Dal senate approves research data centre

Dalhousie’s senate will ask the Nova Scotia government for $12 million for a new on-campus research centre that would pool resources from provincial health, social and educational databases.

If the Dalhousie senate can get funding from the province, the Health Policy Research Centre would be part of the new Carleton Campus. Photo: Steve Davis

Dalhousie University's senate approved a 30-page proposal on Monday night for a new research foundation called the Nova Scotia Health Policy Research Centre (HPRC). The university will ask the province for $12 million for the new facility, which would "provide a natural base for interdisciplinary discussions related to health research." It would bring together databases belonging to all post-secondary institutions in Nova Scotia, and would be open to researchers from universities, government and private companies.

"The most important reason for getting the data all in one place is so you can look at multiple factors," said Gillian Wood, director of government relations for Dalhousie. The centre would allow "for more sophisticated and complex research," she added.

"For example, you could do studies linking health with education records, or motor vehicle records," she said.

Pooling resources lets researchers do studies across demographics to find patterns that may contribute to health risks.

"The more you know about a person's living conditions ... the more you can see what factors contribute to good health," said Christina Lawand, media relations for the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Getting government cash

Funding from the provincial government hasn't been secured yet, but Wood is confident in the proposal.

"We're optimistic (the funds) will be included in the budget of 2009-10," she said. The province will submit its 2009-10 budget this spring. Wood estimates it would take a year after securing funds to organize and open the facility.

The centre would open at the new Carleton Campus building on University Ave. If the new building is not completed by the time the program goes into effect, the project would move in with Dalhousie's Population Health Research Unit, which already holds the Medical Services Insurance database. The proposal describes the data sets at the population research unit as "fragmented and underfunded."

The sheer volume of information that would be compiled in the new facility means researchers in a variety of fields could make use of the databases. Eight Dalhousie faculties are involved in the project so far.

Impacting provincial policy

Wood hopes the centre will influence provincial health policy as similar centres have done in other provinces. The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy has influenced government health policy on 21 different occasions, according to the Dalhousie proposal. Dalhousie President Tom Traves took the inspiration for the project from a visit to the Manitoba facility years ago.

In exchange for the $12 million, the provincial government would use the lab for five or six research projects a year. The centre would have a five-year contract with the Nova Scotia Department of Health that would be open for renewal.

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