to use popular wearables (e.g., Fitbit), and strategies to achieve a balanced 24-hour activity cycle for overall health; and iii) develop online resources capturing the content of the interactive workshops.
The intent of the public forum, workshops, and online resources is to motivate and enable older adults to uptake exercise, and thereby contribute to the global agenda of healthy aging.
Targeting rural healthcare professionals, trainees and patients in disseminating neuroscience-based research
Ischemic brain injury refers to brain injuries that occur from a lack of blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain. Current clinical management strategies and therapeutics have shown little effect on patient outcomes. As such, urgent research is ongoing with promising breakthroughs in this field by a multidisciplinary group of researchers in British Columbia. Given the urgency of disseminating research findings, this project will involve knowledge translation activities that target three main groups of knowledge users: a) healthcare providers in rural and remote settings in BC; b) healthcare professional trainees; and c) patients, caregivers and the general public. By undertaking targeted knowledge translation activities to each of these groups, the implementation of research findings will be equitable (for all British Columbians including those from rural settings), long-lasting (healthcare professional trainees will be equipped up-to-date knowledge) and patient-centered (disseminating the findings directly to patients and the public).
Mental health and aging: Development and implementation of an online mental health peer-support platform for older adults
Imagine you are an older adult who sometimes feels down or anxious, and you would like someone to talk to who understands what you are going through. However, you may not have many people in your life who can relate to your experiences, or you may not feel comfortable discussing your mental health with them.
That’s where our online platform comes in. This project will create a platform where older adults can connect with other older adults who are going through similar challenges. Providing a safe and supportive space where you can talk about your mental health, the platform will connect older adults who have lived experience of mental health challenges and who may better understand what you’re going through. Using this platform, you will be able to communicate with them in a variety of ways, such as through private messaging or in virtual support groups.
Overall, the goal of the project is to provide a convenient and accessible way for older adults to access mental health support, which can be particularly important for those who may have limited mobility or who live in rural areas where mental health services are not readily available.
Disseminating a Multilingual Virtual Family-Based Childhood Obesity Management Program
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has further exacerbated unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, increasing the risk of childhood obesity, particularly among certain minority population groups. Our team is working with the Childhood Obesity Foundation (a knowledge user) to design, evaluate and scale up a “made in B.C.” 10-week healthy lifestyle program called Generation Health for families with children aged 8-12 years who want to be on a healthier lifestyle path. However, a key challenge facing program dissemination is accommodating those at-risk families who have trouble understanding English. This has significantly influenced program uptake and effectiveness for those families. To address this, the aim of this project is to 1) leverage artificial language translation tools to make our virtual program accessible in the three most spoken non-English languages (Punjabi, Chinese, Spanish ) in Canada; 2) collaborate with our knowledge user to disseminate the program across B.C. We have amassed a multi-disciplinary team with extensive experience in delivering and disseminating virtual family-based interventions. This project has the potential to be incredibly impactful to families for whom English is a barrier.
Fostering Grief and Bereavement Literacy in the Workplace for Those Who Serve People Experiencing Homelessness
Our recent research in BC shows that there is lack of grief support services available for people experiencing homelessness after they lose someone they care about. One common source of grief support for people experiencing homelessness are frontline workers. Yet, recent research found that frontline workers are commonly not provided grief support training, and their own work-related grief after a client dies is largely unsupported. In our survey of frontline workers in BC, almost all expressed a desire to increase their knowledge of grief.
Our project aims to improve grief knowledge and support skills for frontline workers who serve people experiencing homelessness. The project includes two steps: 1) Co-creating and testing an online grief education module and resources with a working group of community-based organizations, subject matter experts, and public partners; 2) Launching the developed module and resources through a symposium and exploring with experts in the field ways to make them more accessible for frontline workers. The ultimate goal of the project is to enhance the grief literacy for frontline workers and improve their abilities to provide better grief support to their clients who are experiencing homelessness.