Postdoctoal Award Competition Results 2001
The Postdoctoral Awards are part of the suite of capacity development programs that collectively make up the CADRE (Capacity for Applied and Developmental Research and Evaluation in health services and nursing research) program co-sponsored by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
These awards are designed to train young researchers to undertake applied health services and policy research, including nursing management and organization, as well as to expose them to managers' and policy makers' decision making. The latter aspect is achieved through affiliating them with sites where they can acquire skills that maximize the dissemination and use of their research. Candidates must propose a training program that includes a work placement with a
decision maker and the development of communication skills. Ideally, the training program will involve multidisciplinary teamwork, the acquisition of new skills and experience, and some teaching or mentoring.
These are two-year awards for up to 11 postdoctoral students each year with the Foundation assisting in identifying and placing award holders in settings and sites where they can acquire the applied research skills they require.
This is an annual competition. The new call for applications will be available in the fall on this web site.
Merit Review Process
The merit review panel met in mid-April to assess the 21 proposals received from across the country. Of these, seven were in nursing, two in health professions, and 12 in the social sciences and humanities. Two other proposals were screened out due to their clinical focus.
Summary of Applicants Recommended for Funding
Four of the applicants recommended for funding through these awards are in nursing and the others have backgrounds in ethics, health economics, anthropology, health administration, and women's health. Some of these candidates have yet to complete their PhD, and prior to taking up the postdoctoral award, they must complete their doctorate within one year of the offer of the award.
Maureen Dobbins is presently in the School of Nursing, McMaster University. She will be based at McMaster University with her supervisor Donna Ciliska, but will also have Réjean Landry at l'Université Laval as a co-supervisor. Her program will focus on testing various hypotheses and models of knowledge transfer and use among healthcare decision makers at the organizational level of public health units, at local boards of health in Ontario,
and among provincial and federal policy makers.
Jennifer Gibson is currently completing her PhD in the department of philosophy and collaborative program in bioethics at the University of Toronto. She will do her postdoctoral work with Peter Singer at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics. The objectives of this program include describing the priority-setting process at the Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, evaluating this description against the leading ethical
framework for priority setting, and improving the priority-setting processes at the centre.
Audrey Laporte is currently in the department of health administration at the University of Toronto. Her postdoctoral work will be with the CHSRF/CIHR health services chair Peter C. Coyte, at the University of Toronto. Her research interests concern the influence of socio-economic status on access to healthcare services, notably homecare, and her program of study will identify the key factors at the individual and community level that act as barriers
to homecare use.
Judy Mill is presently in the faculty of nursing at the University of Alberta. She will do her postdoctoral work with the CHSRF/CIHR nursing chair Nancy Edwards at the University of Ottawa. The focus of her program will be the determinants of disadvantaged women's vulnerability to HIV infection, both prior to infection and the period immediately following infection.
Craig Mitton is currently completing his PhD in the department of community health sciences at the University of Calgary. Postdoctoral work will start at the University of Calgary under the supervision of Cam Donaldson, and will continue at Curtin University in Australia with Gavin Mooney, professor of health economics. The focus of this work will be the development of a priority-setting 'toolkit' for use by managers in health regions as they set
their priorities.
Melanie Rock is currently completing her PhD at McGill University in medical anthropology. She will do her postdoctoral work with the CHSRF/CIHR health services chair Louise Potvin at the Université de Montréal. The focus of her program will be on detecting, explaining and redressing health inequalities through looking at the conditions that entrench a lifestyle that is conducive to obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes across
North America.
Liane (Soberman) Ginsburg is currently completing her PhD in the department of health administration at the University of Toronto. Her Postdoctoral Award will be taken up at the University of Calgary, working with Ann Casebeer. Her program will centre on interpreting the data from a new study of harm caused by medication error, for policy makers, senior hospital leaders and front-line healthcare teams.
Kelli Stajduhar (award offered but declined) is currently completing her PhD in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Her Postdoctoral work will be at the University of Victoria, under the supervision of Neena Chappell. The focus of her program will be on the elements needed to design an effective, efficient, comprehensive and co-ordinated delivery system for palliative care.
Rebecca Sutherns is currently completing her PhD within the interdisciplinary sustainable rural communities doctoral program at the University of Guelph. Her postdoctoral work will be at the University of Western Ontario, under the supervision of Ivy Lynn Bourgeault. Her program will explore sustainable models of rural maternal care provision, and the ways in which women can be more meaningfully involved in decisions affecting their care, both
personally and at the level of policy.
Ann Tourangeau (award offered but declined) is currently completing her PhD at the University of Alberta. Her Postdoctoral Award will be taken up at the University of Toronto with the CHSRF/CIHR nursing chair Linda O'Brien-Pallas, and her research will look at the factors that affect registered nurses' decision to stay in or leave clinical nursing practice at acute-care hospital.
Wendy Young is currently completing her PhD in the department of health administration at the University of Toronto. Her postdoctoral work will be with the CHSRF/CIHR health services chair Peter C. Coyte at the University of Toronto and with Georgina Feldberg at York University. The focus of this program will be on evaluating the impact of an integrated community pathway for heart attack patients in urban and rural areas, with special attention paid
to age and gender.