The iCARE platform works to strengthen Canada’s expertise and capacity to undertake the interdisciplinary, collaborative, equity-focused behavioural research that is needed to optimise pandemic and health emergency preparedness.
Thanks to renewed support from the Government of Canada, the iCARE platform will strengthen and expand its established infrastructure to achieve three priority objectives deployed across five interrelated axes.
OBJECTIVE 1: BEHAVIOURAL DATA COLLECTION, SYNTHESES, AND ANALYSES
Data collection and analyses work will continue and focus on three key knowledge user-driven priorities:
- Optimising public acceptance of, and adherence to, health prevention behaviours
- Understanding and addressing policy impacts and policy inequalities
- Understanding trust dynamics and risk communication to combat mis/disinformation
Read more about the Data Collection, Data Analysis and Modeling and Evidence Synthesis axes
OBJECTIVE 2: EVIDENCE TRANSFER AND MOBILIZATION
We will continue to work with our diverse partners and knowledge users to rapidly and efficiently transfer and mobilize knowledge products via policy briefs, scientific articles, infographics, media communications, and public forums. Our diverse knowledge users include
- local and international governments
- policy makers
- scientists
- clinicians
- industry leaders
- the general public, including vulnerable groups.
Read more about the Knowledge Mobilization and Community Engagement axes
OBJECTIVE 3: EXPERTISE AND TRAINING
The iCARE platform will strengthen pandemic- and health emergency-related behavioural expertise and training in Canada through various educational activities including webinars, symposiums, summer schools, and conferences, and policy advising.
Read more about the Knowledge Mobilization axis
AXES
The day-to-day work of the iCARE platform and its collaborators will rally around five interrelated axes which define the platform’s capacity and core functions.
The objectives of the Data Collection Axis include:
- Coordinating local and international survey and item design and collection methods
- Providing expertise for designing strategic sub-studies and recruitment strategies
- Supporting interpretation and dissemination of results in collaboration with the iCARE Knowledge Mobilization Axis
This work will build from the iCARE Platform’s ongoing international data capture methods and research activities will be supported through project funding support.
This axis will work with all iCARE Platform collaborators, partners, and knowledge users to inform data collection priorities and strategies.
Axis Co-Chairs:
Kim Lavoie, PhD (Canada) and Gerry Molloy, PhD (Ireland)
The objectives of the Community Engagement Axis include:
- Ensuring the iCARE Platform undertakes research that is relevant to diverse knowledge users
- Ensuring the iCARE Platform undertakes research that provides policy recommendations that will be equitable, acceptable to the public, feasible for decision-makers and health authorities to implement and scale.
This work will be guided by two interrelated but complementary frameworks:
- The AACTT (Action, Actor, Context, Target, Time) framework, used to identify actions, actors, timeframe, contexts, and approaches needed to optimise pandemic response effectiveness
- The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), used to identify successful policy implementation constructs that enable individual and population-level behaviour change.
The Data Collection Axis will also leverage qualitative and quantitative tools developed to facilitate the application of the TDF.
To facilitate implementation and uptake of policy and intervention recommendations across different countries and regions, data will be captured and reported using the ExpandNet framework and its four guiding principles:
- Systems thinking
- Focus on sustainability
- Determination of scalability
- Respect for principles of gender, equity, and human rights
The work of this axis will include multiple investigators and knowledge users from organizations such as Health Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as patient investigators.
Axis Co-Chairs:
Nazeem Muhajarine, PhD (Canada) and Mariantonia Lemos, PhD (Colombia)
The objective of the Evidence Synthesis Axis include:
- Providing expertise and capacity to conduct rapid evidence reviews on critical topics generated in collaboration with partners and knowledge users
The Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre’s META group is a dedicated knowledge synthesis group that will continue to conduct evidence syntheses and generate policy reports for the iCARE platform in collaboration with PHAC (Public Health Agency of Canada) and COVID-END (COVID-19 Evidence Network to Support Decision-Making).
Work conducted under this axis will continue to be guided by innovative, rigorous evidence synthesis, rapid review, and living review methods where urgent priority questions generated by knowledge users are answered expediently. This work will be informed in part by the inputs of the Community Engagement axis and research activities will be supported through project funding support.
These evidence synthesis methods are adapted to the question and time within which knowledge users need the results. Multiple knowledge products, including scientific reports and actionable policy briefs, infographics, etc. will be generated in collaboration with the Knowledge Mobilization axis.
Axis Co-Chairs:
Simon Bacon, PhD (Canada) and COVID-END lead Michael Wilson, PhD (Canada)
The objectives of the Data Analysis & Modeling Axis include:
- Managing and linking all iCARE databases
- Ensuring data quality control
- Conducing analyses and predictive modeling
- Preparing reports that will be disseminated by the Knowledge Mobilization axis
Much of the work of this axis will centre around the iCARE data but may also be applied to other projects conducted by the iCARE Platform team and their partners to ensure efficient data linkage and to coordinate analysis and modeling strategies. Research activities will be supported through project funding support.
Axis Co-Chairs:
Keven Joyal-Desmarais (UK) and Simon Bacon (Canada)
The objectives of the Knowledge Mobilization Axis include:
- Ensuring rapid transfer and mobilization of results to diverse knowledge users (public, community groups, scientists, healthcare providers, policy makers).
- Using various mediums to meaningfully engage with a variety of audiences (reports, policy briefs, scientific articles, infographics, presentations, webinars, and print, radio, TV and social media).
- Building capacity for conducting behavioural research to inform pandemic and health-emergency preparedness through various training initiatives.
- Working closely with all iCARE Platform axes, partners, and collaborators to ensure knowledge products and training activities align with knowledge user needs and priorities.
This axis will use an integrated knowledge transfer (iKT) approach that engages diverse knowledge users in all phases of the process, from defining research questions and survey items through to dissemination strategies.
The work of this axis will also be guided by the Knowledge-to-Action Framework which includes knowledge creation and action phases that are critical for informing future pandemic plans.
Training activities will be aligned with the capacity development framework of Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR). Activities will leverage multidisciplinary mentorship, behavioural research conducted in multiple environments and sectors, state of-the-art training in behavioural science methods and tools.
Training activities will be supported through scholarship funding, workshops, summer research internships, and summer schools delivered in collaboration with the International Behavioural Trials Network (IBTN) and the Canadian Behavioural Interventions and Trials Network (CBITN).
Axis Co-Chairs:
Samir Gupta, MD (Canada) and Vincent Gosselin Boucher, PhD (Canada)
