Dalla Lana School of Public Health

RSVP: epi.dlsph@utoronto.ca

SPEAKERS:

1) Dr. Vincy Chan – “A population-based sex-stratified study to understand how pre-injury health status affects functional outcome after traumatic brain injury”

Dr. Vincy Chan is an Assistant Scientist at KITE-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network and Assistant Professor (Status) at the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences and MPH in Epidemiology. Dr. Chan’s research links population-based health administrative and survey data to understand the health, health service use, and health outcomes of individuals with traumatic brain injury across the lifespan and continuum of healthcare. She currently holds an Early Career Research Award from the US National Institutes of Health to lead a population-based birth cohort study to understand the past, present, and future of individuals with traumatic brain injury across the lifespan and continuum of healthcare.

2) Dr. Brenda Coleman – “COVID-19 cohort studies in healthcare and education workers: interim results and discussion of the challenges of conducting cohort studies during pandemic”

Dr. Coleman worked as a public health epidemiologist for 10 years before graduating with her PhD in public health. Since then she has been an independent researcher and manager of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital. She has also been an Assistant Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health since 2010.

Dr. Coleman’s areas of interest and research include infectious diseases and vaccinology with a focus on influenza and COVID-19 in adults. Her goal is to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases and thereby reduce of the burden of illness in humans.

Dr. Coleman is currently conducting two large prospective cohort studies about COVID-19; one with hospital workers and the other with education workers. The objective of these studies is to determine what factors put our essential workers at risk for infection; they also investigate vaccine effectiveness, stress of working during a pandemic, and changes in anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels over time. These findings will be used to prevent transmission and illnesses – of COVID and other respiratory diseases.

She is presenting data from the two cohort studies as well as her experience of reaching potential study participants during the pandemic lockdowns.

Download: Epi Faculty Seminar _Nov 18