Funded Research

Funded Research

CCL is pleased to announce that it has agreed to fund the following projects on the theme of Health and Learning.

 

Health and Learning - 2007 Competition

Project Title: The Health Promoting School: Developing Indicators and an Evaluation Framework
Project Lead: Saab, Hana
Institution: Queen's University
Report: The Health Promoting School: Developing Indicators and an Evaluation Framework
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The goal of this research project is to further our understanding of health promoting schools (HPS) and the associated indicators of student health and well-being. Quantitative data analyses followed by qualitative examination of schools will be employed to develop indicators of health and well-being that reflect a HPS model. The study will identify the organizational and structural elements that are essential for achieving a HPS, and the mechanisms by which these elements intervene to produce health and well-being outcomes. The involvement of a consultative/steering committee reflecting stakeholders from health and education will enhance research use and relevance of research to policy.

Project Title: Using Simulation to Engage Police in Learning about Mental Illness: The Impact of Realism on the Learning Process
Project Lead: Stanyon, Wendy 
Institution: University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Report: Using Simulation to Engage Police in Learning about Mental Illness: The Impact of Realism on the Learning Process
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The objective of this research is to evaluate the impact of using simulation to educate police officers about mental illness and how to respond effectively to mentally ill persons. The project further enhances an already established, unique partnership between a regional police services, a mental health facility, a college, and a university. It builds on work already in progress to develop simulations based on some of the most common incidents police encounter involving persons presumed to have a mental illness. This study will also add to the simulation literature related to usability and how closely simulations reflect reality.

Project Title: The Learning Garden: Impacts of an Aboriginal Holistic Learning Program on Individual and Community Health
Project Lead: Stroink, Mirella
Institution: Lakehead University
Report: The Learning Garden: Place-based Learning for Holistic First Nations' Community Health
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The Learning Garden is a community-based, First Nations’ program that aims to increase health by promoting knowledge of indigenous food. The program draws its perspective from the First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning Model (CCL, 2007). As such, health learning is viewed as place-based, experiential, and holistic. The program design involves a series of workshops that will stimulate holistic personal development, connection with land and culture, and health. Mixed-methods research will combine a qualitative analysis of the process of Health Learning in the program with a quantitative evaluation of the outcomes of the program for health, food security, and cultural identity.

Project Title:   ‘Talk to Your Doc’ – Helping Adolescents Make Health Care Transitions: Evaluation and Design to Extend the Reach
Project Lead: Towle, Angela
Institution: University of British Columbia
Report: 'Talk to Your Doc' – helping adolescents make health-care transitions: Evaluation and design to extend the reach
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Talk to Your Doc’ has been a novel outreach from the University of British Columbia to Vancouver high schools for eight years. It is a small group workshop, facilitated by medical students, about the importance of good communication, how to bring up and discuss difficulty problems, confidentiality in the doctor-patient relationship, and how to find or change doctors. We will examine the outcomes of ‘Talk to Your Doc’ to revise the workshop to meet the changing needs of adolescents and enhance the program to gain greater diffusion and impact.

 

Health and Learning - 2006 Competition

Project Title: E-Learning to support health literacy, health promotion and disease management in community settings
Project Lead: Atack, Linda
Institution: Centennial College (Scarborough, ON)
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
Report: E-Learning to support health literacy, health promotion and disease management in community settings
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Researchers from Centennial College, the University of Toronto, the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Research Institute, and St Christopher House will examine the role of informal and formal Internet-based health education strategies in community and clinical settings. We will examine the use and impact of informal online health literacy tools with our community partners. Clinically, we will explore patient satisfaction and self-efficacy with the use of an online tool that provides patients with tailored health information prescribed by their clinician. We will also examine the roles and needs of community facilitators and primary care physicians as they adopt emerging technologies to support health education.

Project Title:  An Evaluation of the Government of Newfoundland's School Health Promotion Liaison Consultant Intervention
Project Lead: Card, Anthony
Institution: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
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This project will assess the short-term and medium-term effects of introducing school/community health coordinators (change agents), known as School Health Promotion Liaison Consultants (SHPLC’s), to facilitate education-health cooperation in promoting the health of children and learning at the school board/health authority/community level. Specifically, the goal is to conduct the assessment of the SHPLC’s program being implemented in Newfoundland and Labrador. This research will not only provide feedback to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador on its program, but will serve the larger health and education communities by increasing our understanding of the process of coordination between health and education in schools and potential outcomes such as partnerships.

Project Title: Evaluation of an online evidence-based knowledge translation/transfer service for dietetic practice
Project Lead: Corby, Lynda
Institution: Dietitians of Canada
Amount funded by CCL: $61,250
Report: Evaluation of Practice-Based Evidence in Nutrition (PEN)
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Dietitians of Canada (DC) will evaluate an online decision-support service for dietitians called Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition. An evaluation survey will be designed using the Delphi Method to consult a 12-15 member panel of experts in knowledge translation/transfer, evaluation, research, and dietetic practice. After face validation, pilot testing, and finalizing the evaluation tool, it will be administered to a random sample of DC members. Results will form the baseline of data by which future impacts will be compared. Telephone interviews with key informants will also be conducted to determine trends in knowledge transfer and change in practice.

Project Title: Best-Practice: Sexuality Education for Children with Physical Disabilities - Developing a Curriculum Based on Lived Experiences
Project Lead: Esmail, Shaniff
Institution: University of Alberta
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
Report: Sex Education Guidelines for Children and Youth with Physical Disabilities
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This project is a community-university research partnership that will address the need for effective approaches to sexual education for children and adolescents with physical impairments/disabilities. Presently Canada has well-developed guidelines for sexual health education which were created and implemented by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Although these guidelines do mention diversity, they do not provide specific strategies or meet the unique sexual health needs for people with physical disabilities. The general goal of this project is to understand and develop curriculum guidelines for teaching sexual health education to children with physical impairments/disabilities and disseminate it nationally and internationally, as appropriate.

 

Project Title: Exploring Learning Experiences and Selected Nurse, Patient Safety and Organizational Outcomes Associated with a Research Capacity Building Strategy
Project Lead:
Jeffs, Lianne
Institution: St. Michael's Hospital (Toronto, ON)
Amount funded by CCL: $35,176
Report: Exploring Learning Experiences and Selected Nurse, Patient Safety, and Organizational Outcomes Associated with a Research Capacity-Building Strategy
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Given that the conduct and use of high-quality, clinically significant research has been attributed to the design and delivery of safer health care, it is imperative that nurses be involved in research initiatives. As such, St. Michael’s Hospital has developed an innovative learning strategy involving a mentorship and experiential learning approach around competency acquisition required to develop, implement, and evaluate a research project that is based on a clinical idea and/or improvement. This study evaluates the outcomes (nursing, patient, organizational) and learning experiences associated with the implementation of the research capacity-building strategy using a descriptive mixed methods approach.

 

Project Title: TV Health Shows : a Means to Better Inform Senior Citizens with Low Literacy Levels about Food Shopping
Project Lead: Kaszap, Margot
Institution: Université Laval
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
Report: Health television: A way for people with low literacy to learn more about the food they eat
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This research will: (1) evaluate the television vignette (content and format) as a medium that provides information about food supplies to seniors with poor literacy proficiency; (2) determine the role of the television vignette and the socioconstructivist approach in professionals’ patient approach; and (3) determine how seniors with poor literacy proficiency receive the television vignette and its message, which will be used with a socioconstructivist approach, as a support to knowledge integration in the area of food supplies.

Project Title: Development of a Valid and Reliable Instrument to Measure Health and Diet Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours for Canadians
Project Lead: Lafave, Lynne
Institution: Mount Royal College (Calgary, AB)
Amount funded by CCL: $29,900
Report: Development of a Canadian Behaviour, Attitude and Nutrition Knowledge Survey (BANKS)
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Nutrition knowledge dissemination is considered a crucial intervention for shaping health attitudes and behaviours of Canadians (Health Canada, 2006). At present, no psychometrically established nutrition knowledge measurement instrument specific to Canadian content exists surrounding the 2007 Canada Food Guide. The purpose of this project is to develop a valid and reliable Canadian version of the USDA diet and health knowledge survey (DHKS). Once the validity and reliability of the Canadian DHKS is established, there will be a wealth of opportunity to apply this instrument to other populations across Canada.

Project Title: The 5 E's for Health: Understanding eLiteracies for eLearning in Electronic Educational Environments
Project Lead: Norman, Cameron
Institution: University of Toronto
Amount funded by CCL: $69,788
Report: The 5 E's for Health: Understanding eLiteracies for eLearning in Electronic Educational Environments
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Youth are enthusiastic consumers of electronic media and attracted to the Internet, a tool that can bridge barriers created by geographic and social distance to engage diverse communities in collaborative learning. Two established virtual classroom environments, one on tobacco control and one on HIV/AIDS, will provide teachers and students with a means of learning about health and connecting with youth worldwide via a global youth action network. The impact of these programs on student learning and engagement and teacher collaboration will be explored using surveys and interviews with the goal of creating recommendations for health and education programming and policy.

Project Title: Modification, Implementation and Evaluation of Action Schools! BC in First Nations Communities
Project Lead: Panagiotopoulos, Constadina
Institution: University of British Columbia
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
Report: Modification, Implementation and Evaluation of Action Schools! BC in First Nations Communities
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The health of Aboriginal people in Canada is globally poorer than that of other Canadians. Our team found that 18% of Aboriginal children were overweight and 30% were obese in one community. The Action Schools! BC (AS! BC) program was developed to increase physical activity in school children, but does not address the special culture and environment of children in remote Aboriginal communities. At the request of two communities in the Tsimshian Nation to address their concerns about type 2 diabetes and obesity among their children, the goal of this project is to modify, implement, and evaluate AS! BC for Aboriginal communities.

Project Title: Inclusive Education Knowledge Exchange Initiative: An Analysis of the Statistics Canada Participation and Activity Limitation Survey
Project Lead: Timmons, Vianne
Institution: University of Regina
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
Report: Inclusive Education Knowledge Exchange Initiative: An Analysis of the Statistics Canada Participation and Activity Limitation Survey
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This proposal will attempt to identify effective inclusive strategies, compile these strategies into an accessible and readable format, and deliver the information to teachers, administrators, and parents. An analysis of Statistics Canada’s Participation and Activity Limitation survey will be conducted to identify the inclusive strategies that have the most positive impact on the health and well-being of individuals with disabilities.

Project Title: Collaborative Action Research: A Catalyst for Enhancing the Practice of Community Youth Mapping
Project Lead: Hills, Marcia
Institution: University of Victoria
Amount funded by CCL: $70,000
Report: Collaborative Action Research: A Catalyst for Enhancing the Practice of Community Youth Mapping
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This project will involve youth in an action research approach called Collaborative Action Research in the development and implementation of a Community Youth Mapping (CYM) project within neighbourhoods of Surrey, BC. The purpose of CYM is to learn about where and how youth gain access to local resources and opportunities for building developmental assets and to learn about the local community context through which developmental assets are gained and shaped. The project will be an exploratory naturalistic study about the appropriateness of involving youth as researchers in learning among their peers.

 

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