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JointHealth™ express   November 22, 2018

Congratulations to the Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC) Research Award Winners

Eight awards were given out to recognize contributions to arthritis research in Canada at this year’s AAC 2018 Annual Meeting in Toronto.

The Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC) was formed in 2002 with the goal of uniting the arthritis community and work on common goals to improve the lives of Canadians living with arthritis. The AAC is composed of 36 member organizations including: health care professionals, researchers, funding agencies, pharmaceutical industry, and government representatives.

At this year’s AAC 2018 Annual Meeting in Toronto, eight awards were given out to recognize contributions to arthritis research in Canada.

The award categories are based on the following AAC research priorities:
  1. Promoting increased funding for arthritis research
  2. Building capacity in arthritis research and innovation (e.g. increase in the number of trainees, involvement of patients in arthritis research, partnerships and linkages);
  3. Facilitating and supporting initiatives that harmonize and strengthen research infrastructure and enhance networking to foster collaborations (e.g. optimizing research use of databases, creating new platforms and research infrastructure) and partnership;
  4. Promoting knowledge translation and exchange (KTE) as effective KTE is critical to ensure that research findings are implemented and lead to improved health outcomes (e.g. involve stakeholders in 1) KT co-creation, 2) co-interpretation, 3) support with dissemination and evaluation where appropriate).
  5. Supporting and facilitating patient participation/engagement in arthritis research.
Award categories and 2018 recipients:
  1. PhD Student Award, sponsored by Arthritis Consumer Experts, presented to Dr. Elena Lopatina (University of Calgary, Calgary, AB)
  2. Early Career Researcher in Basic/Clinical Science Award, sponsored by CIHR Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis, presented to Dr. Matthew Teeter (London Health Sciences Centre, London, ON)
  3. Early Career Researcher in Health Services/Population Health Award, sponsored by Arthritis Research Canada, presented to Dr. Claire Barber (University of Calgary, Calgary, AB)
  4. Post-Doctoral Fellow Award: sponsored by CIHR Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis, presented to Dr. Shabana Amanda Ali (Krembil Research Institute, Arthritis Program, Toronto ON)
  5. Master Student Award: sponsored by McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health, presented to Scott Brunet (University of Calgary, Calgary, AB)
  6. Patient for Active Engagement in Arthritis Research Award, sponsored by the Arthritis Society, presented to Cheryl Koehn (Arthritis Consumer Experts, Vancouver).
    • Active engagement refers to meaningfully and actively collaborating in all stages of arthritis research from priority setting, to conducting research to distributing and applying the findings
  7. Knowledge Translation (KT) Practice Award, sponsored by Amgen Canada, presented to Dr. Sasha Bernatsky (McGill University Health Center, Montreal, QC)
  8. Knowledge Translation (KT) Research Award: sponsored by Bone and Joint Institute of the University of Western Ontario, presented to Dr. Nick Bansback (University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC)
    • Knowledge translation refers to moving research from the laboratory, research journal, and the academic conference into the minds of organizations and people who can put the findings to practical use
Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and thank you for your dedication to advancing arthritis research and improving the lives of millions of Canadians living with some form of the disease. The AAC would also like to thank all of their sponsors for their continued support. Until next year!

For more information on the research awards program, visit the Arthritis Alliance of Canada Research Awards Program Overview.