CORE Research Themes

CORE faculty are experts in health economics, health technology assessment, and simulation modeling, and understanding health care decision-making. The core objectives of our work in this area are to assess the value of interventions and policies to inform healthcare decision making. We use diverse methods, including risk-benefit analysis, discrete choice experiments, cost and comparative effectiveness, and value of information analysis. Examples of ongoing projects are an evaluation of the impact of a mandatory biosimilars switching policy (Harrison), understanding community priorities for health care in remote and rural communities (Harrison), characterizing the economic burden of MS (Lynd), evaluating the cost-effectiveness of inhaled therapies for respiratory disease (Sadatsafavi and Johnson) or prostate cancer diagnostic tools (Conklin and Lynd), and disease simulation modeling to evaluate preventative policies for childhood asthma (Johnson). Examples of HTA include studies of new healthcare technologies such as web-based patient education platforms and self-monitoring tools. 

CORE has been active in Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Research from its inception, contributing to both applied health outcomes and epidemiology and health outcomes methodology. These include cancer epidemiology (De Vera), cardiovascular epidemiology (Turgeon, Loewen), infectious diseases epidemiology (Lalji), social, nutritional and obesity epidemiology (Conklin), reproductive/perinatal epidemiology (De Vera, Schummers), spinal cord injury (Cragg), epidemiology of rare disease (Lynd), and health outcomes research in chronic airway disease (Johnson, Sadatsafavi, Lynd) and rheumatologic diseases (De Vera, Harrison). 

CORE faculty are experts in conducting pharmacoepidemiologic studies including drug utilization, comparative effectiveness, and outcomes.  Facilitating this research is access to administrative health databases through Population Data BC on health care utilization, demographics, and filled prescriptions for the entire province of British Columbia.  Through collaborations, CORE faculty have also conducted pharmacoepidemiologic studies using data resources from other provinces and jurisdictions.  Areas of interest include the impact of vaccines on communicable disease rates (Lalji), associations between antibiotic use and development of antimicrobial resistance (Lalji), medication adherence (De Vera, Loewen), and medication safety (De Vera).