News

• CHEPA seminar looks at use of Malawi’s public health system to fight HIV transmission

  25 Nov 2014

  Applying health systems research to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child in an impoverished country is the topic of a Dec. 2 seminar by officials from Dignitas International (DI), a Canadian medical humanitarian non-government organization (NGO) that supports the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Malawi in the implementation and scale-up of HIV-related services through the public health system.

  Dignitas medical advisor Dr. Adrienne Chan, top left, an Assistant Professor with the Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Toronto, and Joshua Berman, Knowledge Translation and Policy Manager for Dignitas, will present Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV in Malawi: A Case Study in Health Systems Research and Policy Impact in Low Resource Settings.

  The seminar will be held on TUESDAY Dec. 2 in CRL B119 from 11.30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• Emergency department use by seniors: seminar looks at new models of care

  11 Nov 2014

  Older adults are frequent users of the emergency department and have worse outcomes than younger adults, but many of their visits may be preventable.

  On Nov. 19, Dr. Andrew Costa will give a CHEPA seminar looking at new models of care and their implications in the context of geriatric emergency department use. He’ll also explain the development of decision support tools that can help predict unplanned emergency department use and aid in care for seniors. 

  The seminar will be held Wednesday Nov. 19 in CRL B119, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• CHEPA co-founder Jonathan Lomas enshrined in FHS Community of Distinction

  11 Nov 2014

  CHEPA co-founder Jonathan Lomas, known as “the father of knowledge translation,” has been inducted into McMaster University’s Faculty of Health Science’s Community of Distinction, the faculty’s highest honour.

  John Lavis, current Associate Director of CHEPA and Director of the McMaster Health Forum, spoke at the induction, describing Lomas in his introductory remarks as a “trailblazer, boundary spanner, innovator and dynamo.” 

   

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• Schwartz advising WHO on ethics of ebola therapeutical trials

  06 Nov 2014

  Lisa Schwartz, who recently accepted an appointment to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Ethics Working Group on Ebola Interventions, is among the experts who are advising the WHO on ethical issues related to the study design for trials on therapeutics being developed to fight the disease.

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• Abelson-led team wins national award

  20 Oct 2014

  

  A national team led by Julia Abelson has won the Canadian Research Project of the Year Award from the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). 

  The award-winning project, Supporting quality engagement in the Canadian health system: The Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PPEET), involved the development of an evaluation tool for health system and health care organizations across Canada to assess the effectiveness of their efforts to engage patients and the public in the planning, design and organization of health services. 

  Here’s a link to a video about the tool: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-X3U0XoYSsfdEdpLTNkbjNiY0U/edit?pli=1

   

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• Easing the transition to adult services for children with developmental disabilities

  13 Oct 2014

  Children with developmental disabilities increasingly survive into adulthood, often with poor health outcomes.  Canada invests huge resources in the childhood years, and now has a generation of adults (up to 1.3 million people) with childhood-onset disabilities. However, compared to their peers without disabilities, these people’s lives are impoverished in many ways. They experience ineffective transition to adult services, costly hospitalizations, inequity of health care services, and a possible lifelong economic burden to family and society.

  Dr. Jan Willem Gorter, MD, PhD, FRCP(C) Director, CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster and the Scotiabank Chair in Child Health Research, says this this transition process can be improved.  In a CHEPA seminar on Weds. Oct. 15 entitled Let’s make transition better!, he’ll describe critical gaps in our understanding of the developmental trajectories of youth with disabilities, present ideas for how we could improve life-span health and transition to adulthood of young people with disabilities and describe ways to measure improved physical and mental health status for young people and their families.

  The seminar will be held in CRL B119, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All are welcome. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• CHEPA founder welcomed home

  02 Oct 2014

  CHEPA welcomes the return to its faculty of one of the Centre’s founding members - David Feeny, whose work helping to develop the influential Health Utilities Index (HUI) continues to shape the field of health economics. The index assesses health-related quality of life and is used extensively in clinical and population health studies.

  Feeny worked at McMaster from 1976-1998, teaching in both the Department of Economics and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and in 1988 helped to found CHEPA.

  After leaving McMaster he held appointments in Economics, Public Health Sciences, and Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Alberta from 1998 to 2009. More recently he was a Senior Investigator at the Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, in Portland, Oregon.

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• What I did this summer...

  23 Sep 2014

  Catch up on what your friends and colleagues at CHEPA were up to. Click here for the Fall issue of the CHEPA e-news.
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• Kaelan Moat joins CHEPA’s faculty

  04 Sep 2014

  CHEPA’s newest faculty member has a familiar face.

  Kaelan Moat, one of the first graduates of McMaster’s PhD in Health Policy program, joined the faculty this summer.

  He is Lead, Health Systems Evidence, at the McMaster Health Forum where he heads the maintenance and ongoing content development of Health Systems Evidence, the world’s most comprehensive, free access point for high-quality evidence about how to strengthen or reform health systems, and how to get cost-effective programs, services and drugs to those who need them.

  His research focuses on how to support the use of research evidence in health systems policymaking, with a particular focus on both the evaluation of innovative mechanisms designed to increase the likelihood that research will be used to inform policy decisions, and on better understanding the influence that political factors have on these mechanisms and their use in both low- and middle-income countries, and in high-income settings like Canada.

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• Seminar series resumes with a look at Public Health Systems

  04 Sep 2014

  CHEPA’s first seminar of the new academic year will look at issues related to research into public health systems and services.

  In Building the Case for a Public Health Systems Perspective, Anita Kothari, top left, of Western University and Dr. Megan Ward,Associate Medical Officer of Health, Region of Peel, will draw from literature and recent organizational experiences to discuss the area of public health systems and services research. Focusing on Ontario, they will explain why a public health systems perspective is so important today, what a systems perspective in public health might look like, and how to address the challenges of implementing a public health systems perspective in the current context. 

  The seminar will be held on Weds. Sept. 17, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., in CRLB-119. All are welcome. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.   

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• Katherine Boothe joins CHEPA's faculty

  11 Jun 2014

  CHEPA welcomes Katherine Boothe as its newest faculty member.

  Boothe is an assistant professor of political science at McMaster who specializes in comparative public policy in advanced industrial democracies, with a focus on health policy.

  Her current research examines the development and reform of pharmaceutical insurance and regulatory policy in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. She has a PhD and an MA in political science from the University of British Columbia, and a BA from the University of Alberta.

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• Changing relationship between business cycles and mortality in the U.S. topic of CHEPA seminar

  04 Jun 2014

  The relationship between business cycles and mortality in the U.S. is complex and appears to have changed over time, a Waterloo economist has found.

  At a CHEPA seminar on June 11, Emmanuelle Piérard, assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Waterloo, will talk about her research into the relationship between total mortality, deaths due to accidents, cardiovascular disease and measures of the business cycles for the U.S from 1962 to 2010 using a time-varying parameter model.

  The seminar takes place on Wednesday June 11, in CRL B119, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All are welcome. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• Spring edition of CHEPA news available now

  28 May 2014

  Read the latest about the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis in the Spring 2014 CHEPA News, available by clicking here.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Seminar explores links with McMaster's Institute of Environment and Health

  26 May 2014

  The McMaster Institute of Environment and Health’s (MIEH) goal is to facilitate, promote, and publish environment and health research, and to share expertise with the broader community.

  MIEH director Jim Dunn will talk about possible synergies between the institute and CHEPA at a seminar on Wednesday May 28 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in CRL B119. All are welcome. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• Anne Wong, Jessica Shearer presenting CHEPA seminars

  13 May 2014

  

  CHEPA’s seminar series doubles up following the May long weekend, with presentations on both Wednesday May 21 and Thursday May 22.

  Dr. Anne Wong, Associate Professor in McMaster’s Department of Anesthesia and Assistant Dean, Program for Faculty Development, will speak about International Medical Graduates: Policy and Culture on Wednesday May 21.

  And on May 22, Jessica Shearer, a recent graduate of McMaster’s Health Policy PhD Program and currently a visiting scholar at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, returns to CHEPA to speak about Network approaches to modelling the exchange and use of research evidence in health policy decision-making.

  The seminars on both days will be held from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in CRL B119.  All are welcome. The seminars will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• Who are you calling old? Evolving thinking challenges policy planning

  24 Apr 2014

  
  How do you plan programs and services for old people when ‘old’ is an evolving concept?

  Amanda Grenier, who holds the Gilbrea Chair in Aging and Mental Health at McMaster, notes that the structures and frameworks around which society organizes and responds to older people are increasingly blurred. Chronological age, for example, is no longer considered to mark ‘aging’, but meanwhile many of the socio-cultural notions and eligibility requirements for services continue to be based on age.

  She will discuss some of the key issues underlying planning efforts in policy and practice for older people at a CHEPA seminar on Wednesday April 30. The seminar will be held in CRL B119, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All are welcome. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• Mulvale, O’Reilly receive Early Researcher Awards

  15 Apr 2014

  Two members of CHEPA’s faculty are among 11 McMaster professors to receive Early Researcher Awards (ERA) from the provincial government.

  Gillian Mulvale, left, Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Management at the DeGroote School of Business, and Daria O’Reilly, right, Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University and Faculty Lead of the MaRS Excellence in Clinical Innovation and Technology Evaluation (EXCITE) Program, within the Programs for Assessment of Technology in Health (PATH) Research Institute at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH), are among those recognized by the ERA as promising researchers with the potential to become world-class innovators. Both women joined CHEPA’s faculty in the summer of 2012.

  The ERA will enable O’Reilly to conduct research to find ways to spend resources more efficiently in treating diabetes. Mulvale’s work uses smartphone technology to help families and service providers deliver coordinated services for adolescents with mental illness.

  The Early Research Award funds each recipient to a maximum of $140,000 by the provincial government, with matching funding of $50,000 from McMaster, over the next five years.

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• Register now to learn how academic research shapes healthcare

  02 Apr 2014

  How does research influence health reform? Find out by joining host Brian Hutchison at New Frontiers in Health Policy Research: A Graduate Students Conference, on Saturday, April 12 at McMaster’s CIBC Hall, where you’ll hear some of Canada’s leading health policy-makers and analysts describe how academic research shapes the healthcare of the future. To see the agenda, click here.

  Keynote speaker Antonia Maioni, associate professor, Department of Political Science, Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University, will present her analysis of how research influences health policy reform. A former Canada-US Fulbright scholar at Harvard, Maioni is also a political analyst for CTV News and contributor to the Globe and Mail.

  The conference also features talks by a roster of well-known health policy experts -- John Abbott, previously CEO of the Health Council of Canada and a former Deputy Minister of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Health and Community Services; Vasanthi Srinivasan, executive director of the Ontario Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) support unit and former assistant deputy minister, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care (MOHLTC), and Alina Gildiner, Project Leader, Health Workforce Evidence & Innovation Unit, Health Workforce Policy Branch, Health Human Resources Strategy Division, MOHLTC. They will speak about their professional experiences using research to support policy-making. Join them and moderator John Lavis, director of the McMaster Health Forum and Knowledge Translation expert, for an enlightening discussion.

  In addition to the prominent keynote and panel speakers, an exciting central part of the conference will be hearing an array of selected graduate students from area universities presenting their own innovative health policy research for discussion and critique. There is no charge to attend and lunch is included. To register, click here or contact Lyn Sauberli, sauber@mcmaster.ca

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• Seminar looks at the links between obesity and immigration in Europe

  02 Apr 2014

  Research into the links between social inequality and obesity, comparing immigrants and natives of France and Spain, is the subject of an April 16 CHEPA seminar presented by Yasser Moullan, research officer at the International Migration Institute, University of Oxford (UK).

  The seminar will be held Wednesday April 16 in CRL B119, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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• Seminar scrutinizes drug cost-effectiveness analysis programs

  20 Mar 2014

  In pharmaceutical regulation and policy, evidence-based policymaking uses a particular tool: the economic evaluation of drugs, where experts assess the cost of drugs relative to their therapeutic benefits, and make funding decisions on this basis. However, programs vary markedly in their goals (especially related to achieving value for money or standardizing access to care) and their mandates.

  In a seminar titled Cost-effective drugs: paradigms and policies in Australia, Ontario, Canada, and the UK, Katherine Boothe, PhD, assistant professor of political science at McMaster, presents research comparing the adoption and reform of cost-effectiveness analysis programs in four jurisdictions.

  The seminar will be held Wednesday March 26 in CRL B119, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend. The seminar will be available remotely for those who are unable to attend.

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