Category: Research

Vicki is a former staff member of PAN.   Vicki has been teaching sociology for many years at several BC universities and colleges, and the courses she loves most are the ones focused on social justice. She has worked on several research projects in the past, including a cross-Canada study on the situations of contingent… Read more »

In Canada and most other high-income countries today, standard treatment for people who have genotype 1 infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) includes combinations of medicines called direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). These are medicines that are taken orally, every day, usually for 12 to 24 consecutive weeks. In large clinical trials, treatment with modern DAAs—such as… Read more »

We will be wrapping up our two-year recruitment period at the end of December, 2015.  Please ask anyone you know who may be eligible to give us a call before then so that they can be included in this important research. So far, we’ve enrolled 86 individuals in the study and done qualitative interviews with 20 of those individuals…. Read more »

by MCM Murray, MD, PhD, FRCPC, Infectious Disease Specialist, BC Women’s and St. Paul’s Hospitals, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia. Background Since its introduction in 1996, combined anti-retroviral therapy (cART) has led to enormous improvements in the health and survival of HIV positive (HIV+) persons. However, the success of cART is intrinsic upon patient… Read more »

Pacific Hep C Network – Patient Input Surveys

The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) wants to hear from you! They are currently seeking patient input for grazoprevir / elbasvir and, therefore, the Pacific Hep C Network (PHCN) needs your thoughts, opinions, and experiences for our patient group input report. There are two PHCN Input Surveys Take this survey if… Read more »

Vancouver, BC [October 5, 2015] HIV testing in parts of Canada remains based on “perceived risk” and could be keeping people living with the disease from discovering their status. A new study, based on the largest Canadian database of people living with HIV, finds nearly half of those surveyed started antiretroviral treatment (ART) when they… Read more »

CATIE’s HepCinfo Update 6.20

New and Noteworthy High cure rates for people on opiate substitution therapy with Holkira Pak A small, mid-stage clinical trial of participants on opioid substitution therapy (OST) who took Holkira Pak and ribavirin for 12 weeks had a cure rate of 97% reported researchers in the Journal of Hepatology. OST is taken by people who… Read more »

Positive Living, Positive Homes: Official Launch!

The Pacific AIDS Network is pleased to announce that the study has been officially launched in all three of its case study communities. Study site coordinators in Prince George and Greater Vancouver (Devyn Flesher and Mona Lee) have been interviewing people living with HIV (PLHIV), as well as service providers and policy makers, since the… Read more »

Long-held assumptions about controversial issues such as drug use can lead to ineffective or even harmful policies and programming. The BC-CfE’s Urban Health Research Initiative (UHRI), under the leadership of co-directors Dr. Evan Wood and Dr. Thomas Kerr, offers an evidence-approach to challenging problems facing urban communities. UHRI’s studies focus on topics such as substance… Read more »

Have you ever wondered what the literature says about community-based organizations’ (CBOs) impact on the HIV sector? How do CBOs support people living with HIV? What makes the services and programs CBOs provide unique? The Ontario HIV Treatment Network has just completed a Rapid Response examining the question: What is the impact of community-based organization (CBOs) in… Read more »

While media headlines focus on individuals prosecuted for alleged HIV non-disclosure, we know that the impacts of criminalizing HIV non-disclosure go far beyond those who are formally charged. I was therefore delighted to learn in April that our 3-year community-based research (CBR) proposal to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research had been approved. Titled “Women… Read more »