Partnership Engage Grants to advance Socio-Economic Research for Public Health Decision-Making (Canada)

The overall goal of this joint initiative is to identify and advance socio-economic research for evidence-informed public health decision-making on selected public health priority topics in Canada.

The objectives of the joint initiative include:

• Supporting evidence-informed public health policy making.
• Addressing horizontal public health policy needs.
• Broadening the understanding of socio-economic impacts of public health interventions.
• Examining issues related to data sources, gaps and potential remedial strategies.

Categories

• The joint initiative provides short-term and timely support for partnered research activities that will inform public health decision-making and are grouped under 6 broad categories with specific research themes in each category.
  • Costs and benefits of public health policies/interventions
    • Advance the state of evidence on the return on investment of public health interventions and policies in Canada. This would encompass a holistic public health approach that would not be limited to specific diseases, conditions and/or populations.
    • Explore the association of health and social spending in Canadian jurisdictions with targeted population health outcomes (for example, avoidable mortality, life expectancy at birth, health-adjusted life year, disability-adjusted life year, etc.).
  • Economic and social impacts of health inequalities
    • Identify the health and social impacts of health inequalities in Canada and explore how have these impacts changed through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Data gaps and methodologies
    • Explore indirect costs and direct costs of illness and methodologies to overcome data gaps for certain vulnerable populations in Canada, such as Indigenous communities (for example, pre-pandemic, during and post-pandemic).
    • Calculate how hospitalization and physician health care costs have evolved over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic (for example, pre-pandemic, during and post-pandemic).
  • Applying One Health approaches to examining the social and economic impacts of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
    • Explore the impacts of investing in AMR initiatives that improve the lives of Canadians.
    • Identify and explore the costs of AMR to the Canadian healthcare system (especially projected savings of preventative measures in healthcare and/or community settings).
  • Social and economic impacts of climate change on public health
    • Exploring how public health and climate change interventions can be improved by taking a multi-sectoral approach to address the root drivers of climate change or health impacts – Explore upstream factors (for example, market conditions, food security, transportation access, public policy, burden of infectious and chronic illnesses, international regulations, access to health care and services, inequities) that can affect health vulnerability and adaptation, particularly in rural, northern, remote, coastal, or isolated regions.
    • Investigating the influence of climate stressors on increasing the dual and often simultaneous burden of chronic and infectious disease in vulnerable populations, focusing on exploring the socioeconomic determinants of health and adaptation capacity.
    • Integrating social and economic analyses and modeling into climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts: Innovate, improve and/or evaluate approaches that incorporate health and equity considerations into socioeconomic analyses, modeling and forecasting of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, as well as the costs of inaction and co-benefits of action.
  • Examining the socio-economic benefits of a One Health approach
    • Explore the return on investment associated with taking a One Health approach to prevent public health risks emerging in humans, animals and their shared environment.
    • Identify synergies and co-benefits between health, animal and environmental actions including activities that innovate, improve and/or better incorporate diverse types of knowledge to prevent or reduce risks emerging at the human, animal, environment interface.
    • In addressing PHAC’s short-term needs for robust evidence in selected public health priority areas, the Joint Initiative will allow PHAC, SSHRC and participant researchers to access each other’s unique knowledge, expertise and capabilities on these topics.

Value and Duration

• Partnership Engage Grants are valued at $7,000 to $25,000 for 1 year.

Eligibility Criteria

• Subject matter
  • Most SSHRC funding is awarded through open competitions.
  • Projects whose primary objective is curriculum development, preparation of teaching materials, program evaluation, organization of a conference or workshop, digitization of a collection, or creation of a database are not eligible for funding under this funding opportunity.
• Applicants
  • Applications can be submitted by an individual researcher or a team of researchers (consisting of 1 applicant and 1 or more co-applicants and/or collaborators).
  • Applicants must be affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution that holds institutional eligibility at the time of application.
  • Researchers who maintain an affiliation with a Canadian postsecondary institution, but whose primary affiliation is with a non-Canadian postsecondary institution, are not eligible for applicant status.
  • Postdoctoral researchers are eligible to be applicants if they have formally established an affiliation with an eligible institution at the time of application and maintain such an affiliation for the duration of the grant period.
  • Before applying, postdoctoral researchers must confirm with their institution’s research grants officer that the institution can administer the funding if awarded.
  • Students are not eligible for applicant or co-applicant status on a Partnership Engage Grant.
  • Federal scientists who are affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution must demonstrate that their proposed research or research-related activity is not related to either the mandate of their employer or the normal duties for which they receive payment from that employer.
  • If the proposal falls within the mandate of the federal government and the research or research-related activity is performed in government facilities, funding can only be allocated for student salaries, stipends and travel costs.
• Co-applicants
  • Individuals are eligible to be co-applicants if they are formally affiliated with any of the following:
    • Canadian: eligible postsecondary institution; not-for-profit organization; philanthropic foundation; think tank; or municipal, territorial or provincial government.
    • International: postsecondary institution.
    • Postdoctoral researchers who are affiliated with a postsecondary institution are eligible to be co-applicants.
• Collaborators
  • Any individual who makes a significant contribution to the project is eligible to be a collaborator. Collaborators do not need to be affiliated with an eligible Canadian postsecondary institution.
• Partner organizations
  • Only 1 Canadian or international organization from the public, private or not-for-profit sector can be involved as a partner organization.
  • The partner organization must be at arm’s length (independent) from the academic institution and the applicant. A partner organization is not at arm’s length if the applicant:
    • has an ownership position in the partner organization.
    • is employed by the partner organization in any role, whether salaried or not; or
    • is related (that is, connected by blood relationship, marriage or common-law partnership or adoption) to a person who controls, or who is a member of a governing board that controls, the partner organization.

For more information, visit SSHRC.