The results of the CIHR Spring 2025 Project Grant Competition have just been announced, and Advancing Health researchers are leading six of the projects funded in this round. An additional ten projects are being supported by Advancing Health Scientists as co-investigators, with a total of over $13 million in new research funding.
Mental health and substance use in youth
About 25% of youth (ages 12–25) in Canada experience mental health and substance use (MHSU) challenges, but accessing services remains difficult. Integrated youth services are a new initiative in Canada that provides youth with a single access point for MHSU and other services, but limited evidence exists to understand their impact. Advancing Health Scientists Drs. Skye Barbic and Jason Sutherland will lead a study to assess the impact of integrated youth services on youth using MHSU services and their experiences, using surveys and interviews. Dr. Anne Gadermann will serve as a co-investigator on this project that seeks to improve the quality of youth services in Canada.
In a challenging economic climate, young people experiencing homelessness are burdened by several challenges, including unstable housing, lack of jobs and education opportunities, substance use, as well as difficulty accessing healthcare and social services. Advancing Health scientist, Dr. Chris Richardson is a co-investigator on a 5-year study that aims to understand the extent and patterns of drug use and mental health challenges among homeless youth (14–24 years) in Toronto, while assessing the challenges and opportunities in getting care and treatment, and how these factors impact the health and mortality trends among the population.
Physical exercise as a health intervention
Physical exercise is an accessible health intervention that can help improve brain and body function through consistency. Led by Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Linda Li with Dr. Joel Singer as co-investigator, this research aims to address the important knowledge gap in perimenopausal female brain health in relation to exercise. Besides measuring cognitive abilities, the study will also determine whether exercise benefits the brain, heart health, sleep quality, psychological well-being, menopausal symptoms, and quality of life.
Advancing Health scientist Dr. Jason Sutherland is also a co-investigator for a project that aims to improve mental health and well-being in healthcare workers through an app-based, accessible exercise protocol that is both scalable and adaptable.
Cutting-edge arthritis research
Over 6 million people in Canada are currently living with arthritis. With no cure currently available, research is important to improve our understanding of how arthritis affects people’s health and daily lives, and for identifying treatments and supports for patients. Past studies have shown gaps in inclusivity and diversity levels. Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Mary De Vera is leading a new project that will work with patients, researchers, providers, and decision-makers to advance EDI in arthritis research. Using interviews with arthritis patients as a foundation, the research team will conduct an EDI-focused demographic survey, which can be used in future studies to collect data on factors that contribute to health inequities. This will be followed by group concept mapping-online and in-person group exercises with arthritis patients, researchers, health care providers, and decision-makers identify strategies for recruiting more diverse communities into arthritis research.
Approximately two or three out of every ten people with rheumatoid arthritis need advanced therapy (biologic or targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, known as DMARDs). Though effective, these medications have some risks (like infections) and are expensive for health systems. While it is safe to taper the dosage, it has to be a result of shared decision-making between the patient and care provider. Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Nick Bansback is a co-investigator on a project that seeks to assess the impact of a tailored decision aid on patient choices. Decision aids are a low-cost intervention that can improve health care use.
Wearable tech for cardiac arrest detection
Estimates show that if all unwitnessed cardiac arrest patients were detected by technology, the survival would double, translating to 4,800 more survivors per year in Canada. Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Brian Grunau is co-leading a project that aims to ultimately design a cardiac arrest detection system using wearable sensors that can “witness” cardiac arrests in private locations and call 9-1-1. The scope of the project is an exploration and identification of the sensors that are most compatible with this goal.
Transnational healthcare practices among immigrants
Transnational health care practices (THP) refer to immigrants accessing healthcare in their countries of origin. This can look like accessing health information, products, and services related to assessment, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. Engaging in THP can be a risk to patient safety in instances where patients use conflicting advice to manage illnesses or fail to disclose their prescriptions to their doctors. Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Lillian Hung is co-leading a project that seeks to identify the nature, scope, trends, patterns, drivers, and implications of THP: what factors influence immigrants’ decision to engage in THP, how THP are maintained, and how they change over time, and what implications THP have for immigrants, health care providers and the health care system.
Comparing interventions for female urinary incontinence
Urinary incontinence (UI) is an extremely common and undeniable threat to healthy aging. It can often ostracize aging patients because of embarrassment, isolation and caregiver burden. Currently, two main surgical interventions exist as part of treating UI, a mesh synthetic sling (tension-free vaginal tape, TVT) and a sling from the patient’s connective tissue (autologous fascia sling, AFS). Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Roxana Geoffrion, with Drs. Joel Singer, Terry Lee, and Wei Zhang as co-investigators, is leading a randomized study that investigates TVT vs AFS over 5 years (post-surgery). The goal is to inform patient counselling and UI treatment standardization.
Building foundations for future solutions
Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Linda Li is a co-investigator on two additional studies. The first is a study that seeks to better understand integrated knowledge translation methods and how power influences operations within teams. Research teams can benefit from learning how power influences roles and perspectives, equipping them with the tools to create fair, respectful and effective working relationships. The second study aims to scope out the problems of ageism and how it can impact treatment choices in older adults with cancer who might not have access to comprehensive geriatric assessments and provide a foundation for solutions. This will be done through interviews with older adults with cancer and health care professionals to account for lived experiences.
2S/LGBTQIA+ Liaison Nurse
Gender and sexual orientation-diverse people in Canada are facing increasing discrimination within the healthcare system, leading to poor health outcomes. A new 2S/LGBTQIA+ Liaison Nurse role has recently been created, offering direct clinical and social support for the community within the hospital setting. Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Angela Russolillo is co-investigator on a study that will examine the effectiveness of the role in meeting health and healthcare needs by collecting mixed-methods data to generate essential insight on the scalability of this role to support the 2S/LGBTQIA+ community.
Drug intervention in extremely preterm infants
In Canada, about 900 babies each year are born very early (<26 weeks) and have a high chance of dying or a serious bleed in the brain. These severe brain bleeds are often treated with three doses of indomethacin, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, but use of this drug is inconsistent among clinicians due to its side effects on the gut and possible harmful interactions with other medications. Emerging evidence suggests that a single low-dose regimen may be equally effective. Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Hubert Wong is a co-investigator for a study where extremely preterm infants will be randomly assigned within 12 hours of birth to either a single dose of intravenous indomethacin or saline placebo. The goal of the study is to understand whether it is feasible to conduct a larger study to produce definitive results comparing these treatment regimens.
Pilot studies to optimize treatment
Advancing Health Scientist Dr. Srinivas Murthy is a co-investigator on three projects. The first addresses bloodstream infections, which are a leading cause of death in Canada and worldwide. The BALANCE+ study intends to improve the cure of patients with “Gram-negative” bacteria, while decreasing potential harms that come from using too many antibiotics for too long. The second study addresses the impact of orbital cellulitis in children and youth and will be the first step in generating high-quality evidence on whether steroids are beneficial for children and youth hospitalized with orbital cellulitis. The third pilot study seeks to establish whether one antibiotic strategy is better than others for certain groups of patients hospitalized with pneumonia, with a goal of finding a strategy that optimizes survival, reduces the need for life support care, and accelerates recovery time. Lastly, he received a bridge grant to continue the PLANETary Health Recommendation map project, a tool that can be used by nurses, doctors, policymakers, and others to make health decisions that are good for the planet.
