A trio of researchers at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) College of Medicine have projects on the go based on the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
A donation of $445,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is funding the projects.
Each researcher is continuing to find answers and responses to the pandemic crisis based on discoveries using science.
USask vice-president research Baljit Singh says these projects and the university’s scientists are tackling issues head-on as they emerge.
New funding for a professor in the College of Medicine, Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, will allow for the second round of testing for his mental health-related project to come later this winter.
“We want to understand directly from children and youth, how COVID-19 has disrupted their lives, how they are coping with it, but also the perspective of the caregiver as well,” said Muharjarine.
Muhajarine says there are four main questions that need to be asked and answered:
- Are children’s and youths’ mental health and quality of life outcomes different in 2022 in comparison with the outcomes in April through July of 2021?
- What coping strategies are used, if any, and what is the association between these coping strategies and mental health and quality of life outcomes?
- What roles have mental health services played in helping young people deal with the challenges of the pandemic?
- How are sociodemographic characteristics (for example, sex at birth, self-declared gender, disability, family income, culture/ethnicity, immigrant status) associated with these variables?
The ultimate aim is to provide evidence-based recommendations to decision-makers and practitioners that, if acted on, will improve the mental well-being of children and youth in Saskatchewan.
USask College of Medicine professor Dr. Cory Neudorf is also working on a project.
His focus is youth immunization programs that are playing catch-up due to the pandemic, such as vaccines for youth in schools for diseases such as hepatitis B. The project aims to help be more resilient in the face of future school disruptions. Researchers are partnering with health officials in Alberta and Quebec to discuss what happened to school immunizations during the pandemic and the impacts of the drop in coverage rates of vaccines.
“If you end up with a waning of immunity of these kids in those middle years, that can lead to an outbreak in the community. We have seen this in the past with things like whooping cough,” Neudorf told Global News.
Each project will receive just under $150,000 in funding.
Muhajarine says it’s essential they understand the whole picture of mental health for not only children but also their parents.
“Understand their experience with anxiety, depression, in younger children emotional regulation, quality of life, their need for mental health services.”
Neudorf says maintaining staff and time to deliver the necessary vaccines in school could help lead to the elimination of cervical cancer.
“In order to reach that goal, we need to get 90 per cent immunization rates of all children along with some enchanted testing. It could actually eliminate (cervical) cancer in our lifetime, which is awesome,” said Neudorf.
The final project will be headed by Dr. Anne Leis of the College of Medicine.
Her team will investigate how francophone families and children living in minority language situations across Western Canada have been affected by COVID-19. The results will drive the approach to health interventions, including at schools, child-care facilities and family support.