The BCCDC Foundation is pleased to announce funding for six new projects: four for “Blue Sky” research awards, one Workshop award, and one Travel award.
Dr Victoria Cook and team have been awarded travel grant funding for “Quality Improvement Initiatives at BCCDC” to present the results on improving patient and client outcomes in multiple service areas at four conferences over the coming months.
Dr Eleni Galanis has been awarded Workshop funding for “Communicable Disease Immunization Services Retreat” to develop the service line work-plan that will allow for a cohesive alignment of research, practice and policy priorities along with accountability to Ministry of Health and PHSA partners.
Dr Mark Gilbert and his team have been awarded blue sky funding for “Defining the scope of digital public health and its implications for practice and research” to identify research and practice gaps in digital public health in BC and develop a strategy for a digital public health program within BCCDC, including a path for future research funding.
Dr Jessica Moe and a large, multidisciplinary team have been awarded blue sky funds for “Buprednorphine/naloxone standard dosing and microdosing in the emergency department: A feasibility study”. This will provide data to develop a larger research trial to compare micro-dosing vs standard dose of these medications in vulnerable populations in the Emergency Department.
Dr Monika Naus and team will receive blue sky funding for “Mapping Immunization Coverage of Children in BC” to work at identifying barriers to service and further exploration of reasons for low vaccine uptake with a goal of improving coverage for vaccine preventable diseases, particularly among preschool and school age populations.
Dr Natalie Prystajecky and team have been awarded blue sky funding for “Fecal Pollution Identification (FP-ID): Laboratory Methods for Determining the Sources of Fecal Pollution in BC Waters” that will build on and address the limitations of an earlier study, validate assays, develop standard operating procedures and interpretation guidelines for routine use in BC.
This marks our final competition of the current OAP. The BCCDC Foundation is very proud to have funded over 50 grants since its first competition in 2014. Twelve rounds of competition later, we have provided over $400,000 in research/knowledge translation funding to BCCDC researchers to help with pilot funding, new team building, and student training. We have been very gratified to watch the initial funding grow, in some cases, to larger projects receiving funding from national and international sources, and to watch results being implemented into policy. Our goal with the OAP was to support and build the research enterprise at the BCCDC, and to add to the overall robustness of the scope of research being done at the Centre, and we can say with utmost confidence that we have been able to reach that goal.
We would like to thank our dedicated Scientific Advisory Board for their work over the years, and their commitment to ensuring we are funding quality projects. We’d also like to acknowledge all the BCCDC Faculty and researchers who have produced excellent results through this program, and have helped to improve public health outcomes in BC.
We will be evaluating the OAP and its outcomes as we look ahead to what types of funding would be most optimal to support our partnership with BCCDC, and to support public health more broadly.
So stay tuned in 2020! Make sure you signed up for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop on future funding opportunities and other activities.
