While issues related to the health of women and girls are investigated by researchers across many disciplines and areas, the Women’s Health Research Network (WHRN) is specifically dedicated to expanding focussed women’s health research that will increase the understanding of and capacity for sex and gender-based analyses and for integrating women’s health concerns into other areas of health research.
Year: 2005
The Relationship between Organizational Culture and Family Satisfaction in Critical Care
Critical Care depends on the coordination and collaboration of physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to deliver care that is efficient, effective, safe, and patient-centred. As patient perspectives are often difficult to elicit in critical care settings because of the severity of illness, patients’ families frequently become involved in decision-making and care. As a result, being ‘family-centred’ is an important part of being ‘patient-centred’ in critical care.
National Health Partnership for Reducing Infections in NICU
Sixteen percent of infants ≤32 weeks gestation admitted to Canadian neonatal intensive care units (NICU) acquire an infection while in the hospital, making nosocomial infections one of the most important causes of mortality, morbidity and resource use in the NICU. Previous efforts by individual NICUs to reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections often were not evidence-based, did not use data from the institutions concerned, and did not yield results that could easily be generalized for use in other NICUs.
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Developing Healthy Workplace Environments Within BC Healthcare
Workplace-related mental illness is becoming an increasingly serious problem across Canada and the provinces. The estimated cost of mental illness in Canadian workplaces is currently well over $20 billion, with $12 billion due to lost work days and $11 billion due to decreased productivity. In British Columbia, the healthcare industry is one of the more critical job sectors shouldering these costs, where workplace related mental illness currently accounts for 13% of successful long-term benefit claims by healthcare workers). The rise in disability and absences due to mental illness put greater stress on an already overburdened workforce that needs to remain health to provide quality patient care.
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Puberty, sex and childbirth: Implications of sexual education and early sexual activity on maternal health outcome
As adolescent girls mature into young adults, they experience puberty, menstruation and sexual activity in an environment saturated with information. They learn about social and cultural norms through their social environment, as well as female reproductive health, biological development and sexual health through sexual education. While it is known that many biological and social factors influence women’s health during pregnancy, childbirth and the post-partum period, less is known about the impact of social and cultural factors on reproductive development and health. Moreover, the link between adolescent development and adulthood in this aspect of health is largely unexplored. Adrienne Bonfonti is studying whether girlsâ experiences during this early stage of womanhood have lasting implications for their reproductive health. Adrienne is interviewing first-time mothers to learn how their earlier experiences with education, menstruation, physical development and sexual activity affect their experiences and health during pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. Adrienneâs research should identify which factors have a positive or negative effect on reproductive health outcomes, and what women may be at risk for a turbulent transition into motherhood. This information can be used to improve sexual education or intervention programs for maturing youth in order to further promote healthy development during adolescence and into adulthood.
The effects of proportional assist ventilation on ventricular interaction in patients with heart failure, endurance athletes, and healthy individuals during exercise
About 350,000 Canadians suffer from chronic heart failure (CHF), which can cause premature death. The condition usually progresses slowly as the heart gradually weakens and loses its ability to efficiently pump blood through the body. Patients with CHF develop an enlarged heart and experience âpericardial constraintâ: inadequate performance in the ventricles, the heartâs two pumping chambers. The pericardium is a tough, fibrous sac surrounding the heart. Endurance athletes may have an enlarged, more compliant pericardium that allows them to achieve superior levels of cardiac performance during exercise. But with chronic heart failure, the pericardium becomes taut and restricts the heart from fully filling with blood and delivering oxygen to the body. Ben Esch is investigating whether providing oxygen through a mechanical respirator to increase pressure in the chest will decrease pericardial constraint and improve cardiac function in people with CHF. The results could lead to new rehabilitation techniques for patients with chronic heart failure.
Facial processing within the temporal lobes following cerebrovascular infarct: a neuropsychological, anatomical, and functional study
Vision encompasses a very complex sensory system which requires the involvement of multiple brain areas to function properly. Damage to any one of these areas can affect vision in very specific ways. For example damage to a very small and precise region in the brain, found within the posterior temporal lobe, results in a specific perceptual deficit, manifest by an inability to recognize faces. It is common for patients who have suffered from a stroke to experience this or other visuo-perceptual impairments. Based at UBCâs Eye Care Centre, Christopher Fox is examining stroke patients who have temporal lobe damage. Using a variety of tests he is determining visual processing deficits in these patients, then using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to examine their brains to see which regions are responsible for these deficits. Christopherâs research will contribute to a greater understanding of the role of the temporal lobes in vision, and of the complex process of visual perception.
Falls risk assessment in elderly, community-dwelling women with age-related macular degeneration
About 30 percent of elderly people fall once or more a year, resulting in injury, disability, loss of independence and enormous cost to the health care system. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a degenerative disease of the retina, is the leading cause of legal blindness in Canada and the developed world. The most severe form of AMD affects one in 20 elderly people and is associated with a complete loss of central vision. However, data on fall risk among elderly people with AMD is extremely limited. Shelagh Szabo is conducting the first study to assess whether people with AMD are at higher risk of falling than other elderly individuals because of visual impairment. As people with AMD score poorly on visual measures that predict falls in other individuals, it seems likely that those with AMD may have a higher incidence of falls than those with normal vision. Conversely, as most AMD patients have reduced levels of physical activity due to their poor vision, they may actually fall less than healthy people. If the research confirms that people with AMD are frequent fallers, prevention programs could be targeted for the visually impaired to reduce falls and injury, as well as fall-related costs to the health system.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine – patient placement criteria, second edition revised (PPC- 2R) validity study in Canadian women
Mental health and addiction services have experienced frequent budget cuts in recent years, as governments try to contain health care spending. Yet, as Dr. Shimi Kang discovered during her earlier research at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, substance use and mental illness are major global public health issues. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has developed a software program for making treatment decisions that consider resource issues. The program prompts interviewers to ask a series of questions, and produces recommendations for matching patients to the most appropriate treatment setting, based on standardized criteria. The software is now widely used in the United States, and studied in several other countries. However, the effectiveness of this assessment tool has never been studied within the Canadian health care system or with women, who experience different rates of addictive disorders and mental illness than men. Shimi is conducting the first Canadian study to evaluate whether the program can be applied to assess the complex biological, psychological and social needs of women with mental health and addiction problems. The results may lead to better techniques for treating drug and alcohol addiction and preventing relapse in women.
Role of the tumor suppressive E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase, Hace 1, in the development of childhood neoplasm
The onset and growth of a tumour may be due to the destruction of the balance that is normally achieved between tumour promoting and tumour suppressing factors. Recently, Dr. Poul Sorensonâs research team discovered a new gene, Hace1, from a case of Wilms’ tumour (the most common kidney tumour of childhood). They also found that Hace1 protein levels were reduced in 75% of the Wilms’ tumours analyzed, and that the restoration of Hace1 levels in tumour cells was capable of inhibiting tumour growth. These findings suggest that Hace1 is a tumour suppressive factor and that loss of Hace1 may contribute to the development of childhood tumours. However, the mechanisms by which Hace1 inhibits tumour formation are not yet understood. Current research suggests that Hace1 is an enzyme that specifically labels target proteins with small protein tag(s) called ubiquitin. It is thought that alterations of this process, as in the reduction of Hace1 levels observed in Wilmsâ tumour, may lead to malfunctions of the target proteins and facilitate tumour development. Dr. Fan Zhang is testing this hypothesis through the identification of Hace1 target proteins and analysis of the Hace1 function in both normal and tumour cells. The knowledge derived from this study will help researchers understand how loss of Hace1 leads to the formation of childhood tumours which, in turn, may lead to new preventive treatment based on correcting the imbalance between tumour promoting and tumour suppressive factors.