Attention to health disparities must guide efforts to monitor and mitigate the impact of COVID-19
June 22/2020Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic must consider the complex interplay between socioeconomic status and health disparities, according to an analysis led by a team of U of T researchers published in the British Medical Journal. The paper, “Using socioeconomics to counter health disparities arising from the covid-19 pandemic,” argues...
DLSPH launches a pan-Canadian study to understand the financing, organization, and performance of provincial and territorial public health systems
June 11/2020The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the critical role of public health, revealing variations across the country in the preparedness and effectiveness of provincial and territorial (PT) public health systems. Yet, surprisingly little is known about how public health is financed, governed, and organized, and the composition of...
Your questions answered: the path to an effective COVID-19 vaccine
June 09/2020On May 26, 2020, IHPME hosted a COVID-19 webinar — the twelfth in the DLSPH COVID-19 webinar series — exploring the path to an effective COVID-19 vaccine. It featured leaders from research, policy and private industry describing the pharmaceutical trajectory of new antiviral products (including the COVID-19 vaccine), from development...
DLSPH Researchers Create Engaging Mental Health Resource for Sexual and Gender Minority Men and Other Guys into Guys
June 08/2020U of T researchers have launched a comprehensive website to support guys into guys— gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, two-spirit, gender queer, gender non-binary, trans, and other guys who are sexually and/or romantically interested in other guys. The resource, called goodhead.ca, is a product of significant community consultation work and is...
U of T Researchers to Study Impact of Cannabis on Indigenous Oral Health
June 05/2020Clinical research and Indigenous knowledge models will help team gather first evidence of effects of cannabis on Indigenous peoples of Canada A multidisciplinary team from the University of Toronto, with experts from the Faculty of Dentistry and the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public...
U of T Modelling Shows Ontario Must Keep Distancing to Continue Opening Up
May 28/2020University of Toronto researchers have found fresh evidence that Ontario’s physical distancing measures have worked. But their newest models suggest that without more testing and tracing, an increase to more than 50 percent of pre-COVID physical contact would quickly overwhelm the province’s ICUs. The model is a worst-case scenario that...
U of T students develop informatics platform to aid COVID-19 decision making
May 25/2020Rapid Evidence Access Link (REAL) is an COVID-19 evidence pipeline for government and health sector leaders By: Nicole Bodnar An interdisciplinary team of health systems students and professionals built a digital platform that rapidly provides reliable COVID-19 information to health sector leaders and decision-makers across Ontario. Rapid Evidence Access Link...
U of T Lab Provides Mask Protocol Testing Amid Domestic Shortage
May 21/2020By Françoise Makanda, Communications Officer at DLSPH In less than three months, a small lab at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health is helping healthcare providers validate their mask reprocessing processes by testing the efficiency of filters at capturing fine particles. The lab in the Gage building is also...
Closing Schools Effective Against COVID-19 – Hot Weather Doesn’t Help
May 08/2020U of T Researchers Publish First Peer-Reviewed Global Study Showing Summer Won’t End Transmission of the Virus By Heidi Singer University of Toronto researchers have found the first hard evidence that hot weather doesn’t help in the fight against COVID-19 -- but that closing schools does. “If we open schools...
NAO partners with WHO on COVID-19 information sharing
April 14/2020The North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO) is contributing to domestic and international efforts to reliably track and document the policy interventions by federal, provincial and territorial governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “By creating a credible, open resource that captures the timing, intensity and range...