Taking medications per doctor’s orders is challenging for most people. The task proves substantially more challenging when the language of the doctor or health care provider is different from that of the patient. Effective communication between health care professionals and patients, in particular among ethno-cultural communities, has shown to help with self-management of chronic diseases.
VCH Research Institute research team CREST.BD (the Collaborative RESearch Team to study psychosocial issues in Bipolar Disorder) has experienced firsthand the benefits of using social media to share their research and knowledge about the mental health condition. CREST.BD started Tweeting in August 2011 and as of August 2014, Twitonomy estimated that their Twitter activities have a potential reach of more than 1.9 million Twitter users, and followers of @CREST_BD have more than doubled in the past 12 months.
When British Columbia changed its impaired driving law in 2010 to include harsher fines, penalties, and roadside suspensions, the province received as much criticism as it did praise for the law being substantially more immediate and severe. A new study led by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute researcher Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher found that the new law’s stronger penalties have made B.C. roads safer and have significantly reduced crash-related fatalities.
While most people dream of retiring one day, the reality of retired life for many older adults includes a myriad of later life hardships, such as financial stress, relationship losses, identity crises, social isolation, resurfacing of past traumas, and conflicts with adult children.
A unique group psychotherapy program at Richmond Hospital, part of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute research community, is helping older adults deal with such personal historical and present-day issues causing depression and anxiety.
Earlier this year, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) launched its inaugural Innovation and Translational Research Awards competition to support research projects led by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) care professionals and researchers. The competition’s objectives are to fund research that brings new knowledge into practice and/or policy, to take research outcomes to the implementation stage, and to create commercial opportunities from pre-existing research outcomes. This year’s recipients demonstrate these objectives in their work.
Within the next 20 years, ovarian cancer rates in B.C. are projected to drop by as much as 40% thanks to a cancer prevention initiative developed by research group OVCARE. Their initiative has successfully changed B.C.’s gynecological surgery practices and is expected to reduce rates of the most lethal form of ovarian cancer among low-risk women in the province.
A comprehensive survivorship program by the Vancouver Prostate Centre (VPC) is helping individuals, couples, and families endure not only the diagnosis of, and treatment for, prostate cancer, but also the unanticipated physical and psychological challenges that come with prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment.
As one of Canada’s top-funded research institutions, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute continues to offer numerous opportunities for growth and advancement to our more than 1,500 personnel in our research centres, programs, and research areas. Our annual Investigator Awards are peer-reviewed salary support awards for investigators located at VGH, UBC Hospital and G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre who want to move from clinical practice to research.
A groundbreaking discovery by researchers at The Vancouver Prostate Centre (VPC), a Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) centre, is giving scientists unprecedented levels of accuracy in seeing how patient-specific prostate (tumors) respond to drug therapies or develop drug resistance.
