Dr. David Patrick is director of research and the medical epidemiology lead for antimicrobial resistance at BCCDC. He is also a professor in the UBC School of Population & Public Health.
Research
Dr. Patrick is an infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist with a career interest in responding to emerging infectious diseases. His published research spans the areas of HIV epidemiology, impacts of immunization on population health, vector-borne and zoonotic disease, and COVID-19. Responding to the COVID-19 epidemic has been a particular focus of his most recent work, while providing leadership to BCCDC's researchers.
His ongoing focus is the broad effort to contain antimicrobial resistance in Canada and around the world. He is particularly interested in understanding the drivers of antibiotic utilization in the community, intervening to reduce unnecessary use, and understanding the connection between antibiotic use and asthma in populations. His projects include Do Bugs Need Drugs? and Antibioticwise.
Dr. Patrick is a respected public health leader, researcher and educator with expertise in epidemiology and infectious diseases. He joined the BCCDC in 1991, working on clinical and epidemiological approaches to sexually transmitted infections and HIV throughout the 1990s, and assuming leadership of the BCCDC's epidemiology division in the 2000s. From 2011 to 2016, he was director of the UBC School of Population & Public Health, for which he was recognized for distinguished service. He served as interim executive lead for BCCDC in 2019.
Dr. Patrick has developed his own graduate course, Control of Communicable Diseases, and has contributed to many others, including courses in medicine, dentistry and public health. He was responsible for the birth of the only tropical medicine course in western Canada.
He was awarded the Cortland Mackenzie Prize for Excellence in Teaching and the James M. Robinson Award for Contributions to Public Health.
Dr. Patrick has published over 200 articles in the peer-reviewed literature.