Ten years ago, the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project (CPTP) recruited its first participant. Today it’s Canada’s largest population health study that is quickly becoming a critical part of Canada’s research ecosystem.

In recognition of this milestone, CPTP leads Philip Awadalla and John McLaughlin alongside Victoria Kirsh, a researcher using CPTP data, share their reflections on what makes CPTP unique, how it enables chronic disease research, and how they hope to improve the health of Canadians.

More than a decade ago, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance began discussing the idea of a pan-Canadian population health cohort that would allow researchers to interrogate environmental, occupational, lifestyle and socioeconomic factors with disease trajectories.

Since then, more than 330,000 Canadians from eight provinces have volunteered to participate in the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project — Canada’s largest population-based cohort — and this number is growing. With a decade of progress, the benefits and insights generated by CPTP data are just starting to be realized and the future is rich with possibilities.

As the national scientific home of the CPTP, the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health assumed leadership for the CPTP at a critical point in its history: its tenth anniversary.

All CPTP leadership, staff and partners would like to thank participants from across Canada for their support over the last 10 years. The time, trust and engagement of participants is key to achieving a shared vision of improving population health through a better understanding of the causes of cancer and other chronic diseases.

Thank-you!