Due to the historical and ongoing effects of colonization, Indigenous youth experience higher rates of mental illness. As Indigenous youth, it is particularly difficult to access mental health care in Canada. Many Indigenous youth are reluctant to seek help when they are in crisis. Indigenous youth and families advocate it would be better if more culturally-responsive wellness supports were available. This research project will use oral traditions and storytelling to ask Indigenous youth (aged 12 to 24) about their healing journeys when accessing wellness supports in urban and online spaces. This project will work in partnership with Foundry BC to collaborate with local Indigenous communities. In Phase 1, Indigenous youth will join Sharing Circles to create collective stories about what holistic wellbeing means to them and how they access wellness supports in community and online settings. In Phase 2, Indigenous youth will be asked to complete a survey about their mental health care access, cultural identity, technology use, and holistic wellbeing. The findings from this study can inform culturally-resurgent practices to help transform the way Indigenous youth are engaged in wellness supports across urban and online spaces.
Program: Scholar
Promoting integrated mental health care services and supports for refugees in BC
Approximately 84 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced during 2021, including refugees, who have been forcibly displaced by conflict. It is estimated that 1 in 5 people in settings affected by conflict have a mental disorder. Evidence shows that many refugees require mental health support post migration as a result of trauma, and post migration stress. Mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and psychosis are much more prevalent among refugees than among host populations. Post migration, refugee mental health is determined by stressors of acculturation such as employment, housing and access to health care.
Limited knowledge exists on how mental health services work to promote refugee mental health in high income countries like Canada. Barriers to mental health care include service fragmentation and provider knowledge about the determinants of refugee mental health. The goal of my research is to develop and conduct an evaluation of existing mental health services and supports for refugees in BC. Findings will inform primary health care services, mental health services and settlement services about what promotes integrated mental health care for refugees in BC.
Moving online: Developing physical activity interventions with and for young people diagnosed with cancer
Physical activity is safe and beneficial for children, adolescents, and young adults diagnosed with cancer. However, few physical activity programs are available for young people diagnosed with cancer. This is partly because cancer is rare in young people, and so it is hard to create programs that can be accessed by everyone. In my research, I create and test physical activity programs that consider the needs of young people diagnosed with cancer. Over the next 5 years, I will work with children, adolescents, and young adults diagnosed with cancer and their parents, cancer support organizations, fitness professionals, healthcare providers, and researchers to create online physical activity programs that are safe and accessible. I will then implement and test these physical activity programs with young people diagnosed with cancer across Canada. My work will lead to new physical activity opportunities with the potential to improve the health of young people diagnosed with cancer across the country.
The oxygen cascade as a therapeutic target in humans with hypoxic-ischemic brain injury
During a cardiac arrest the heart stops beating and blood flow to the brain stops, starving the brain of oxygen and causing a brain injury. In resuscitated patients whose heart starts beating again, this brain injury is the number one cause of death. As no therapies are available to treat this brain injury, my research will determine ways to improve the treatment of post-cardiac arrest patients with a brain injury. My research will use measurement probes placed directly in brain tissue as well as the analysis of blood entering and leaving the brain in humans to: 1) determine how to restore optimal oxygen levels in the brain; 2) develop tests to identify patient specific factors underlying low brain oxygen levels that can then help guide personalized patient care; and 3) investigate the molecular mechanisms of this brain injury. This work will be foundational to the development of new therapies to treat brain injuries caused by low oxygen levels in the brain. By determining widely implementable techniques to identify how oxygen delivery is impaired at the bedside, we will be able to tailor care in central and rural settings within British Columbia and provide patients with the specific treatments that work best for them.
Development of Metabolomics to Interrogate the Effects of Maternal Sugar Overconsumption on Pregnant Rats and Their Offspring
Sugars such as sucrose (table sugar) are extremely common in the diet, in Canada and across the world. The World Health Organization advises that added sugars should make up 5% or less of daily calories for adults, and even less for children under 2 years. However, in Canada, adults and children often greatly exceed these recommendations. Of particular concern, added sugars during early development might have major and long-lasting effects on hormones, neural circuits, and behaviour. Our work is to develop sensitive and robust metabolomics technology to identify the key sugar products and other chemicals that play a key role in this biological process. This work allows us to understand the molecular basis between sugar intake and the long-lasting effects on adult offspring. The results will have important implications for the health of Canadians because very little is known about how mother’s sugar intake affects the baby health and diseases.
Growing an Unlearning & Undoing White Supremacy & Indigenous-specific Racism Lab for population and public health in BC
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples have a right to health. Laws in BC affirm this right. Settler systems have not yet fulfilled our obligations.
The 2020 In Plain Sight report showed that Indigenous-specific racism in health is widespread in BC. This report, and others like it, outline clear instructions for health leaders. How should organisations responsible for population and public health in BC pick up these instructions?
We often hear, “what can we do?” This research aims to answer that question, plus: How can we get ready to do this work in a meaningful way? How can we change how we’ve been working in order to be anti-racist? What tools do we need? Is what we are trying working?
US anti-racism expert, Dr. Camara Jones, has given public health organizations 3 tasks to end the epidemic of racism:
1. Name racism
2. Ask, how is it operating here?
3. Organize and strategize to act
3 provincial organizations – BC Office of the Provincial Health Officer, BC Centre for Disease Control, and Provincial Health Services Authority – will work together, with guidance from Indigenous peoples, to build knowledge of how to change the population and public health system to uphold Indigenous rights and work in an anti-racist way.
Cost-efficient approach for phenotyping cells in large cohorts and relating them with COPD clinical outcomes
In Canada, over 2 million people suffer from COPD, costing over $1.5 billion per year in direct expenditures. However, no existing therapy can reverse COPD’s disease progress. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) are the lungs’ dominant immune cells and perform critical functions, including fighting infection and tissue repair. Single-cell genomics technology can characterize AM phenotypes and reveal their roles in COPD. However, validating the relation between AM phenotypes and COPD clinical outcomes requires many patients, making the unscalable single-cell technology impractical to study such large cohorts. This issue motivated me to develop a cost-efficient approach to discover cell-phenotype biomarkers, using both high-resolution single-cell and low-cost bulk genomic technologies. I will develop novel statistical methods and software tools for this novel approach. The key deliverables are: 1) an experiment protocol, novel statistical methods, and the first software pipeline for cost-efficient deep-phenotyping of large clinical cohorts, to discover biomarkers for ANY diseases; 2) novel AM phenotype biomarkers as drug targets of immunotherapy for COPD or a genomics diagnostic test (medical device) to guide personalized COPD treatment.
Targeting efferocytosis to reduce risk of cardiovascular events
Heart attack and stroke are the leading causes of death in Canada. These lethal events are caused by diseased cells accumulated on the wall of the blood vessels, leading to narrowing of the arteries. Although diseased cells can be removed naturally, this process is inhibited by inflammation. Recently, anti-inflammatory drugs are being actively developed to reduce heart attacks, but we lack methods to assess their effectiveness before testing in patients. This problem led to the failure of several clinical trials and serious side effects due to non-specific inhibition of the immune system. We will use models that closely mimic the conditions of patients and apply a thorough “onsite inventory” of diseased arteries to: 1) understand how inflammation inhibits the removal of diseased cells; 2) see if current drug candidates can neutralize these adverse effects in diseased arteries; and 3) explore and develop markers that can find patients who will benefit from the drug candidates. This study will provide evidence to guide the design of more specific anti-inflammatory drugs and their application to the right patients. It will minimize side effects and allow more patients to be properly treated to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
Developing sensors for rapid detection of biomarker proteins for Alzheimer’s disease
Dementia is a growing health challenge that affects over 500,000 Canadians today, which is estimated to grow to 900,000 by 2030. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by protein misfolding in the brain. This process can start over a decade before the occurrence of significant cognitive decline making it possible to diagnose at an early stage when treatment strategies are most effective. Biomarkers are measurable indicators that help determine if a person may have or be at risk of developing a disease. Researchers have identified phosphorylated tau (p-tau) proteins and small proteins called cytokines to be promising biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. To detect these biomarkers in blood samples, very sensitive detection methods are needed but existing methods have drawbacks such as being expensive and time consuming, and need to be performed in a laboratory, limiting their availability to Canadians. We have developed a new sensor that can detect proteins at ultra-low concentrations using a simple and rapid test. Our goal is to make a rapid and easy-to-use tool that can be used by clinicians to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and patients for personalized health monitoring.
The links between nutrient sensing, cell intrinsic metabolism and T cell function in immune-related diseases
Our focus is on the cellular fuels and building blocks that change immune cell functions. Our immune system normally defends us against infections. In a healthy person, T cells (a type of immune cell) recognize infected or cancerous cells and remove them from the body. Normally, immune cells know the difference between healthy and infected or cancerous tissues. When this recognition is lost, it can lead to the development of attack of healthy tissues by immune cells (autoimmunity), the growth of cancer, or to persistent infections. This dysfunction of the immune system can lead to devastating diseases in children. My research aims to better understand how this happens. By comparing the way that biological fuels (sugars, fats and other building blocks) are used by immune cells from healthy people and patients with immune system associated diseases, we will define the cellular the pathways that maintain health or cause disease. This will allow us to target and “dial down” pathways that are driving cells to attack our tissues, or turn these pathways on to help immune cells fight persistent infections and cancerous cells. Ultimately, we hope to help develop new treatments.