Co-Directors
Kelvin Chan
Dr Kelvin Chan is a Medical Oncologist at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre, a Professor at the University of Toronto, and an Associate Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. He specializes in GI oncology and Head and Neck oncology. He has completed his PhD in Biostatistics (focusing on statistical methods in health economic evaluations) at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
As a clinical epidemiologist and biostatistician, Dr. Chan’s research interests include health services research, health technology assessment, meta-analysis including network meta-analysis, cost-effectiveness analyses, and statistical methods research in health economics. He is the Co-Director at the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC).
Professionally, Dr Chan has an interest in cancer drug reimbursement related issues. He is a member of multiple provincial and national committees related to cancer drug assessments and recommendations including membership at the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review (pCODR) Expert Review Committee (pERC), the Committee to Evaluate Drug (CED) and the Interim Chair for the Ontario Steering Committee of Cancer Drugs (OSCCD), Ontario MOHLTC and Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario). He is also the Clinical Lead for the Provincial Drug Reimbursement Programs (PDRP) at Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario).
Stuart Peacock
Stuart Peacock holds the Leslie Diamond Chair in Cancer Survivorship and is a Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University. He is currently Co-Director of the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC). ARCC is a pan-Canadian research centre providing interdisciplinary leadership in health economics, services, policy and ethics research. Stuart is also a Distinguished Scientist in Cancer Control Research at the BC Cancer Agency, a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, and past President of the International Society on Priorities in Health Care. He has held university positions in Canada, Australia and the UK. Over the past 20 years, Stuart’s main research interests have focused on research into developing more effective cancer services, making health system funding decisions fairer and more transparent, and improving the quality of life of cancer patients and survivors.
Centre Staff
Nicola Bai
Nicola Bai is the interim Program Manager for the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC). Nicola has extensive clinical research experience in oncology, and is very interested in cancer survivorship research and cost-effectiveness analysis in cancer treatment. Nicola is a physician by training from China. She also received PhD in Pharmacology from the University of British Columbia (UBC), and has recently completed Master of Health Science (focusing on Health Economics) from the School of Population and Public Health at UBC.
Rebecca Mercer
Rebecca Mercer is a Program Manager for the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC), responsible for network operations. Rebecca works as a Program Manager with Sunnybrook Research Institute, under the Evaluative Clinical Sciences Platform. She has significant experience with knowledge translation, and an interest in facilitating information transfer among stakeholders. Rebecca received her PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of Alberta in 2012, and also holds an Honours BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Guelph.
Lisa Scott
Lisa Scott has worked at the BC Cancer Agency since 1990, starting in the Cervical Cancer Screening Program where she worked until 2007. In 2008, she transferred to the BC Cancer Research Centre to work as an Assistant Project Coordinator in Cancer Control Research so that she could be a part of the advancements in education, prevention and cancer care. As an assistant project coordinator, she was involved with the Occupational Risk Identification, Ovarian Cancer Study, OVAL-BC Study and SHE Study. Currently Lisa provides administrative support for the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control.
Investigators
Program Leads
Lisa Barbera
Lisa Barbera received her MD from the University of Ottawa in 1995. She completed her radiation oncology specialty training at the University of Toronto in 2000, and then completed a two-year fellowship in the Division of Cancer Care and Epidemiology, Queen’s University Cancer Research Institute (formerly known as the Radiation Oncology Research Unit). Dr. Barbera holds Masters in Public Administration from the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University.
Dr. Barbera joined ICES in February 2005 as an Adjunct Scientist. She is an Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Career Scientist, a Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto.
Research interests include palliative care, quality indicators and patterns of cancer care.
Winson Cheung
Winson Y. Cheung, MD, MPH, FRCPC is a medical oncologist and a nationally and internationally recognized health services researcher. He is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Oncology at the University of Calgary where he is the Provincial Director of Health Services Research for Cancer Control Alberta. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia where he continues to advise on the academic and research curriculums of medical undergraduate programs across Canada.
Dr. Cheung received his medical degree at the University of British Columbia, medical oncology subspecialty training at the University of Toronto and subsequently obtained a Masters of Public Health degree at Harvard University. He specializes in the management of gastrointestinal malignancies. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the National Cancer Institute of Canada Dorothy Lamont Award, the Novartis Oncology Young Canadian Investigator Mentor Award, the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer Investigator Award, and several merit awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He has secured over 5 million dollars in grant funding.
Dr. Cheung’s primary research interest is health services and outcomes research. His projects focus on understanding the interplay of various patient, physician, and system level factors that drive practice patterns in the real world setting and learning how processes can be modified to better inform care. The overarching goal of his work is to ensure that cancer care is appropriately accessed and delivered to patients. His own research and those of his trainees appear frequently in high impact scientific journals. To date, he has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts. He takes great pride in mentoring students, residents, and junior staff, many of whom have successfully developed prolific academic careers.
Mary McBride
Mary McBride is an epidemiologist, health services researcher, and Distinguished Research Scientist in the Cancer Control Research Department of the BC Cancer Agency. She is also Clinical Professor in the School of Population and Public Health and member of the Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia. Mary oversees two research programs investigating late effects and health care issues post-treatment for young people diagnosed with cancer, and women diagnosed with breast cancer, using research platforms developed by linking person-specific, longitudinal, population-based registries and clinical and administrative databases. She is also a co-investigator in a recently-funded CIHR Team Grant on gaps and coordination in oncology and primary care for cancer patients across the care trajectory, from pre-diagnosis to end-of-life. She has also led and contributed to research on the causes of childhood cancer, and the relationship between non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF and RF) and cancer, in Canada, the US, Europe, and for the World Health Organization.
Yvonne Bombard
Dr. Bombard is a CIHR new investigator and recent recipient of a CIHR Foundation grant. Yvonne Bombard received her Interdisciplinary doctorate in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Toronto. Dr. Bombard is Scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Visiting Investigator at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Bombard’s research program focuses on assessing the health outcomes, ethical and policy implications of integrating personalized medicine tests and technologies in health care. Specifically, she conducts mixed methods research that assesses the impact of emerging genomic tools and tests on patients, providers and health service use, to support effective knowledge translation and evidence-based policy development. Dr. Bombard also conducts public and patient engagement research to advance health technology assessment as well as health care and service delivery.
Dr. Bombard is involved in policy development in related areas, through the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario’s Personalized Medicine Steering Committee, Cancer Care Ontario’s Patient Experience and Performance Committee, the Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee’s Citizen Reference Panel and the Canadian Coalition for Genetic Fairness.
Dr. Bombard’s research has been published in genetics, social science and general medicine journals. She is also a frequent contributor and commentator in both the broadcast and print media, most recently being featured on CBC’s The Current. In 2011, Dr. Bombard received a ‘Rising Star’ award from CIHR’s Institute of Health Services and Policy Research.
Craig Earle
Dr. Craig Earle is a medical oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal cancers at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, the Director of Health Services Research for Cancer Care Ontario and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Dr. Earle originally trained and practiced in Ottawa, after which he spent 10 years between 1998 – 2008 in Boston at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. While there, he was the founding Director of the Lance Armstrong Foundation Adult Survivorship Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His personal research interests focus on evaluating and improving the quality of care received by patients with advanced cancer and cancer survivors, and making linked de-identified administrative data more available for health research.
Claire de Oliveira
Claire de Oliveira is an Independent Scientist and Health Economist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. She is also a collaborator at the Toronto Health Economics Technology Assessment Collaborative (THETA). Her main areas of cancer-related research include the development of costing methodology and the use of administrative health care data to measure health services utilization and costs. She also has extensive experience with regression modeling. Her active projects includes a large-scale CIHR-funded study that seeks to estimate the costs of cancer care for adults in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia using linked administrative health care data. She is also involved in a similar study that involves the estimation of costs of pediatric cancer care in British Columbia and Ontario.
Melissa Brouwers
Melissa Brouwers is an Associate Professor and Health Services Research Lead in the Department of Oncology, McMaster University; Provincial Director of the Program in Evidence-based Care, Cancer Care Ontario; National Lead for the Capacity Enhancement Project of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer; and KT Lead for The Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC).
Dr. Brouwers holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Toronto and an MA and PhD in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario. She is an active and leading member of various national and international research groups including a member of the Clinical Guidelines (CG) Action Group of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, and the Lead of the AGREE Research Enterprise (Principal Investigator of AGREE Next Steps Project, upcoming AGREE A3 Project and the AGREE Research Trust).
Christopher Longo
Dean Regier
Dr. Regier is a Scientist within Cancer Control Research, BC Cancer Agency, an Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia and the program co-lead of ARCC’s Societal Values and Public Engagement theme. He has a broad background in economics and health sciences, with specific training and expertise in stated preference discrete choice experiment methodology, econometrics, behavioral economics, cancer control epidemiology, and economic evaluation. Dean’s program of research includes the application of stated preference discrete choice experiments to health technologies and health promotion, microeconometric analysis of discrete choice data, and probabilistic cost effectiveness analysis. He am particularly interested in applying preference-based techniques to estimate the personal utility of genetic testing as it pertains to the ‘value of knowing’ i.e. how genes may play a role in our personal life and how patients trade between benefits and risks when making a treatment decision.
Morris Barer
Morris L. Barer is a Professor and Co-Lead, Health Care Services and Systems, in the new School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He also is (and was the founding) Director of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at UBC. From December 2000 to August 2006, he served as the first Scientific Director of the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, Canadian Institutes of Health Research. During that time, he played leadership roles in the establishment of the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR), and the Canadian journal Healthcare Policy, first published in 2005.
Dr. Barer’s research interests include healthcare financing, health human resource policy (particularly physicians), direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription pharmaceuticals, and the determinants of changing trends in healthcare utilization.
Michael Burgess
Michael M. Burgess is Professor and Research Chair in Biomedical Ethics at the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia. His research has focused on health, science and technology policy and public engagement based on theories of deliberative democracy. With co-lead Kieran O’Doherty, the research team developed an approach to deliberative engagement on biotechnology policy, with eight events in BC, the Mayo Clinic and in western Australia across topics of biobanks, salmon genomics and environmental remediation. Recently, Dr. Burgess has begun to emphasize the wider social effects and policy implications of genomic and computational technologies often characterized as personalized medicine.
Jennifer Gibson
Jennifer Gibson is Interim Director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management, & Evaluation at the University of Toronto. At ARCC, she leads the Societal Values & Public Engagement program with Dr. Stuart Peacock. Dr. Gibson has broad interdisciplinary research and policy experience in healthcare priority setting, organizational ethics in health institutions, and ethics in health policy. Gibson leads the WHO Collaborating Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. and has served as an expert member on government advisory committees on policy issues related to critical care triage, drug funding and supply, organ transplantation, pandemic planning, citizen engagement, and health system integration.
Murray Krahn
Dr. Murray Krahn is the Director of THETA (Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment Collaborative), the F. Norman Hughes Chair in Pharmacoeconomics at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Professor in the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Senior Scientist the Toronto General Research Institute, and Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto. He is also an attending physician in the division of General Internal Medicine at the University Health Network, Toronto. Dr. Krahn’s research program focuses on the use of decision analytic methods to examine health policy and health decision making. Recent research includes the development of clinical policy models, disease-specific utility instruments, and use of large administrative data sets for developing longitudinal cost models. He also is interested in methods that integrate competing scientific paradigms in the evaluation of new drugs and technologies.
David Patrick
Hsien-Yeang Seow
Hsien Seow holds McMaster University’s Cancer Care Ontario Research Chair in Health Services Research in the Department of Oncology. His PhD is from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, with a concentration in health services research and a certificate in Gerontology. His research interests involve examining ways to better coordinate, organize and deliver healthcare services and improve quality for those with serious, chronic illness. He has worked with RAND Health in Washington DC, where he led health policy research, quality improvement, and health advocacy initiatives. He earned a B.Sc from Yale University.
Adalsteinn Brown
Roger Chafe
Roger Chafe, PhD, MA, is the Director of Pediatric Research and an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine of Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is also a board member of the Maternal, Infant, Child, and Youth Research Network (MICYRN) and on the editorial board of the journal Healthcare Policy. His research interests include health policy, pharmaceutical policy, health services research, public engagement, and children’s health. He currently holds a number of national research grants and has published numerous articles. He holds PhD in Medicine and a MA in Philosophy from Memorial. He has also previously completed a CHSRF-CIHR post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and in the Cancer Services and Policy Research Unit of Cancer Care Ontario.
Arminee Kazanjian
Public Health, the University of British Columbia, is an internationally known health services researcher for her work delineating the social context of health seeking behaviour and the evaluation of health systems. Her work is in cross-cultural cancer care, from prevention to palliation, and psychosocial oncology. As the scientific lead and Co-PI on two CIHR-funded survivorship initiatives: the New Emerging Team for Palliative Care in Cross Cultural Context: A NET for Equitable and Quality Cancer Care for Culturally Diverse and the CIHR Team for Supportive Cancer Care, her work is focused on the development of tools, empirical and conceptual, used to frame research questions pertaining to survivorship, vulnerable populations, and access to appropriate and quality cancer care. Her work also includes the development of a Knowledge Exchange – Decision Support (KE-DS) Model and Toolkit which is now being applied in a number of supportive cancer care projects.
Robin McLeod
As Vice-President, Clinical Programs and Quality Initiatives, Dr. Robin McLeod works with clinical leaders across the province to improve the quality and coordination of cancer care. Previously, she served for 7 years as Surgical Lead, Quality and Knowledge Transfer. In that role, Robin led or co-led a number of initiatives including the regionalization of hepatobiliary pancreas and thoracic surgery in Ontario, the development of evidence-based guidelines in cancer surgery, the development of a gynecological oncology organizational guideline, and the development of quality-based procedure funding for cancer surgery.
Robin received a BSc and MD from the University of Alberta. Following this, she completed training in general surgery at the University of Toronto, colorectal surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, and did training in clinical epidemiology at McMaster University before joining the faculty at the University of Toronto in 1985.
Jean Rousseau
Jean Rousseau has been a scientific manager at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) since 2008. Starting with a Ph.D. in chemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he worked in the biopharmaceutical industry, founded a biotechnology company and then took on the duties of scientific coordinator of a team specializing in knowledge transfer. At the INSPQ, Dr Rousseau heads the unit Analyse des politiques de dépistage et lutte contre les maladies chroniques, which is mandated by the Québec Ministry of Health and Social Services to evaluate the Québec breast cancer screening program and assume a leadership role in cancer surveillance.
The unit is also responsible for producing advisory reports on potential screening programs. Under Dr Rousseau’s leadership, the INSPQ issued its report on colon cancer screening (2008), which became the blueprint for the Québec colon cancer screening program. Current research topics include economic evaluation modalities of screening programs and costing analysis of screening practices.
Christopher Skedgel
Chris Skedgel, PhD is a senior lecturer in health economics at the Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Until 2015 he was a health economist with the Atlantic Clinical Cancer Research Unit (ACCRU) at Capital Health. He is primarily interested in the use of heath economics to maximize the value of limited healthcare resources. This includes considerations of economic efficiency as well as the broader concepts of public preferences and societal value. In considering these different conceptions of value, he uses tools such as economic modelling and stated preference elicitation. Chris has an Honours Bachelor’s degree in economics from Lakehead University, a Master’s degree in Development Economics from Dalhousie University, and a PhD in Health Economics & Decision Science from The University of Sheffield, UK. His methodological expertise includes stated preference methods, health economic decision modelling, and administrative data analysis.
Shawn Bugden
Shawn Bugden is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Pharmacy. His research interests include pharmacoeconomics/outcomes, drug evaluation and knowledge translation. He has a long history of involvement with the Community Care Program Network (CCPN) and CancerCare Manitoba. He currently provides support in pharmacoeconomic assessment for the Manitoba Provincial Oncology Drug Program. Since 2003, he has also worked as a drug evaluation pharmacist with PrISM (Prescription Information Services of Manitoba) and their work in academic detailing with the Canadian Academic Detailing Collaboration. Shawn has completed a Master of Science in Evidence Based Health Care from the University of Oxford and taken further post-graduate training at the University of Manitoba, and the University of Washington.
Anthony Fields
Christine Kennedy
Nicole Mittmann
Nicole Mittmann is the executive director of pharmacoeconomics research at the HOPE research centre, associate scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute and assistant professor in the department of pharmacology at the University of Toronto. She is the co-director of the Clinical Research Associate Network and Co-chair of the Working Group in Economic Assessment.
Dr. Mittmann has conducted and collaborated on research projects in meta-analysis, economic evaluations, outcomes research and utility assessments. Her research methodologies include the examination of large databases, economic methodologies and decision analysis. Clinical areas of interest include oncology, cardiology, trauma, infectious disease and health policy. Through the Clinical Trials Group of the NCIC and the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), Dr. Mittmann is the co-principal investigator for the adaptation of economic guidelines for oncology products.
Michael Schull
Erin Strumpf
Erin Strumpf is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University. She received her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Economics from Harvard University and was a pre-doctoral fellow in Health and Aging with the National Bureau for Economic Research and the U.S. National Institute on Aging. Her research in health economics focuses on the impact of health care service design and delivery on spending and health outcomes overall, and in disparities across groups. She has completed several research projects analyzing the impacts of health policy changes on individual behavior, health care service use, and health outcomes. Her current research agenda focuses on the impacts of preventive and primary care practice. In one project, she is evaluating the costs and benefits of population-based cancer screening based on U.S. and Canadian guidelines. In a second, she is measuring the health care system impacts of integrated primary care delivery in Quebec in terms of service utilization, system costs, and population health outcomes.
Research Personnel
Jaclyn Beca
Jaclyn completed her BSc (Honours) in biology and her MSc in health services research at the University of Toronto. She works closely with policy-makers, clinicians and researchers to develop and evaluate pharmacoeconomic analyses for new cancer therapies. Her research interests include economic evaluation of cancer screening and treatment interventions with Markov models, the role of pharmacoeconomic evidence in reimbursement decision-making, and KTE for health economic methods and findings.
Wanrudee Isaranuwatchai
Wanrudee Isaranuwatchai is a health economist and manager of the Centre for exceLlence in Economic Analysis Research (CLEAR). She received her PhD in Health Services Research from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Studies and Gerontology from the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Isaranuwatchai has experience conducting economic evaluations using decision modeling and patient-level data. Her research interests include health economics, economic evaluations, cancer research, disaster, mental health, and quantitative research methods. Dr. Isaranuwatchai is committed to promoting the use of evidence in health care decision making.
Reka Pataky
Reka Pataky is a Health Economist and Data Lead with the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control, based at the BC Cancer Agency. Her work focuses on health services research using secondary analysis of administrative datasets, and economic evaluation of cancer control programs. She is currently involved in multi-provincial projects investigating the health system costs attributable to cancer and the quality of end-of-life cancer care. Previous work includes cost-effectiveness analysis of prostate cancer screening and breast cancer screening programs using decision modeling methods.
Reka holds an MSc from UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, conducting her thesis research with the UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research. She is currently pursuing her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Stuart Peacock, exploring the economic evaluation of personalized medicines in cancer.
Deirdre Weymann
Deirdre is a Health Economist with the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC). Her work focuses on estimating the cost-effectiveness of personalized oncogenomics and applying discrete choice methods to elicit preferences for precision medicine in oncology. Her research interests include applied econometrics, health care policy, and health economics. Deirdre holds an MA in Economics from the University of Victoria and a BSc in Economics, Mathematics, and Statistics from the University of British Columbia. Prior work experience includes pharmaceutical policy research with the UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research.
Colene Bentley
Colene is a health services researcher with ARCC BC. Her training in the humanities and social sciences research informs her work with ARCC and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC). With CPAC she has helped build an online tutorial called PrePARE, which outlines the ethical, economic, and research implications of resource allocation decisions in health care. With ARCC BC, Colene works on the forms and outcomes of public engagement in priority setting.
Adam Raymakers
Dean Regier
Dean Regier is a Senior Health Economist for Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control and an Assistant Professor, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia. Dr. Regier’s research interests include preference-based quality of life valuation and shared decision making for genomics-informed personalized medicine, microeconometric experimental design and analysis of discrete choice data, and Bayesian approaches to estimation and statistical inference. Dr. Regier’s methodological contributions to health economics include publications in the areas of econometric analysis of discrete choice data, and incorporating willingness to pay into probabilistic decision analytic models. His applied work consists of economic evaluations alongside clinical trials and Bayesian approaches to cost-effectiveness analysis.
Dr. Regier received his Doctorate in Health Economics from the University of Aberdeen, MA in Economics from Carleton University and a BA (High Hons) in Economics from the University of Saskatchewan. Previously he has held positions at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, United States, and the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and Somerville College, Oxford University, England.
Sarah Costa
Sarah is a health economist with ARCC BC, primarily working on a large-scale research study investigating the use of personalized medicine for lymphoid cancers. Sarah is supporting the team with the cost-effectiveness model, using administrative data sets to conduct a comprehensive cost analysis of lymphoma treatment. Her research interests generally include the role of economic evidence to support decision- and policy-making, approaches to priority setting, and effective resource allocation in health care settings. Prior to joining ARCC, Sarah worked at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in policy development/ implementation, and Cancer Care Ontario in project coordination and research assistant roles with the provincial radiation treatment program as well as the Cancer Services & Policy Research (CSPR) Unit. Sarah received her MSc from the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (iHPME).
Wei Fang Dai
Wei is a Research Associate with the Pharmacoeconomics Research Unit at Cancer Care Ontario.
Helen McTaggart-Cowan
As a health economist, Helen is conducting research in the areas of quality of life and instrument development. Among other projects, she is currently involved in an international project that aims to construct multi-attribute preference-based measures for use in the economic evaluation of cancer therapies. Helen received her MSc from the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology at UBC and her PhD from the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include preference elicitation techniques, discrete choice experiments, health state development, and informed general population valuations.
Paulos Teckle
As a research scientist Paulos conducts advanced health econometric modeling using STATA, and is a co-investigator in three projects: ‘Health-related quality of life in cancer patients’; ‘Long-term income and employment outcomes in cancer-survivors’, and ‘Phase-specific and lifetime costs of cancer in British Columbia and Ontario’. Over the course of his academic career, Paulos has published a number of scientific papers. Whilst at the University of Aberdeen, Paulos was part of a research team that was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Health Department in 2006 to improve and refine the Arbuthnott Resources Allocation Formula used in Scotland. His research interests include economics of cancer, applied econometrics, health services research, primary/secondary data quantitative analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal data.
Associates
Nick Bansback
Dr. Bansback’s research seeks to inform policies and practices in health through the application of health economics and decision theory. His methodological research in measuring and valuing health, economic evaluation and network meta-analysis have been applied to a wide range of applications from informing policy makers on resource allocations decisions, to patients making treatment choices. His ARCC funded research has focused on helping patients make better treatment choices through novel decision tools, and risk surveys.
Lise Fillion
Dr. Fillion is a Full Professor in Nursing Sciences at Laval University, Quebec City and an Adjunct Professor in Psychology at Montreal University, Montreal, Quebec. She is also a researcher at the Cancer Research Center at Laval University and a member of the Michel Sarrazin Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research Team (ERMOS). She is the scientific director of the CHUQ Nursing Research Unit (URSI-CHUQ), and a member of the CHUQ Research Center – cancer division steering committee (CRCHUQ-axe cancer). She works as a psychologist with the Psychosocial and Spiritual Oncology team at the CHUQ. She has received grants from the FRSQ (Fond de recherche en santé du Québec), the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (CCSRI), the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux (MSSS), the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF), the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), the Institut de recherche en santé et en sécurité au travail (IRSST), the ASSS-03, and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC). Dr. Fillion’s area of expertise is cancer survivorship and palliative care. More specifically, her interests include psychological stress, psychosocial adaptation to cancer, methodological aspect of the measurement of stress and of the adaptation to cancer, coping, symptoms management (stress, fatigue, pain), satisfaction and meaning at work in health care providers, models of care, and professional navigation in oncology.
Jennifer Jones
Dr. Jennifer Jones is the Director of Research for the Cancer Survivorship Program, Associate Director of the Centre for Health Wellness and Cancer Survivorship (ELLICSR) and a Research Associate in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Princess Margaret Hospital. In addition, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, at University of Toronto.
Dr. Jones’ research program has primarily focused on psychosocial factors among the medically ill. This has included the assessment of symptoms and quality of life at the end of life and the use of proxy assessments. More recently, through her work within the newly developed Cancer Survivorship Program at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH),her research interests have included: 1) assessing the prevalence and impact of long-term and late effects of cancer and its treatment (i.e. fatigue, bone loss) and psychosocial distress in cancer survivors; 2) the development and evaluation of group and individual psychoeducational interventions to promote patient engagement in self-management activities and to support families affected by cancer; 3) evaluation of new innovative models of care delivery. She has also developed expertise in the area of continuing education and professional development and knowledge translation.
Deborah Marshall
Dr. Marshall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary and the Director of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) at the Alberta Bone and Joint Health Institute and Associate Professor (part-time) in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Centre for Evaluation of Medicines at McMaster University. Her Canada Research Chair, Health Services and Systems Research is a HTA research programme involving synthesis of evidence, measurement of preferences, cost-effectiveness analysis, and decision modeling of health systems. Dr. Marshall has research experience in HTA agencies, academic institutions and industry settings in Canada, US and Europe. Dr. Marshall’s academic training includes a PhD from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill as an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Scholar, an MSc in Health Services Research (University of Alberta) and a BSc in Biochemistry (University of Toronto).
Her peer-reviewed cancer research grants from the US National Institutes of Health / National Cancer Institute and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research are focused in the areas of measuring patient preferences using conjoint analysis, personalized medicine, and cost-effectiveness modeling. She is a Project Leader of the Economics Project in the Center for Translational and Policy Research on Personalized Medicine (TRANSPERS – clinicalpharmacy.ucsf.edu/transpers), dedicated to developing evidence-based information for patients and other stakeholders to objectively assess how personalized medicine can be most beneficial and efficient in improving health outcomes.
Dr. Marshall is an active member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research as a member of the Patient Preferences Special Interest Group and as President-Elect member of the Board of Directors. She was also a member of the CADTH/NCIC Working Group to develop cancer-specific economic evaluation guidelines, and the NCI Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Board Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Working Group. She also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal for Technology Assessment in Health Care and The Patient.
Jason Pole
Dr. Jason Pole is Scientist with the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) and is an Assistant Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and an Adjunct Scientist with the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto. Jason has a background in epidemiology and health services research with an emphasis in the use of administrative data and complex survey instruments. Jason has research interests in the areas of health care utilization among childhood cancer survivors, the effects of childhood cancer treatment specifically on the development of second cancers and education achievement and has interests in the financial impact of a childhood cancer diagnosis on the family and the long-term financial health of the survivor.
Dominika Wranik
Dr. Wranik is a health economist, whose research is focused on three broad topics, all related to efficient and evidence supported health policies and health policy decisions. The first of the three topics is the improved understanding of decision making processes in the approval of services or drugs for public funding, and specifically the actual and potential role played by economic evidence. The second is an aggregate assessment of health system efficiencies using frontier methods, along with an investigation into the policy tools that are associated with more efficient systems. The third is a focus on physician payments as one of the policy levers that can be used to improve efficiencies in the system.
Since 2006, Dr. Wranik has served as a health economist on the Nova Scotia Systemic Cancer Therapy Committee, which offers advice to the Minister with respect to the funding of new cancer drugs and therapies. Her work consists of the analysis and interpretation of economic evidence that is provided by the industry in support of their submissions. It is here where Dr. Wranik’s interest was sparked in the misalignment of the use and the production of cost-utility analyses. She has identified a need for a framework for decision making processes that gives clear guidance to both health economists and decision makers.
Dr. Wranik teaches graduate courses in health economics, managerial economics and program evaluation at the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University.
Yvonne Bombard
Dr. Bombard is a CIHR new investigator and recent recipient of a CIHR Foundation grant. Yvonne Bombard received her Interdisciplinary doctorate in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Toronto. Dr. Bombard is Scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and Visiting Investigator at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Bombard’s research program focuses on assessing the health outcomes, ethical and policy implications of integrating personalized medicine tests and technologies in health care. Specifically, she conducts mixed methods research that assesses the impact of emerging genomic tools and tests on patients, providers and health service use, to support effective knowledge translation and evidence-based policy development. Dr. Bombard also conducts public and patient engagement research to advance health technology assessment as well as health care and service delivery.
Dr. Bombard is involved in policy development in related areas, through the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario’s Personalized Medicine Steering Committee, Cancer Care Ontario’s Patient Experience and Performance Committee, the Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee’s Citizen Reference Panel and the Canadian Coalition for Genetic Fairness.
Dr. Bombard’s research has been published in genetics, social science and general medicine journals. She is also a frequent contributor and commentator in both the broadcast and print media, most recently being featured on CBC’s The Current. In 2011, Dr. Bombard received a ‘Rising Star’ award from CIHR’s Institute of Health Services and Policy Research.
Carolyn Dewa
Dr. Carolyn Dewa holds a phD n health economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and APublic Health and MPH in health services administration from San Diego State University School of Public Health. She was a fellow at the Harvard Medical School Department on Heath Care Policy. She currently heads the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s Centre for Research onEmployment and Workplace Health. She is a Professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Her awards have included an Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Career Scientist Award. She currently holds a canadian Institutes of Health Research/Public Health Agency of Canada Applied Public Health Chair.
Carolyn Gotay
Carolyn Gotay joined the University of British Columbia in 2008 as a professor and the founding incumbent of the Canadian Cancer Society Chair in Cancer Primary Prevention. Her focus is on developing an infrastructure for primary cancer prevention that includes research, training, professional and public education, and interface with the cancer care system. She is also an affliated scientist with the British Columbia Cancer Agency. Dr. Gotay received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Duke University and her master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has published more than 100 scientific articles. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a former recipient of the Professorship of Survivorship Award from the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
Natasha Leighl
Dr. Natasha Leighl is a medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Canada, and Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
After receiving her MD from the University of Toronto, Dr Leighl completed residencies in internal medicine at the University of Calgary and in medical oncology at the University of Toronto. She subsequently completed a Fellowship in Thoracic Oncology with Dr Frances Shepherd at the Princess Margaret Hospital, a Fellowship in Clinical Oncology with Professor Martin Tattersall at the University of Sydney, Australia, and received her MMSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
Dr Leighl’s main interest is in developing new treatments in lung cancer. She is a member of the Lung Disease Site Executive and co-chairs the Committee on Economic Analysis in the NCIC Clinical Trials Group. Dr Leighl is currently Web Editor of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Section Co-Editor of The Oncologist and Current Oncology and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. She has served on several committees including as Lung Track Leader for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Cancer Education Committee, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Medical Oncology Examination Board and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Career Development and Continuing Education Committees. She is currently President of Lung Cancer Canada and has recently been awarded the OSI Pharmaceuticals Foundation Chair in Cancer New Drug Development at the University Health Network, University of Toronto.
Rosemary Martino
Dr. Rosemary Martino is Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the department of Speech Language Pathology at the University of Toronto, Ontario Canada. She completed MSc and PhD degrees in Clinical and Evaluative Sciences/Health Outcomes at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Martino practiced as a Speech Language Pathologist for over 15 years with a focus in dysphagia. She is an active participant in provincial, national and international dysphagia outcome and evidenced-based standards initiatives. Her current research includes the development of a medical status outcome scale for adults with dysphagia, called the MOD, on which she now conducting psychometric testing. She is also the principal investigator for 4 multi-site studies developing and assessing the validity and implementation of a new dysphagia screening tool (the TOR-BSST©). This tool is being implemented throughout Canada and beyond as best practice. As principal investigator, Dr. Martino currently also holds grants from CIHR, CCSRI and MOHLTC.
Craig Mitton
Craig Mitton is a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation and an Associate Professor in the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Craig holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award and from 2005-2009 was at UBC Okanagan where he held a Canada Research Chair in Health Care Priority Setting. The focus of his research is in the application of health economics to impact real-world decision making in health organizations. He is a member of the International Society of Priorities in Health Care and serves as an Associate Editor for the journal BMC Health Services Research. In addition to an active applied health services research program he regularly consults with governments and health care organizations both in Canada and abroad. He has published a book entitled the ‘Priority setting toolkit: a guide to the use of economics in health care decision making’ and has authored or co-authored over 80 peer reviewed publications.
Rosie Thein
Hla-Hla (Rosie) Thein is an Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Dr. Thein is an investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Health Services Research Program and joined Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences as an Adjunct Scientist in July 2013. She is a collaborator with the Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment Collaborative (THETA) and with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the Kirby Institute for infection and immunity in society, the University of New South Wales. Dr. Thein received her Doctorate in Clinical Epidemiology/Public Health from the University of New South Wales, Australia, Master of Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley, and medical degree from the Institute of Medicine (1), Burma.
Key Research Interests:
- Infectious disease and cancer epidemiology
- Health services research using large health administrative data
- Evidence synthesis
- Health-related quality of life and utility measures
- Patients’ perception and attitude regarding health care
- Use of health administrative data to develop longitudinal costing models
- Cost-effectiveness analysis using person-level data
- Mathematical modeling and economic evaluation of public health interventions
- Global health equity initiatives
Greg Zaric
Greg Zaric is an Associate Professor of Management Science at the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Health Care Management Science. He has a Ph.D. and a Master’s from Stanford University, a Master’s from the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Ontario.
Greg’s research focuses on applications of operations research and management science to problems in health policy and health economics. He has received research funding from CIHR and NSERC, and in 2004 was awarded a Premier’s Research Excellence Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. He is currently principal investigator on a CIHR funded grant to conduct an economic evaluation of genetic tests to determine the source in cancer of unknown primary. Some other recent projects include an economic evaluation of the 21-gene assay for breast cancer treatment decisions, development of a Markov model to evaluate the costs and health effects of stereotactic body radiation therapy in medically operable lung cancer, and a systematic review of economic evaluations of PET screening for lung cancer staging and management.
Marc Brisson
Marc Brisson is an assistant professor at Laval University where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Modeling and Health Economics of Infectious Diseases. His research aims at developing mathematical models that predict the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions against infectious diseases to help policy decision-making. His current research mainly focuses on human papillomavirus and varicella-zoster-virus vaccines. Dr. Brisson has produced over 45 peer reviewed journal articles, and made over 100 presentations at conferences, external seminars and workshops (2 as plenary speaker and 20 as invited speaker). He is a scientific consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC), the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC), the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the Canadian Immunization Committee (CIC). He has a BSc in Actuarial Science (1992-1996), a certificate in Statistics (1996) and an MSc in Epidemiology (1996-2001) from Laval University in Quebec City, and a PhD in Health Economics (1999-2004) from City University in London, England.
Alice Dragomir
Dr. Alice Dragomir is assistant professor at the McGill University, Faculty of Medicine, and scientist in health economics and outcomes research at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center. Dr. Dragomir is an economist and biostatistician with master degree in statistics and doctoral degree in pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics, from University of Montreal, Canada. She has 13 years of experience in academic research. She was involved in research projects focused on evaluation of health outcomes and health economics related to different treatment strategies, adherence to treatments, health services utilization and disease modeling in several fields, such as: hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, mental health diseases, and cancers. Her current research is focused on clinical and economic evaluation of different treatments strategies offered to patients with prostate cancer or other urologic cancers. She has an extended experience in analyzing administrative healthcare databases, such as RAMQ and Med-Echo. Her research represents a valuable tool for decision-makers and clinician leaders when evaluating the clinical and economic impacts of innovative treatments.
Eva Grunfeld
Dr. Eva Grunfeld is a leader in cancer health services and outcomes research. Her research focuses on evaluation and knowledge translation of cancer health services, covering the entire spectrum of cancer control activities. She is internationally recognized for making important contributions to the literature on cancer follow-up, and cancer survivorship. She is a physician scientist with the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, Health Services Research Program and Director of the Knowledge Translation Research Network. At the same time she is the Giblon Professor and Director of Family Medicine Research at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto. From 2004 to 2008 she founded and directed the Cancer Outcomes Research Program at Cancer Care Nova Scotia and Dalhousie University.
Geoffrey Liu
Geoffrey Liu is the Alan Brown Chair in Molecular Genomics and a Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) Chair in Experimental Therapeutics and Population Studies. He is co-Director of the CCO-funded ON-PROST (ONtario Patient Reported Outcomes of Symptoms and Toxicity), Director of AMP-PEL (Applied Molecular Profiling Pharmacogenetic Epidemiology Laboratory) at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), and co-Director of the COMBEL (Cancer Outcomes, Medicine, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Laboratory) Training Initiative at the Ontario Cancer Institute-PMH. He is past chair of the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology Special Interest Group in Pharmacogenomics, Biomarkers, and Molecular Epidemiology. In 2009, Dr. Liu won the Canadian Cancer Society`s William E. Rawls Award as a young investigator who has made an important contribution to cancer control in the past decade. He holds currently or has recently held grants funded by CCSRI, TFRI, CIHR, CCO, OICR, NCI (US), and LCFA (US).
Dr. Liu completed his medical oncology fellowship at the Dana Farber Harvard Cancer Care and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He remained an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School until his return to the University of Toronto in 2006. As applicable to ARCC, Dr. Liu`s research areas of interest: methodological application and development of tools to measure cancer symptoms and toxicities as health outcomes in observational cohorts; cancer pharmacogenomic and biomarker research and its potential impact on patient health outcomes; knowledge translation issues accompanying using cancer pharmacogenomic and biomarker data; training of interdisciplinary fellows and students in pharmacogenomics, biomarkers and associated knowledge translation; assessment of the clinical impact of cancer biomarkers. Separate to this research, Dr. Liu runs a translational pharmacologic research laboratory that utilizes cell lines and primary human xenograft models, a biorepository for multiple cancer studies locally and across Canada, and a correlative science pharmacogenetic laboratory for analysis of Phase I-III clinical trials specimens.
Kimberlyn McGrail
Kimberlyn McGrail is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, associate director of the UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, a senior researcher with Statistics Canada and an associate of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation. Kim’s current research interests are variations in health care services use and outcomes, understanding health care as a determinant of health, comparative health policy, and the development of health information and technology to improve evidence and practice. She has collaborated with provincial and federal policy- and decision-makers, including the BC Ministry of Health Services, the Health Council of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Kim was the 2009-10 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Associate in Health Care Policy and Practice. She holds a PhD in Health Care and Epidemiology from the University of British Columbia, and a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Michigan.
Claire de Oliveira
Claire de Oliveira is an Independent Scientist and Health Economist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. She is also a collaborator at the Toronto Health Economics Technology Assessment Collaborative (THETA). Her main areas of cancer-related research include the development of costing methodology and the use of administrative health care data to measure health services utilization and costs. She also has extensive experience with regression modeling. Her active projects includes a large-scale CIHR-funded study that seeks to estimate the costs of cancer care for adults in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia using linked administrative health care data. She is also involved in a similar study that involves the estimation of costs of pediatric cancer care in British Columbia and Ontario.
Frances Wong
Frances Wong is a practicing radiation oncologist at BC Cancer Agency – Fraser Valley Centre. She received her radiation oncology training in British Columbia. She is a Clinical Associate Professor of the University of BC. Currently, she is the Chief Physician for BCCA- Fraser Valley and Abbotsford Centres. In addition to clinical studies specific to radiation oncology, her major areas of research are Transitional care [from tertiary cancer centre to primary care], Survivorship planning [especially for South Asian breast cancer patients] and Navigation [for breast cancer patients]. She is a founding member of the Fraser Valley’s Breast Research to Evaluate Access to Services and Treatment (BREAST) team.
Recent Projects
CCS Research Training Awards 2024December 27, 2023 - 2:37 pm
Patient perspectives of Value Frameworks used to Guide Oncology Treatment DecisionsMay 1, 2021 - 12:27 pm- Understanding British Columbia cancer patients’ experiences with virtual health before and during the COVID-19 pandemicMay 1, 2021 - 11:53 am
- Benchmarking End of Life Quality Indicators by Tumor Type & Describing models of palliative care across CanadaApril 1, 2021 - 8:56 am
RECENT POSTS
Fred Hutch Cancer Centre: Faculty Member, Health Economist/Health Policy ResearcherNovember 8, 2024 - 7:36 am
Accelerating action to improve cancer outcomes: CPACs 2023-24 Annual ReportOctober 30, 2024 - 9:55 am
Pick Your Priorities for AYA Cancer ResearchOctober 9, 2024 - 9:17 am
OICR invites applications for the Innovation to Implementation (I2I) funding competitionOctober 7, 2024 - 12:21 pm
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