Category: Research

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 »

People who have been exposed to HIV may prevent this virus from being established by taking post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). This involves starting anti-HIV medicines within 72 hours of exposure and continuing to take these medicines every day for 28 consecutive days. Continually resorting to PEP is not the best way to prevent HIV, so doctors… Read more »

OHTN – Health literacy, sexual health and gay men

Working with collaborators from British Columbia, the OHTN’s Applied Epidemiology Unit has released a new report on health literacy, sexual health and gay men. Health literacy means having the skills to find, understand, evaluate and talk about health information with others. In Canada, gay men were one of the first groups affected by HIV, and they… Read more »

Challenges and Opportunities in Rural HIV Health was an Affiliated Independent Event at the 8th IAS Conference, held by the CANOC Collaborative Research Centre on July 18, 2015 in Vancouver, BC. The session provided a platform for experts, community members, researchers, clinicians and students to unite and discuss the unique challenges of remoteness and geographic… Read more »

The BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) has partnered with a number of key provincial stakeholders — including PAN and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS — and has contracted the Centre for Global Public Health (CGPH) at the University of Manitoba to develop population size estimates for key populations: men who have sex… Read more »