Research led by Dr. Kate Sellen receives over $200,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
The Government of Canada has announced that a research project led by Dr. Kate Sellen, associate professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University, will receive $232,417 in financial support.
Dr. Sellen is among 751 recipients who has received investment from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) 2021 New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), a grant stream that has distributed $45 million to accelerate the exploration, development and testing of new directions in research methods.
For the project, Recovery and renewal of participation in health care change, Dr. Sellen and a team of researchers from across Canada will examine novel approaches introduced by the pandemic to co-designing health care. While remote communication has increased engagement among equity seeking groups during worldwide lockdowns, challenges persist related to digital access and inclusion. The research team will identify new co-designing practices that have emerged in the last two years that hold promise for the health sector post-pandemic.
Co-design research with equity seeking groups helps to address longstanding biases in the field of science
Over the last decade, co-design techniques have been increasingly applied to drive change towards equitable, patient-centred health care that is safer and more efficient. As a methodology, co-design research marks a pivotal move towards the inclusion of lived experience, non-traditional knowledge forms, community-based decision making and shared ownership in the development and implementation of more equitable health system solutions.
The director of the Health Design Studio at OCAD University, Dr. Sellen is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Health Design. Her research focuses on bringing an inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to health care design challenges, especially in relation to patient safety in critical contexts, including the dosing, ordering, tapering and management of opiates, communication at end-of-life and the issuing and delivery of blood units for surgery.
The recently announced SSHRC-funded project will be completed by February 2023 by assistant professor Gillian Harvey of the University of Alberta as the co-principal investigator as well as co-applicants Caylee Raber, director of the Health Design Lab at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and Paul Holyoke, director of SE Research Centre at SE Health. University of Washington associate professor Sarah Walker and senior researcher at Sheffield Hallam University Joe Langley will act as collaborators.