Our Projects: Active Projects

Led by the University of Ottawa and supported by the Health Protection Service Area at OPH, this research aimed to address the gaps in knowledge regarding the prevalence of HIV, health care access and utilization and systemic factors that may be implicated in HIV acquisition among African, Caribbean, and Black populations in Toronto and Ottawa.

A 2-year study is being conducted to understand how technology constructs learning through online videoconferencing for parents caring for a child 0-12 months during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will use a socio-material theoretical perspective and ethnographic methods informed by feminist poststructuralism. Our objective is to conduct a digital ethnography of a new parent education chat space, where human and non-human elements combine to accomplish teaching and learning.

This study builds on evidence of effective anti-stigma training tested across Canada. It aims to evaluate the efficacy, satisfaction, and cost-effectiveness of the Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment (ACE) model, delivered as in-person or online training, in reducing stigma and promoting community resilience.

Using a mixed-method design, the objective of the study is to build upon a pilot trial and measure the bio-psychosocial and economic impacts of the COVID-19 response on homeless, at-risk of homelessness, and visible minority populations in Ottawa, Canada.

Given the disproportionate burden of HIV infection among CAD women, the development of HIV and health interventions to respond to these increased risks and reduce well-documented barriers to HIV prevention, testing and treatment services is vital. This program seeks to improve HIV and health services for CAD women in their reproductive ages through the implementation of community-informed and evidence-based capacity-building intervention that addresses the multiple and intersecting factors that impede access and utilization of HIV prevention, testing and treatment. The proposed program of research will be guided by an intersectionality lens and the tenets of community-based participatory research (CBPR).

This study is aimed at gathering information on the impact of public health measures related to COVID-19 on the availability of and access to sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections (STBBI) prevention and testing services including harm reduction services, on ACB communities. The process was informed by the tenets of community-based participatory research (CBPR).

This was a mixed-method, multisite study based in Ottawa and Toronto. The main objective of this project was to improve the health system’s response during and after the COVID-19 pandemic by developing evidence-based models to inform policy and collaborative best practices to mitigate its spread and ameliorate related health consequences in vulnerable communities.

This project aims to better understand the factors that explain the distrust of Black communities in Canada towards vaccination against COVID-19. More so, it will help to understand how these factors evolve and change over time, depending on the evolution of the pandemic and the associated health measures as well as the vaccination promotion campaigns at the heart of this project. Participants in this research will be recruited from Ontario and Quebec, both vaccinated and unvaccinated; these two provinces include nearly 80% of black communities in Canada.