Aligning Research and Health: 2024-25 Align Call 2 Results

Healthcare-associated infections pose significant risks to patient safety, leading to prolonged hospital stays, increased antimicrobial resistance, higher healthcare costs, and unnecessary deaths. Biofilms are sticky microbial populations that can form naturally in oral cavities and are responsible for over half of all hospital infections. The rise of antimicrobial resistance in common biofilm pathogens like Candida albicans and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus highlights the need for alternative treatments. This study aims to develop a hydrogel loaded with antimicrobial peptides to prevent denture biofilm formation, offering a promising solution to combat drug resistant oral infections.

Through this initiative, we will develop a community-engaged research program addressing various aspects that constrain and foster reproductive decision-making among women, Two-Spirit people and trans and gender-diverse people in Saskatchewan. First, we will review current research and have conversations with health and social service decision-makers, community leaders, people with lived and living experience, and researchers that focus on: What should be researched so it is better understood, or changed, to support people in Saskatchewan in their reproductive decision-making? Then we will come together to develop 1) a summary of a reproductive justice and health research agenda for Saskatchewan, 2) two priorities for future research, and 3) outline plans for these projects.

There is a growing recognition of how the built environment facilitates active living, healthy eating, and social belonging, leading to better health outcomes. This project aims to engage with knowledge users from the Saskatchewan Health Authority who can help us better understand how health information is measured and operationalized in the administrative databases. Similarly, engaging with municipal urban planners can help contextualize factors that influence active lifestyles and optimize the use of walkability and urban sprawl data. This research is crucial in bridging the knowledge gap on healthy cities research and can inform urban designers, planners, and health policymakers to develop interventions for the built environment while promoting health, preventing disease, and containing rising healthcare costs.

The unique relationship between humans and animals, known as the human-animal bond, entails a dynamic connection that is mutually beneficial physically, psychologically, and socially for both. Initiated in 2016 within the Office of One Health and Wellness at the University of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan-based PAWSitive Connections Lab is one of only a few research teams focusing on human-animal bond research in Canada. This project aims to expand the PAWSitive Connections Lab from the provincial level to the national level and to engage new and existing stakeholders. These new connections will help create a Saskatchewan-led, nationally recognized transdisciplinary research team.

This project brings together multiple stakeholders to explore municipal actions that address and reduce the harms of substance use in Saskatchewan's urban municipalities. Working with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, Community-Based Organizations, the City Mayors Caucus Mental Health and Addictions Working Group, and research experts at the University of Saskatchewan, the project will build and foster relationships across sectors to understand the current scope of substance use concerns and identify initiatives already underway in the province to reduce the harms.

This community-led proposal was initiated by volunteer-members of the Candle Lake Health Services Committee. This grassroots initiative has applied an asset-based approach; the team has connected with community members to identify ways to support local health services and to make healthy living a shared and achievable community goal. The overarching aim of this proposal is to keep building relationships while spotlighting community strengths/needs and identifying community’s health priorities for collective actions. This project will establish the foundation for local community-driven actions and solutions and generate valuable information/resources for other rural communities/small towns.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority has stated that a major goal for providing seamless care includes “reducing wait times in targeted acute care procedures”, which use of point of care ultrasound (POCUS) could help address. POCUS can particularly benefit rural communities without access to medical imaging. However, training on POCUS diagnostic techniques varies, from as little as 2 hours to as much as 6 lab sessions per semester in medical school. With this variability in educational standards, there are no universal competency-based benchmarks available to assess expertise. This project will assess differences in gaze patterns and eye-movements between expert and novice ultrasound users while evaluating video clips for the presence of lung disease. Differences between these groups will improve teaching techniques and identify potential competency-based benchmarks.

This project seeks to better understand experiences of homelessness in Saskatoon. By recruiting people with lived experiences of homelessness to a collaborative working event in the Fall of 2024, and teaching them some basic group model building techniques, the researchers seek to understand systemic inequities and how they affect those who experience homelessness. A follow-up event will be held in the Winter of 2025 where the research team will ask any follow-up or clarifying questions and the participants are given an opportunity to correct or build on previously shared knowledge, with Knowledge Translation session will be held in the Spring of 2025. Collected data will be used to inform the development of Agent-Based Models by the Computational Epidemiology and Public Health Informatics Laboratory (CEPHIL) at the University of Saskatchewan. All event participants will be given full ownership of the project results.