CanPath Awarded Additional Funds by Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force for Its SUPPORT-Canada Initiative
The Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) has been awarded over $500,000 in funds from Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) for its SUPPORT-Canada Initiative. The SUrveying Prospective Population cOhorts for COVID-19 pRevalence and ouTcomes in Canada (SUPPORT-Canada) Initiative will capture data and biospecimens from the Canadian population to identify factors contributing to COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, and outcomes in Canada.
This award builds upon the $2.1 million awarded to CanPath in June by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the SUPPORT-Canada initiative to conduct COVID-19 surveys on over 330,000 participants in the CanPath cohort and immuno-genomic analyses on a subset of participants.
“Over the past few months, CanPath has emerged as a critical resource in enabling the rapid development of a Canadian COVID-19 cohort to support population and clinical-level research at a national scale,” says Dr. Philip Awadalla, National Scientific Director of CanPath. “The integration of diverse data and biosample collection efforts enables CanPath to capture a range of important factors that contribute to disease spread and severity, as well as advance the understanding of drivers of poor health outcomes.”
In addition to CanPath’s SUPPORT-Canada Initiative, this new award also supports the development of a network led by the CITF with the aim of enhancing collaborations, knowledge and data sharing, as well as knowledge mobilization, among research teams across the country.
“COVID-19 has been one of the most important health challenges for Canadians, and we are committed to contributing to national COVID-19 control by providing evidence from CanPath’s large pan-Canadian cohort. By collaborating and pooling data with other teams, we will enable public health officials and the health care system to improve COVID-19 control by being more targeted with prevention and treatment strategies,” says Dr. John McLaughlin, Executive Director of CanPath.
SUPPORT-Canada is being built out from CanPath, Canada’s largest population cohort, in partnership with the Toronto-based University Health Network (UHN), along with support from numerous research platforms, industry collaborators and service providers.
The SUPPORT-Canada Initiative is being implemented by all six of CanPath’s regional cohorts: the BC Generations Project, Alberta’s Tomorrow Project, the Manitoba Tomorrow Project, Ontario Health Study, CARTaGENE in Quebec and the Atlantic PATH study.