Our goal

Our goal is to increase the capacity of the Clinical Prevention Services division for conducting applied research that is of the highest quality and leads to practice and policy change in BC, Canada and internationally.

Our objectives

Our objectives are:

• To attract new research funding
  
• To support efficient research practices
  
• To attract and support trainees
  
• To translate research into action
  
• To increase our online presence
• To provide mentorship and skills building for researchers in CPS
  

Anxious client presentations in online sexual health encounters: We are currently conducting research to understand how to better serve sexual health clients who present with high levels of anxiety or worry about HIV and other sexual health concerns.

• A survey of 1,115 sexual health clinic clients, measuring unmet mental health care needs | read more 
  
• Interviews with sexual health providers and administrators exploring how they address clients’ mental health needs | read more 
  
• Assessments of points of healthcare access for sexual minorities with particular mental health service need | read more 
  

• DiSHI: Research about the impact of online and other digital public health interventions, such as GetCheckedOnline and SmartSexResource, on sexual health at the individual, system and population levels | Read more
  
• HPV-SAVE: Evaluation of HPV screening and vaccine for anal cancer prevention among HIV-positive men who have sex with men | Read more
  
• Syphilis PrEP: A randomized trial of doxycycline in syphilis prevention among gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men

Related content: HIV & AIDS Reports | STI Reports

Street Youth Video Project

The division of STI/HIV Prevention and Control collaborated with the Public Health Agency of Canada on a research study aimed at exploring issues in the life of street youth that contribute to the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections including AIDS. 

Once the study was over, the research team engaged the youth to develop video clips that help tell the youth’s stories around sexual risk while living on the street and some of the research findings. 

The script and artwork were created by the youth themselves with the help of a local film agency.

• Carter's story
  
• Trevor's story
  

• From Patient to Policy: Using data to drive TB elimination in Canada’s foreign born population: Development and validation of a TB risk score which quantifies an individual’s risk of progressing to active TB based on their unique medical and demographic risk factors
• A precision public health approach to eliminating TB transmission: Cross-interdisciplinary research that links genomic and administrative data to describe Mycobacterium tuberculosis clusters in BC, reconstruct person-to-person transmission within a cluster and evaluate utility of whole genome sequencing as a tool for outbreak prevention
  
• 2R2: A randomized, phase 2b, partially blind, controlled clinical trial to assess treatment completion, safety and efficacy of higher dose Rifampin for 2 months vs. standard dose Rifampin for latent TB.
  

Related content: Tuberculosis Reports

• Enhancing the public health impact of latent TB infection diagnosis and treatment (ACT4): A pragmatic cluster randomized trial in Canada, Benin, Ghana, Indonesia and Vietnam to evaluate the effectiveness of a standardized public health evaluation followed by targeted solutions for problems identified on increasing the proportion starting latent TB infection treatment among household contacts of patients with active pulmonary TB
• WelTel Outreach: Engaging clients in the field: A project that generates evidence for better communications and delivery of TB care throughout the Lower Mainland by replacing the existing practice of individual client-provider text messaging and immediate deletion with a secure, centralized WelTel digital health platform | Read more
  

Disruptive innovations, such as machine learning and predictive analytics, are being increasingly applied within the field of public health for a range of tasks, including detecting outbreaks, identifying patients at higher risk of particular conditions, and resource allocation. The CPS research program is organizing this special seminar series which aims to provide BCCDC trainees, staff and researchers an introduction to the key concepts surrounding machine learning and the types of public health problems it can address, as well as an opportunity to interact with local and regional thought leaders in the area of machine learning.