Grant: Operating Grant: SPOR Innovative Clinical Trial Multi-Year Grant - LOI

The social determinants of health (SDoH) are the social conditions and processes at an individual, neighbourhood, and community level that impact all our health. Numerous studies have confirmed the central role that SDoH play in creating and maintaining health inequities. While much is known about SDoH, we lack rigorously evaluated social interventions that can be deployed in healthcare settings. In this initiative, we will establish an adaptive platform trial that is situated in Canadian primary care practice-based research networks, involving British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Adaptive platform trials are designed to compare multiple interventions and allow us to respond to the dynamic nature of changes in social conditions and policies. This builds on three areas of past work. First, this builds on the experience of the Upstream Lab, a research team focused on developing and evaluating social interventions, including one's focused on financial security, employment, food security and social isolation. Second, this harnesses a new network of primary care clinics who are routinely collecting and using data on SDoH to identify inequities and target interventions. Third, this builds on our experience in designing and deploying CanTreatCOVID, a national adaptive platform trial funded by CIHR and Health Canada, supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada, to evaluate COVID-19 therapeutics. This proposal engages a large group of patient partners and community representatives, and will engage diverse populations. This initiative will advance the ability of health providers, organizations and systems to collaborate with patients and communities to "go upstream" and address SDoH.