Research
Epidemiology
Our epidemiologists deploy leading-edge methods in the study of health or health service questions. Areas of methodological expertise include: cohort study design; case-control study design; scale development and evaluation; systematic reviews and meta-analysis; therapeutic and preventative clinical and field trials; survey methods including complex survey designs; measuring inter-observer agreement; health economics methods. Our study types include, but are not limited to: studies in which we collect "primary" data from a population or clinical sample; community-based research in which the community is engaged in setting the research objectives; and research using "secondary" data collected from administrative (e.g. hospital databases, Ministry databases, Vital Registration system, Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences) or National Survey sources (e.g. Statistics Canada Research Data Centre, RDC).
Health topic areas of interest incorporate whole populations or population subgroups and include, but are not limited to, studies of: prenatal/postnatal health; trajectories of children’s health; falls in the elderly; health and health services issues in lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities; aboriginal health with particular interest on obesity and metabolic syndromes; cardiovascular health; access to health care; influence of primary physician remuneration on primary health care access; wait times for secondary physician services. In our collaborative research programs, we collaborate with clinicians, sociologists, psychologists and geographers, to cite a few, as well as with our colleagues in epidemiology and biostatistics. Some of our collaborations are inter-university and, indeed, some have national scope.
Biostatistics
Our biostatisticians focus on the development of analytic methods in their primary research programs. As well, in our collaborative research, we engage in studies in which our areas of methods expertise are being deployed. Our biostatistical researchers have international acclaim in the following areas: methods for cluster randomization trials, regression methods for multivariable analysis, methods for estimating confidence intervals, methods for the assessment of inter-observer error, and genetic epidemiology. We collaborate with a range of other disciplines, including, but not limited to, clinicians, philosophers (e.g. ethics of consent in cluster-randomized trials), epidemiologists and others. As well, some of our biostatisticians are heavily engaged in international clinical trials via our associations with outside entities such as Robarts Clinical Trials Inc., the World health Organization and the International Vaccines Institute.
