We will bring together people who research, provide, and receive menopause care. They will create a complete list of research ideas to support healthy aging in British Columbia. The process will include healthcare providers from nursing, medicine, and psychology. It will also include researchers from basic, health, and social sciences. Individuals with lived experience of midlife and menopause will also take part. Power dynamics within and throughout groups will be accounted for with trauma-informed and patient-centered approaches. Together, we will create a âResearch Agenda for Menopause and Midlife Womenâs Health.â It will show ways to improve care for menopause and midlife womenâs health. The project activities will lead to new and stronger partnerships among researchers, clinicians, and people with lived experience. The Agenda will be hosted by the Womenâs Health Research Institute and will set up the new Menopause and Midlife Health Program at BC Womenâs Hospital to be a Centre of Excellence in both research and clinical care.
Year: 2024
Help BC Hear Better: Identifying gaps in knowledge and setting our research agenda
Approximately 1 in 5 Canadians aged 20 to 79 has hearing loss that affects their ability to hear speech. Left unmanaged, hearing loss can contribute to social withdrawal, loneliness, decreased mental and physical health, and increased risk of hospital readmission. The burden of hearing loss increases with age, rising to 65% in adults over 70 years old. Despite how common hearing loss is, there are many barriers to accessing hearing healthcare. Barriers at the individual level (e.g., hearing aid appearance, minimal perceived benefit) have been well researched, while social and systemic barriers (e.g., policy gaps in hearing aid funding; inequitable access) have received relatively less attention. This project will explore the feasibility of funding hearing healthcare for seniors aged 60+ in BC. This grant will fund two activities: a data scan and a workshop. The data scan will identify existing published and unpublished data on hearing loss prevalence, individual and societal impacts of unmanaged hearing loss, and economic models of hearing health funding programs. The workshop will bring together stakeholders to discuss the existing data, plan for how to fill in gaps, and start a conversation about advocacy messaging.
Creating a research agenda to improve treatment for patients with epilepsy in BC
Epilepsy affects millions globally, including 50,000 in BC. Of this population, about 1;3 have drug-resistant epilepsy. Seizures can be unpredictable and often dangerous, leading to injury, hospitalization, and mortality. In addition, they often negatively impact mental health and daily functioning. Epilepsy surgery is the only curative therapy for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. It can improve patientsâ lives and reduce the risk of sudden unexpected death. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive neuroimaging tool that aids in presurgical planning, proven effective in a multitude of studies and used continent-wide. Despite this, BC lacks a comprehensive epilepsy program supporting MEG for presurgical planning, lagging behind other Canadian regions in funding and treatment availability for its epilepsy population. Addressing this gap necessitates collaboration among the community, healthcare providers, researchers, and policymakers to co-create a research agenda. Our outcomes will include identifying and learning from successful models outside of our region, identifying the specific needs in our current model, and creating a research agenda aimed at addressing these needs.
Indigenous, community and research partnership to collaboratively explore environmental justice, unconventional gas development (UGD), wildfires, and health in Northeast British Columbia
UGD is taking place in Northeast BC, close to traditional territories of First Nations who rely on the land for food, water, ceremonial practices and cultural identity. People living in the region have also faced unprecedented wildfires. Health concerns about UGD include carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and asthma triggers while the negative health impacts of wildfires are only beginning to be understood. To our knowledge, there is almost no research into the combined effects of both UGD and wildfire exposures. Furthermore, neither UGD nor wildfires are distributed or experienced equally across Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Indigenous communities in Canada are more likely to be evacuated due to wildfires and face disproportionately greater negative health impacts from UGD. Applying a lens of environmental justice and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge, our goal is to partner with the Saulteau First Nation and local health providers to review the current research on the health impacts of UGD while understanding the lived experiences and priorities of research users. We will work together to review and co-design the best approaches to studying the dual health impacts of UGD and wildfires in Northeastern BC.
Making moves towards active living after hip and knee replacement surgery: A consensus meeting of healthcare providers, fitness leaders and people with lived experience
More than 18,000 people in BC will have a hip or knee replacement this year to treat severe pain and reduced mobility from arthritis. After surgery, most patients will have a short course of physiotherapy and be encouraged to engage in regular physical activity such as walking and cycling. However, our research shows that patients receive inconsistent advice and few supports to help them become more active. In fact, they are less active than guidelines recommend to promote health and less active than their healthy peers. There are community-based programs available to help people be active after surgery but we do not know where they are located or how well they are designed and delivered. Most importantly, we want to learn if these programs are safe and help people to become active after joint replacement surgery. To answer these questions, we propose to search websites and query providers to find programs available in BC and describe program features. We will then bring together researchers, healthcare providers, fitness leaders, and patients for a 1œ-day meeting to decide what makes a community-based exercise program safe, easy to access, open to everyone, and helpful for people with a hip or knee replacement.
Co-developing research priorities to address digital determinants of health among historically marginalized populations disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections
As society becomes increasingly digital, some people are getting left behind because they may lack access or skills to use the internet or may not trust it. The effects of these âdigital determinantsâ of health (DDoH) may be particularly hard for communities that are already historically marginalized in British Columbia, including those with higher rates of sexually-transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI). This topic has not received a lot of attention in STBBI related research, even as related health services are increasingly âdigital-first,â and has only in the past year become a topic important to public health leaders in BC. Through this project we hope to understand this issue better. We will start by holding focus groups with people from these communities (e.g., people with lived experience of incarceration, people living with HIV) and representatives from the community organizations that serve them. From these discussions, we hope to better understand how DDoH affect their lives and how services are provided. We will then review these findings with peers, community organizations, and researchers in a two-day workshop to identify important research questions that will be the focus of future grant applications.
Estimating the economic impacts of extreme weather events on healthcare systems: A qualitative inquiry to inform the development of an evaluation framework.
The health sector is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events driven by climate change, experiencing impacts like increased healthcare demand and disruption to healthcare infrastructure. There is a notable gap in comprehensive methods for estimating their economic impacts on the health system. This project seeks to address this gap by developing an approach to estimate the economic impacts of extreme weather events on the health system. The project will involve three steps, 1. A review of the literature, 2. Consultation with researchers and knowledge users, 3. Piloting of the framework on a case study.
We are seeking funding for the second step of this work. Focus groups will be conducted with health economists, they will be presented case studies of extreme weather events and asked questions on approaches to costing these events with the aim of gaining insights into ways to design methods to address the complexities of extreme weather events. Additionally, interviews will be conducted with policy makers and planners to explore the kinds of health economic evidence they need to support climate resilience planning in the health system. The results will be synthesized to develop a gold-standard approach.
A path to success: Convening service providers and patients to understand diabetes prevention care referral pathways and co-develop a research agenda for the interior of BC
General practitioners (GP) are essential in diabetes prevention due to the amount of time they interact with patients and the screening tests that they request and review. Once a GP identifies a patient as being at high risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) they have the ability to refer this individual to publicly available education and prevention programs. However, in rural and urban locations of the interior region of BC, GPs are failing to refer individuals identified as being at high risk of T2D to diabetes prevention initiatives in the community. This represents a major block in the pathway to improving health for those at high risk of T2D. We need to collaborate with individuals involved in the screening, diagnosis and management of prediabetes in the interior of BC to a) uncover the barriers and facilitators to referrals to diabetes prevention programs or initiatives; b) Establish how individuals at high risk of T2D can access diabetes prevention care by identifying potential pathways to care that are acceptable to individuals responsible for care; and c) Co-develop a research agenda with health care professionals to devise, trial, and ultimately test out new potential pathways of care for patients at risk of T2D.
Developing a scale-up and evaluation plan for the Healthy Hips and Knees exercise program across B.C.
Hip and knee replacements are common procedures in Canada that improve mobility and reduce pain for individuals suffering from severe arthritis. To support pre- and post-surgical care, tailored exercise programs are integral. Unfortunately, access is often limited. This is especially true in rural areas, where cultural and language barriers persist. The Healthy Hips and Knees program offered by YMCA BC caters to those awaiting or recovering from surgery. Despite high demand, the program is currently available only in Prince George. To address this, YMCA BC hopes to expand its reach across British Columbia. The research team will collaborate with YMCA-BC to co-develop a research agenda. We will develop a plan to increase program reach and accessibility, particularly in underserved communities and groups. We will also ensure the program can continue over time. In addition, we have an evaluation plan to check how effective the program is, how well it is being adopted and implemented, and how it is maintained. This project will enhance care delivery for people with hip and knee replacements while identifying funding opportunities to sustain program expansion.
Co-developing a needs-derived research strategy toward forming a Digital Health Research Centre at BC Childrenâs and Womenâs Hospitals
Digital health combines technology like smartphones and artificial intelligence, data from personal devices and hospital systems, and people like doctors, nurses, patients, and families to improve the health and well-being of the population. Digital health improves access to care and quality by providing the right information at the right time. Our teamâs digital health research focuses on improving care for women, children, and their families in BC. There are existing successes and challenges to using digital health research in BC hospitals. To learn from these lessons and listen to the needs of our community, we will partner with people with lived experience (patients), healthcare workers, and hospital leaders. We aim to develop a shared research strategy and plan for a new Digital Health Research Centre spanning BC Childrenâs and Womenâs Hospitals. In this project, we will identify gaps and opportunities, define priorities and co-develop research strategies that address current challenges to improve our health system with digital technology. The partnerships we form will allow us to advance the digital health research field and better serve the needs of the BC childrenâs and womenâs health community.