Mental health crises are increasing among children and youth, and treatment services can’t keep up with need. In this year’s Labelle Lecture, presented on November 6, 2024 and entitled “Timely: Towards early intervention of children’s mental ill-health,” Dr. Anna Moore of Cambridge University, UK, discussed the opportunity that predictive technologies offer to enable a preventative system for children’s mental health, and the infrastructure required for its development and implementation.

Dr. Moore is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow; Assistant Professor in Child Psychiatry and Medical Informatics in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge and Clinical Consultant in Paediatric Psychological Medicine at Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. Her group, Timely, develops pre-emptive approaches to child and adolescent mental health.

Mental health crises are increasing among children, and there is a critical need to reverse this trend. Yet most health research focusses on adults. Dr. Moore’s presentation described her early experiences as a clinician; policy fellow at the Department of Health and in a government-funded health innovation hub that led to her heading a national child mental health transformation program entitled “i-THRIVE”, a whole system, integrated mental health system for children and young people. More than 60% of children in the UK now live in regions adopting the approach.

Watch the video of the Lecture: https://youtu.be/1gyu7Dvq3vA

The interconnectedness of home, hospital, long-term and primary care in Ontario was the topic of the 32nd annual Labelle Lecture, presented by Dr. Lauren Lapointe-Shaw, MDCM, PhD, on October 25, 2023.

Her presentation, entitled Healthcare to Keep People Out of Hospital, drew on her work as a General Internist and Health Services Researcher, which gives her a bird’s eye view of the system gaps that drive demand for acute and unplanned hospital care.

Dr. Lapointe-Shaw is an Assistant Professor and Clinician Scientist in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Staff Physician of General Internal Medicine & Geriatrics at the University Health Network, and has research appointments at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, the Women’s College Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV) and ICES.

Watch on Youtube HERE

Laura Schummers, ScD, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), presented the 31st annual Labelle Lecture, entitled Improving reproductive population health through health policy and outcomes research, on Nov. 9, 2022.

Dr. Schummers is an assistant professor of health outcomes with the Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC. She completed her doctorate in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2018 and her postdoctoral fellowship with the Contraception and Abortion Research Team in the Department of Family Practice at UBC. As a post-doctoral fellow, Schummers partnered with policymakers and health system leaders through a BC Ministry of Health & CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship (2018-20) and developed skills in patient-oriented research methods through a CIHR Patient-Oriented Research Transition to Leadership award (2021-present).

Her program of research uses population-based administrative health data to study impacts of health policy and practice on reproductive population health. In Canada, longstanding inadequate and inequitable access to reproductive health services (including contraception and abortion) has limited the ability for females to optimally time and space pregnancies – a key indicator of reproductive population health and gender equity. Health systems are striving to fill these access gaps, leading health policy and system leaders hungry for rigorous evaluation of how policy and practice changes are impacting reproductive health.

In this presentation, Schummers described her research using quantitative policy analysis methods to examine impacts of Canada’s globally unique regulatory approach to the “abortion pill” on abortion use, safety and effectiveness in Canada, and international policy implications. She considers implementation of similar methods to a range of reproductive health policy and practice questions in partnership with policymakers, health care providers and patients.

Jay Shaw, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, presented the 2021-22 Labelle Lecture – its 30th anniversary – on Nov. 10, 2021. His lecture was entitled “Will Innovation Save Health Care? Issues and Opportunities for Health Care as a Public Good.”

Shaw is assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at University of Toronto with cross-appointment to the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. He serves as Research Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Ethics & Health at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and is adjunct scientist at the Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care. He practiced as a physical therapist in community-based care prior to completing his PhD in 2012.

His program of research addresses the implementation and ethical implications of innovations in health care, with a special focus on innovative models of community-focused integrated care, digital health technologies and applications of AI in health care.

Dr. Tiffany Green, is an economist and population health scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in racial/ethnic and nativity disparities in reproductive health. She presented “Saving Black Women and Babies: Leveraging Data and Community Engagement to Achieve Health Equity” on Nov. 11, 2020.

Jennifer Walker, PhD, associate professor, School of Rural and Northern Health at Laurentian University, holds a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health. She is also the Indigenous lead for the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. She presented “Indigenous Data and Research” on Nov. 14, 2919.

Ruth Lavergne, PhD, an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences, presented “Primary care, secondary data: Learning from policy change in British Columbia” on Oct. 3, 2018.

Dean Spears, PhD, executive director of the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (R.I.C.E. institute). “Where India goes: Abandoned toilets, stunted development, and the costs of caste.”

The Labelle Lectureship Series marked its 25th anniversary this year with a special lecture by Dr. Antoine Boivin, MD, PhD, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Patient and Public Partnership. He presented: “Evolving relationships: Caring for, learning from, and healing with patients.”

Katy Kozhimannil, associate professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota. “How health-care policies affect women and their families.”

Dr. Onil Bhattacharyya Frigon-Blau, chair in Family Medicine Research, Women’s College Hospital. “From Lean to the Lean Start-up; Improvement and innovation in the design of health services.”

David Stuckler, senior research leader in sociology at the University of Oxford, England. “The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills.“

Dr. Irfan Dhalla, assistant professor, medicine and health policy, management and evaluation, University of Toronto and staff physician at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital. “The Virtual Ward and other policy-relevant trials in health care.“

Michael Law, assistant professor, School of Population and Public Health, UBC Faculty member, Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, UBC. Law, a researcher with expertise in pharmaceutical policy, described how the changing market for generic drugs presents a unique opportunity for Canadian governments to introduce universal coverage.

Tamara Daly, assistant professor, York University political economist, School of Health Policy & Management, York University “It’s about time to care! Can we learn from Scandinavians about care for the elderly?“

Anirban Basu, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research. “Comparative effectiveness research: Another emperor with no clothes?“

Sebastian Schneeweiss, associate professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and associate professor of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health. “Reference drug programs: Can we contain costs without harming patients?“

Steve Morgan, assistant professor, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, University of British Columbia. Health Economist, Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, UBC. “Expenditure Overdose? Causes, Consequences and Cures for Canada’s Pharmaceutical Cost Crises.“

Pascale Lehoux, associate professor, Department of Health Administration, University of Montreal. “Technology Innovation in Health Care: Who’s Calling the Shots?“

Jennifer Prah Ruger, assistant professor, Division of Global Health, Yale School of Public Health. “Health and Global Health Governance: What’s Justice Got to do With It?“

Valerie Steeves, assistant professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa. “Why Are They Doing This To Us: Will Changes in Data Health Privacy Legislation Kill Research as We Know It?“

Meredith Rosenthal, assistant professor of health economics and policy, Harvard School of Public. “Health Paying for Quality in Health Care: Poison or Panacea?“

Mark Sculpher, Centre for Health Economics, University of York. “United Kingdom Assessing Health Technologies: Should Canada take the NICE Path?“

Jean-Mane Berthelot, Health Analysis and Modeling Group, “Statistics Canada For Our Eyes Only: The Importance of Record Linkage in Health Research.”

Peter Ubel, Department of Medicine and program on medical decision making, University of Michigan. “The Unbearable Rightness of Bedside Rationing.”

Colleen Flood, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. “Reinventing Health Care: A Legal, Economic and Political Analysis of Reform in New Zealand and Canada.”

Lisa Bero, Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California. “San Francisco Evidence-based Policy: Oxymoron or Just Plan Moronic?“

Mandy Ryan, health economics research unit, University of Aberdeen. “Scotland Assessing the Benefits of Health Interventions: A Role for Conjoint Analysis?“

Jane Weeks, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. “Outcome Measures in Oncology: A New Paradigm for Patient Care and Clinical Research.“

Peter Singer, Centre for Bioethics and Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. “Living Wills: From Legislatures to Living Rooms.“

Steven Katz, Departments of Internal Medicine and Health Care Management and Policy, University of Michigan. “Learning from Canada/U.S. Health Care Comparisons: Can a River Flow in Two Directions?“

Alayne Mary Adams, Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies. “The ‘Black Box’ Between Intervention and Outcome: Exploring the Dynamics of Health Change.“

Andrew M. Jones, econometrics and social studies, University of Manchester. “UK Starters, Quitters, and Smokers: Choice or Addiction.“