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Population Health Intervention
Research Centre
University of Calgary
3rd Floor, TRW Building
3280 Hospital Drive NW
Calgary, AB T2N 4Z6
CANADA
tel: (403) 210-9316
fax: (403) 210-3818
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Project Details
Schools and Youth
Creating Opportunity for Resilience and Engagement (CORE)
Investigators: Hawe P, Ghali L, Perry R, Blackstaffe A, Davison CM, Casey D
Funding: Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission and Southern Alberta Youth and Child Health Network
This is a program of work investigating ways to improve the mental health of children and youth by enabling them to feel more safe, connected and valued at school. It is a translational research program. We are taking the ideas and experience of a project conducted by collaborators in Australia and seeing how we can improve on and strengthen the effects and have an impact at a broader level. Our first pilot was in a high school. We are currently in a second pilot phase with three elementary schools and one junior high school, as a result of a collaboration with the Southern Alberta Child and Youth Health Network
Our objective now is to test CORE in a large scale trial with 60 schools. We will expand our investigators to encompass an economic evaluation of CORE. We are also building an alliance with researchers who are seeking to illuminate the stress reduction pathway by which means CORE effects might occur.
Youth Engagement and Action Research (YEAR)
Investigators: Community collaborators along with Hawe P, Schmid M, Perry R, Blackstaffe A, Haines VA, Godley J
Funding: Calgary Health Region Youth Strategy, Calgary Children's Initiative of the United Way
The Youth Engagement Action Research Project is an 18 month project to assess the ways youth engage or connect to community and other spheres of their lives and to devise ways to increase connectedness, if indicated and desired. It is a participatory project involving youth (1) in defining what connection means and (2) in seeing whether their concepts can be operationalised in a quantitative set of assessment methods that could be completed and analysed with a representative sample of youth within a neighbourhood.
Data are then given back to youth and local agencies so that a set of actions is devised to assess gaps that might be identified between actual and desired levels of engagement. The relationship of youth well being (quality of life, perceived health and depression) and actual/desired connection to community will also be investigated.
The goal is to develop assessment methods and practice recommendations that might be useful to community development workers.
Health risk screening and counselling of adolescents in primary care: a cluster randomised controlled trial (PARTY project)
Investigators: Sanci L, Shiell A, Patton G, Pirkis J, Hegarty K, Patterson E, Chondros P, Sawyer S, Parker R, Grabsch B, Seymour J
Funding: Australian Primary Care Research Institute
This project, otherwise known as PARTY (Prevention, Access and Risk-Taking in Young People) is a collaborative effort between PHIRC and researchers from the University of Melbourne. It will investigate the effectiveness and economic value of an organisational development intervention to improve screening and counselling for high risk youth within the context of a cluster-based randomised trial.
Neighbourhoods
Social affiliations created by places and events: a network analysis of a neighbourhood
Investigators: Hawe P, Scott CM, Carruthers L, Godley J, Haines VA, Shiell A
Funding: Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, Markin Chair endowment
Most people investigate "social capital" at a neighbourhood level by asking about trust and relationships with neighbours. This project takes a different approach. We examine the way people are connected by events, places and activities in a low income inner city neighbourhood. We are linking a social network analysis methods with a random population survey of health, quality of life and sense of community. This allows us to gain a quantitative ranking of the events, places and activities that are the most important in connecting people in the community who might not otherwise be connected.
An economic evaluation of urban design as a means of promoting physical activity and health (EcoRESIDE)
Investigators: Shiell A, Giles-Corti B, Goelhoed L, Begg S
Funding: National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia)
This project uses a 'natural experiment', the movement of people into newly built neighbourhoods that vary in their walkability in Perth, Western Australia, to assess the cost effectiveness of investing in urban design (sidewalks, parks, street layout etc) as a means of promoting physical activity and health. The project is a collaborative effort with researchers from the University of Western Australia (BGC, LG) and the University of Queensland.
EcoEUFORIA: An economic evaluation of using urban form to increase activity
Investigators: Shiell A, Doyle-Baker T, Sandalack B, Smithers W, Friedenreich C, Auld C
Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
This project addresses the same question as the EcoRESIDE project but in Calgary. Our methods differ too as here we are using the natural variation that exists in the walkability of Calgary neighbourhoods to assess the effect this has on physical activity. If differences are noted, an economic model will be developed to estimate the likely effect that improvements in walkability might have on physical activity and then health.
Worksites
Evaluation of a worksite health promotion program
Investigators: Blackshaw K, Lea S, Hawe P, Shiell A, McIntosh K, Pattison P
Funding: Markin Endowment to the University of Calgary
In this project we are examining the feasibility of evaluating the cost effectiveness of a worksite health intervention that involves initial screening and health risk assessment followed by personalised health advice delivered by email or by telephone.
Systematic review of the cost-effectiveness literature in worksite health
Investigators: Shiell A, McIntosh K, Adatia N
Funding: Population Health Intervention Research Centre
This systematic review is examining the strength of the economic evidence supporting worksite based cardiovascular disease prevention. We are confining our search only to interventions addressing risks of cardiovascular disease that have been evaluated in the context of a randomised or otherwise controlled trial. The review is acting as a pilot study to inform a proposal for a more extensive systematic review of worksite based health promotion.
Public Health Policy
Radical Policy in a Conservative Context: Moving Smoking Entirely Off Property
Investigators: Hawe P, Shiell A, van Dyck M, Krause C, Penman Y, Perry R, Patterson P
Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
The Calgary Health region was the first in Canada to ban smoking entirely on its property. In this project we are examining the implementation of the policy and its effect on other workplaces in Alberta.
Public Health Preparedness and Responsiveness in Alberta
Investigators: Moore S, Shiell A, Noseworthy T, Russell M, Predy G, Spilchak P
Funding: Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
This exploratory study is designed to identify, develop measures and then assess the degree of preparedness among public health agencies in Alberta. We are adopting an organisational network approach to map the structure of inter organisational relationships and measure organisational capacity to deal with emerging public health threats such as West Nile virus and SARS.
Systematic review of the effect of financial benefits to low income or socially disadvantaged families for child health outcomes in the developed world
Investigators: Lucas P J, Dowling S F, Joughin C, Laing G, McIntosh K, Newbury, J, Logan S, Petticrew M, Shiell A, Roberts H
Funding: Core funding
This review will consider the effect that providing additional monies to low income or socially disadvantaged families has on child health. We will focus our efforts initially on the evidence contained within randomised trials, but references to other research designs will also be collected for later consideration. For the purposes of this work the concept of health is interpreted in the widest sense of the word, incorporating physical and mental health, as well as wider indicators of well-being such as educational attainment.
Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Community Interventions for Diabetes in Vulnerable and Special Populations and Identification of Best Practices to Reach the most Vulnerable Populations
Investigators: Hawe P, Shiell A, Lorenzetti D, Spilchak P
Funding: Public Health Agency of Canada
In this systematic review we will investigate the effectiveness of community-based approaches to preventing Type II diabetes as well as look for best practices to reach populations who are most vulnerable to the disease or its consequences. This includes indigenous people, those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, recent migrants and visible minorities. We intend also to work with decision maker partners (to be recruited to the project) to disseminate the results of this work.
A synthesis of the economic evidence supporting early child development programs
Investigators: Shiell A, Hawe P, McIntosh K, Lorenzetti D
Funding: Public Health Agency of Canada
In this small project we are undertaking a systematic review of the economic evidence on early child development programs in order to assess the value of Canada's investment in promoting child health.
Community Alcohol Bylaws in Canada’s Northern Territories
Investigators: Ford C, Davison C, Peters P, Hawe P
Funding: Markin Endowment
Something communities can do to protect their health is use democratic processes to introduce regulations that restrict exposure to potentially harmful substances. This project is mapping the adoption of community-specific alcohol bylaws (e.g., from complete bans to partial restrictions) in 78 communities in Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories from 1975 to 2005. Our source is gazetted legislation. We are investigating geographic and social factors that might explain the adoption of by-laws, as well as exploring effects over time.
Methods Development
Feasibility of Sen’s Capabilities Approach for Addressing Disparities in Health and Well-Being
Investigators: Shiell A, English V, Crowshoe L, Lentjes D, King M, te Linde J, Friesen B, Musto R, Lai D, Mooney G, Yellow Old Woman Munro D
Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Amartya Sen's notion of capabilities (something that attempts to capture the real opportunities that people have to live the sort of life that they value) offers great potential as a means of assessing progress in reducing disparities in health and well-being. It is difficult to operationalise however, in part because Sen has refused to specify what capabilities he thinks are the most important. Instead, (and in contrast to the approach advocated by Martha Nussbaum) he argues, it is up to communities themselves to decide. In this project, we explored the usefulness of Sen's approach for understanding and eventually reducing disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians through interviews and focus groups with senior members of Aboriginal communities in Calgary. The exercise confirmed the importance of the ten basic capabilities identified by Nussbaum, but also endorsed Sen's approach of involving communities in the process.
Methods for assessing the economic value of Canada’s investment in early child development
Investigators: Shiell A, Hawe P, McIntosh K
Funding: Public Health Agency of Canada
This project is examining the data collected routinely by the many community-based programmes funded by PHAC to promote early child development to assess whether it can be used to evaluate the economic efficiency of this investment.
Contextualizing the social capital of seniors living in congregate housing
Investigators: Moore S, Shiell A, Haines V, Riley T, Collyer C
Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
This pilot study has been examining ways of measuring the social capital of seniors living in congregate housing to examine the possible impacts that the social networks of seniors might have on their health and well-being. Focus groups with seniors living in congregate housing were used to explore which dimensions of social capital were deemed most important. The project also examined the feasibility of using social network analysis to measure social capital in this context.
Mothers and Children
EcoPRISM (Economic and Ecological Evaluation of PRISM)
Investigators: Shiell A, P Hawe, Riley T, Gold L, Lumley J, Watson L
Funding: National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia)
The EcoPRISM project added both an economic and an ecological perspective to the PRISM evaluation (a cluster randomised trial of a community based intervention to promote maternal health). We evaluated the costs of the intervention, its impact on inter-organisational agency networking and the value that the public would ascribe to its benefits. Prospective record keeping by one of the main agents of the intervention (community development officers) allowed us to track the unfolding of the intervention, shedding useful light inside the 'black-box'.
A Clinical Trial of the Effectiveness of a Dental Caries Prevention Program for Cree Mothers and their Infants
Investigators: Harrison R, Veronneau J, Snowboy-Matoush J, Shiell A
Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Early childhood caries is a serious problem for young Cree children affecting one-third of children under two years of age. This community-based, cluster randomised trial is investigating the effectiveness and economic value of a form of counselling called Motivation Interviewing in addition to standard preventive dental care as a means of reducing the incidence of early childhood caries among Cree infants in Quebec.
Cost-effectiveness of community-based prenatal care
Investigators: Shiell A, Tough S, Johnston D, Au F, van der Pol M
Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research
This economic evaluation ran alongside the evaluation of the Community Prenatal Care trial. Two innovative methods of augmenting standard prenatal care were evaluated in the context of a community-based randomised trial. We added the economic component, documenting the costs of the intervention including its effect on health service costs in the twelve months following the birth of the baby and the impact of the intervention on health related quality of life and experience of motherhood. The design of the study also allowed us to explore the validity of some of the methods economists use to elicit values.
Cultural Understandings of Health
Patients, models and therapeutic agents: Animal-human relationships in Western health care
Investigators: Rock M, Mykhalvskiy E, Kanarek R, Schlich T, Schluender M, Babinec P
Funding: Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The main premise of this collaboration is that a fuller understanding of contemporary societies will result from further consideration of how animals fit into people's views on health. An anthropologist (Melanie Rock), a sociologist (Eric Mykhalvskiy) and a historian (Thomas Schlich) worked together to develop the original proposal, and are each leading a different case study on animal-human relations in Western health care.
This collaboration led the the following review article:
Rock, Melanie, Eric Mykhalovskiy, and Thomas Schlich. 2007. People, other animals and health knowledges: Towards a research agenda. Social Science & Medicine 64 (9):1970-1976. (doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.01.014)
Health information, beliefs and values in sociocultural contexts: Animal-human bonds as a window into human health
Investigators: Rock M, Babinec P
Funding: Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
This project expands the research, initiated with funding from SSHRC, on what people do in caring for cats and dogs. The ultimate goal is to assess whether actions, values and beliefs related to taking care of pets could reveal new insights into human health.
Two articles are currently in press:
Rock, Melanie, and Patricia Babinec. Forthcoming. Manifold ontologies and the enactment of diabetes in people, cats, and dogs. Medical Anthropology.
Rock, Melanie, and Prabh Lail. Forthcoming. Could pets be of help in achieving health literacy? A media analysis demonstration study. Health Education Research.
Please write to (mrock@ucalgary.ca) if you would like to receive copies.