Prof. Mingshan Lu, PhD, TCMD, Dr. Ac.

According to Statistics Canada, around 13.7% of Canadians aged 15+ years are living with a disability, 5.1% of which (315,500) report having a developmental disability or disorder (PDD). Addressing the diverse and special needs of persons with disabilities presents significant social and economic benefits. According to a report released by the Institute for Work & Health in November 2021, “the benefits to Canadian society from full accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities amounted to $337.7 billion, or 17.6 percent of the GDP, in the reference year 2017”. Many individuals with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience coexisting pain, mental health issues, and/or substance misuse, which can have a negative impact on their quality of life, employability, and re-employment opportunities.

The Alberta PDD report (Alberta Panel Review, 2018) identified significant gaps in addressing complex service needs within the existing PDD structure, resulting in a diminished quality of life and employability for PDDs, particularly in addressing co-existing pain, mental health issues, and substance misuse.

Funded by the Government of Alberta Civil Society Fund (CSF),  Alberta Innovative Disabilities Program (AIDP) is proposed as a solution to fill these gaps by providing a more collaborative and comprehensive approach to care that addresses both physical and mental health needs. AIDP aims to improve the overall well-being and employability of those with disabilities, increase their re-employment prospects, and promote innovation and knowledge translation based on evidence-based research. The program provides evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) services and holistic care to individuals with diverse disabilities free of charge, to reduce the adverse effects of coexisting pain and mental health issues through CAM interventions. By doing so, the AIDP aims to improve the overall wellness and function, self-esteem, resilience, and social inclusion of individuals with disabilities, thereby enhancing their employability and re-employment opportunities.

Project website: https://www.abidp.ca/

This Societal Health Integration Program (SHIP) proposes an innovative community-based model in which Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) services are provided to help achieve social recovery and improve economic participation.

SHIP aims to develop a cost-effective, scalable and transferrable community-based CAM service model to achieve the following objectives: 

* Mitigate, treat, and prevent the mental health issues that arise in response to or recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and promote development and continued well-being, and in doing so increase community integration and overall productivity

* Increase civic society’s capacity to respond to the mental health crisis that follows the COVID-19 pandemic

* Organize community-based interventional group workshops to promote practical CAM health preservation ways of living to promote better mental health and well-being, and expand recovery capital for those in needs

* Collect and analyze critical information to monitor social recovery and economic participation, as well as program cost-effectiveness

* Share research data and analytic results with the civil society sector to encourage duplications of the community-based model developed

Project website: http://abship.ca

Funded by the Government of Alberta, ABCHIP is a community-based health and research project. This study aims to explore how Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) could help people, especially following challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. CAM treatments—such as acupuncture, dietary therapy, and mind-body exercises— are well-established as reliable and beneficial methods of promoting individual and community health. CAM treatments in this study are structured in accordance with local and international clinical expertise and evidence, ensuring quality and safety of the highest degree.

For project details including preliminary outcomes, see http://abchip.ca

Global surveillance and monitoring of disease requires the most current and comprehensive system to track and improve the health of individuals worldwide. The International Classification of Disease (ICD) is an internationally adopted system used to code disease diagnoses. Currently, Canada uses the 10^th version of ICD to code health information. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently released the 11^th version of ICD (ICD-11), which offers current diagnoses codes (e.g. opioid overdose and gaming addictions codes) and user-friendly electronic coding tools. However, urgent questions have arisen about the costs and benefits of implementing a new classification system. The objectives of the proposed study are to develop a framework for estimating the economic impacts of ICD classification system transition, to project the costs of moving to ICD-11 coding algorithms in Canada, to estimate the benefits of moving to ICD-11 coding algorithms in Canada, and to identify implementation issues and specific support needed in each province and territory, and provide unique recommendations to each province for ICD-11 implementation. Our team is ideally positioned to conduct this work, as we are a WHO Collaborating Centre that has been instrumental in the testing and improvement of ICD-11, and have been teaming up with CIHI to develop this proposal, and have built long-standing partnerships with Alberta Health Services (AHS) and the Canadian Health Information Management Association (CHIMA). This project will provide methodology and critical information for countries worldwide to make a decision on ICD-11 adoption, and offer an opportunity to prepare for the benefits and challenges of implementation (e.g. training and technology).