Author: Emily Holton

Jonathon Maguire is the new Lawson Chair in Patient Engagement in Child Nutrition at the University of Toronto.

Maguire, an associate professor of paediatrics and nutritional sciences at U of T and a staff pediatrician and scientist with St. Michael’s Hospital at Unity Health Toronto, will hold the chair over a five-year term through the Joannah & Brian Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition.

“I’m very grateful to the university and the Lawson Centre for choosing to support patient engagement in the research process,” says Maguire. “It’s forward-thinking because it will enable children and families to co-design research with us and help us produce results that are most meaningful to them.”

The longest running study of its kind on the “Housing First” model has found that it significantly reduces homelessness over the long term compared to treatment as usual, according to a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry by scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and St. Michael’s Hospital.

“The Housing First model results in a lasting and significant increase in the rate of days stably housed per year,” said lead author CAMH Physician-in-Chief Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos. “We now have evidence that we can offer to policy makers, clinicians and other stakeholders about solutions to chronic homelessness for people with mental illness.”

Housing First provides immediate access to rent supplements and mental health support services to people who are homeless and have a mental illness. Traditional models require homeless people to stop using substances or receive psychiatric treatment before being eligible for housing support services.

This study published in The Lancet Psychiatry, which followed participants over a six-year period, is the first to show that Housing First continues to be significantly more effective than treatment as usual in the longer term, especially for those with high needs for mental health support services. After 6 years, that group had stable housing an average of 85% of the time in the previous year compared to 60% for the treatment as usual group.

“These results show that if we choose to do so, we can end chronic homelessness in a way that is life-changing for individuals and enormously beneficial for all of society,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, Director of the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital, where the study was conducted.

Over the last 20 years, James Dunn’s research has revealed clear relationships between inequality in cities and people’s health. Working with communities in southern Ontario and beyond, he has explored how housing, economic inequality and attributes of neighbourhoods affect residents’ mental and physical health.

“People’s income and other socio-economic conditions are incredibly important to their health — and way more actionable than we’d like to believe,” says Dunn, whose background in urban geography and social epidemiology is well-suited to the study of urban health equity.

One in six women in fracture clinics around the world has experienced intimate partner violence, but screening for such abuse remains scarce.

MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions has partnered with the Fracture Clinic at St. Michael’s Hospital to design and implement an electronic screening application for intimate partner violence that can be used within and beyond the hospital.

“We talked to women who had either lived with or were living with partner violence and we kept hearing them say that they realized too late in their relationship that they were living with unsafe behaviours,” said Dr. Patricia O’Campo, scientist at MAP, and co-lead on the development of the app.

“They wished they had known earlier that there were red flags. That’s where the initial idea to put screening into women’s hands came from.”

Eight researchers at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions have received more than $18 million in federal funding from recent Canada Research Chair allocations and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Collaborative Health Research Projects (CHRP) grant competitions.

Dr. Stephen Hwang, the director of MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, was one of 28 researchers to receive support in the most recent round of CIHR Foundation Grant competition. CIHR Foundation Grants provide long-term support for leading health researchers in the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research programs. This year’s competition was the final round of the Foundation Grants program.

Dr. Hwang, whose research focuses on improving the health of homeless or vulnerably housed people, received a seven-year year Foundation Grant to continue his interventions research in homelessness, housing and health.

Dr. Janet Smylie, the director of the Well Living House, a specialized Indigenous health research unit housed in MAP, was also successful in the Foundation Grant competition…

Dr. Patricia O’Campo has been named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, joining 2,000 Canadian artists, scientists and scholars in this prestigious group.

“It’s thrilling to be recognized by a group of outstanding scientists who are among the best scientists in Canada. Being recognized for the body of your research, not just one paper or study, just feels great,” said Dr. O’Campo.

With 30 years under her belt, O’Campo is a pioneer in epidemiology. When she began her training, traditional epidemiology focused on clinical care, epidemics and patient factors that determined major health problems like cancer and cardiovascular health. Her early research helped shape what is now known as social epidemiology.

Two MAP scientists were appointed Canada Research Chairs earlier today, in an announcement made by Science and Sport Minister Kirsty Duncan at the University of Victoria.

Drs. Patricia O’Campo and Nav Persaud are joining eight other current Canada Research Chair holders at St. Michael’s Hospital. Learn more about their work below.

“At only 38, [Dr. Persaud] has distinguished himself as an advocate for patient safety, social justice, transparency and pharmacare — not to mention a brilliant researcher and practitioner. With a reputation for being principled and persistent, he has not been afraid to rock the boat if that’s what it has taken to effect change.”

When people who couldn’t afford essential medications to lower blood pressure or control diabetes received the treatments free, their health improved, according to a randomized trial that could inform Canada’s pharmacare discussion.

People who are living with HIV in Ontario have access to good health care and medications, yet they are still dying younger and at substantially higher rates than the rest of the population, according to a new study published today.

The findings suggest that the overall well-being of these people is being negatively impacted by the social determinants of health–non-medical or non-genetic factors such as income, job status, education, housing and incarceration, according to the study in the journal AIDS and Behaviour.

Led by Dr. Sean Rourke, a neuropsychologist at St. Michael’s Hospital and scientist at its Centre for Urban Health Solutions, researchers followed 602 people with HIV recruited from community-based agencies for five years. People with HIV conducted peer-to-peer interviews with other HIV-positive people and then verified who was still alive at one, three and five years, using information, if necessary, obtained from relatives, partners, friends, obituaries and local AIDS memorial lists.

Of the 454 people whose mortality the researchers were able to confirm at the end of the study, 53 had died, which is the equivalent of 22.3 deaths per 100,000 people, substantially higher than the rate in the general population of 6.7 per 100,000 people. Seventy-three per cent of those who died were under 50.

People outside of Toronto died at even higher rates, especially in northern Ontario. (59 per cent outside the Greater Toronto area vs. 42 per cent inside the GTA.)

The study was dedicated to six peer-to-peer researchers…