Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Each year, Canada admits about 250,000 permanent residents and a much larger number of people with temporary status (such as students, temporary foreign workers, and those with work permits). Recent data estimates that just over one-in-three people who are antibody positive for HCV in Canada are foreign-born and an estimated 1.9% of Canadian immigrants are positive for HCV antibodies, almost double than the Canadian national prevalence. Accordingly, the goal of this grant is to advance the HIV-HCV screening conversation pertaining to immigrants to Canada and to explore related treatment and research activities. To achieve this end, the objectives are: to build partnerships between researchers, clinicians, immigrants with lived experience, community organizations and government policy makers in an effort to advance the topic of HCV screening for immigrants to Canada; to develop new recommendations and guidelines for screening and treatment of Canadian immigrants; and to facilitate knowledge translation and exchange.