Two Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientists are uncovering surprising statistics about the cost of asthma in British Columbia. Dr. Mohsen Sadatsafavi of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation, and his colleague Dr. J. Mark FitzGerald, director of the Centre for Heart and Lung Health, just completed a series of clinical trials and descriptive studies that all tell a similar story: asthma patients are costing BC a lot of money. And most of that spending could be avoided if patients were properly using available, affordable medications.
News
Star power: how and why celebrity culture influences our health
+
Whether you’re the type of person who follows all the stars on Instagram, or whether you’re not quite sure what a Kardashian is, celebrity and popular culture influence how all of us think and talk about health.
Dr. Katie Sheehan gave a podium presentation “Hospital mortality by teaching status of treating hospital” at the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQUA) Meeting in Tokyo, Japan. This study, based on a recently published article in CMAJ, compares the risk of hospital death between patients treated in teaching and community hospitals. The study finds that a higher proportion of hip fracture patients die at non-teaching compared to teaching hospitals after accounting for length of stay.
A Losing Battle? Health Science in the Age of Celebrity
There is a ridiculous amount of science-free health and wellness advice floating around in popular culture. And much of this information is conflicting, misleading or just plain crazy. In this provocative presentation Professor Caulfield will explore why and how health information gets so twisted, including the increasingly important role of celebrity culture. He will also review why this matters (and it does!) and how it impacts our health and health policy.
Dr. Boris Sobolev will be a Plenary Speaker at the 4th Annual Bayesia Lab Conference held September 25 – October 2 in Nashville, Tennessee. The conference focuses on applied research with Bayesian networks and provides opportunity to learn about the latest methodologies and best practices.
Dr. Sobolev’s talk “Causal attribution of mortality to delays in heart surgery” will discuss causal attribution of reduction in postoperative mortality to timing of cardiac surgery using observations collected in a population-based cardiac registry.
Recently, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) recognized the work of two C2E2 researchers, Dr. Mohsen Sadatsafavi and Dr. Lindsay Hedden.
Nick Bansback (pictured, second from right)
The Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation is pleased to announce that Dr. Nick Bansback has been selected by CADTH as the 2016 recipient of the Maurice McGregor Award, an award that recognizes rising stars in the field of health technology assessment early in their careers.
It’s fitting that this year’s Rare Disease Day falls on a day that only comes around every four years. This leap day, Feb. 29, UBC researchers will launch a project to raise awareness about rare diseases and the issues facing patients and policy makers here in Canada.
