Team Grant : Partnerships for Cannabis Policy Evaluation – Registration
Well-being, Health and Biomedical Discovery
Deadlines
Academic Unit: Inquire with Unit
Memorial Deadline: RGCS review not required for Registration
External Deadline: Tuesday 10th, September 2019
Description
SIRI will be offering support with application development for this opportunity. Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact Jennifer Stevens (v5js@mun.ca) early during the development process to discuss the services available to them.
The Partnerships for Cannabis Policy Evaluation program is part of CIHR’s Integrated Cannabis Research Strategy (ICRS). The ICRS is a CIHR-led, multi-federal department, multi-organization and trans-disciplinary initiative that seeks to support research to increase cannabis health research capacity, to maximize benefits and understand harms for Canadians, to inform the healthcare system and to provide timely evidence for policy makers. This initiative integrates CIHR’s commitment to Indigenous Peoples’ health and wellbeing, Sex and Gender Based Analysis Plus (SBGA+), Knowledge Translation and the responsible and effective management of health research data.
The Cannabis Act came into force on October 17, 2018, legalizing non-medical cannabis products, including fresh and dried cannabis, and cannabis oils. Other products, such as edible products and concentrates, are expected to be legal for sale in Fall 2019. Provinces and territories are responsible for determining how cannabis is distributed and sold within their jurisdictions. Provinces and territories have variable policies related to minimum age, possession limits, restricting where cannabis may be used in public and setting additional requirements on personal cultivation, among others. For more information on cannabis policies, consult CCSA’s interactive map of provincial and territorial regulations.
Cannabis-related policies across jurisdictions have the potential to impact the health of Canadians. Robust, coordinated evaluation is required to monitor the health impacts of these policies, both positive and negative, so that policies can be adapted in near–real time to maximize benefits and minimize harms for Canadians. This evaluation research will also inform aspects of the mandated review of the Cannabis Act, required three years after coming into force.
The Partnerships for Cannabis Policy Evaluation program aims to create the opportunity for collaborative, applied and policy-relevant research to evaluate different provincial or territorial policies related to cannabis, including policies affecting Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Inuit and Métis). The program will support researchers embedded directly within provincial or territorial governments, and/or Indigenous communities*, to evaluate policies that have been put into place related to cannabis that may impact the health of Canadians. This funding opportunity will support projects to evaluate the implementation and impact of cannabis-related policies, toward the identification of best practices from both public health and public safety perspectives.
The Partnerships for Cannabis Policy Evaluation program uses an integrated knowledge translation approach. Integrated knowledge translation is a way of approaching research where researchers and decision makers work together throughout the research process, including setting the research questions, selecting the methodology, developing tools, collecting data and interpreting and disseminating the findings. Because they participate throughout the research process, the research results are more likely to be relevant to and used by decision makers.
This program relies on the participation of partners to promote effective knowledge translation. Teams are required to bring in an in-kind contribution corresponding to a minimum of 20% of their total budget from external partners (i.e., non-CIHR or CCSA partners). Successful applicants will collaborate with a knowledge mobilization hub and a data coordinating office (see Guidelines). Applicants must propose a knowledge translation plan and demonstrate how they will incorporate open science practices in their research program.
CCSA, in partnership with CIHR, will act as the Partnerships for Cannabis Policy Evaluation program’s Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Hub. The KMb Hub will coordinate communications, support the development of new partnerships, convene workshops and facilitate knowledge translation and mobilization across the embedded researcher/decision-maker teams, as well as to broader communities of relevant stakeholders. By linking teams though a KMb Hub, it will be possible to accelerate knowledge dissemination and enable the potential for scale and spread of successful cannabis-related policies.
To ensure data interoperability, harmonization and sharing, a data coordinating office will be developed as a second step for this program. The data coordinating office will be funded through a separate funding opportunity, following the program strengthening workshop and will be only open to successful grantees of the Partnerships for Cannabis Policy Evaluation program. One goal of the program strengthening workshop will be to agree on common core measures that all teams will collect in order to ensure data interoperability across projects/settings and to suggest best practices for data sharing and harmonization activities to be managed by the data coordinating office. The dedicated data integration methodological specialist on each research team will be expected to participate in the activities of data coordinating office. Further details will be provided in the subsequent funding opportunity (for research involving Indigenous Peoples, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous self-determination and self-governance, such as following the Principles of OCAP® [i.e., ownership, control, access and possession]1 will be respected). (Updated: 2019-06-11)
*Indigenous communities are broadly defined as individuals, groups and organizations, and populations who self-identify as Indigenous, living and working anywhere in Canada, including urban centres.
Research Areas
This funding opportunity will support projects relevant, but not limited to exploring the impact of cannabis policies on:
- Youth cannabis consumption;
- Health care services, including hospital and poison control;
- Indigenous Peoples’ health;
- Indigenous self-governance and community health;
- Method of cannabis use (e.g. vaporization, smoking, or ingestion);
- Patterns of use in public versus private settings;
- Higher-risk patterns of use (e.g. frequency and potency);
- Rates of cannabis-impaired driving;
- Youth contact with the criminal justice system related to cannabis use;
- Consumption of other substances;
- Mental health; and
- Other health behaviours or indicators.
Note that while jurisdictions at the municipal level may also develop policies and measures related to cannabis, this funding opportunity will only support evaluation projects at the level of provincial/territorial jurisdictions and Indigenous communities.
For additional information, see Research Net.