2024 Robyn Tamblyn Health Services and Policy Research Innovator Award
Recognizing excellence in research and innovation among Canadian Mid-Career Investigators working within Health Services and Policy Research
The CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (CIHR-IHSPR) is pleased to announce that Dr. Allison Crawford is the recipient of the 2024 Robyn Tamblyn Health Services and Policy Research Innovator Award.
This award is intended to honor the outstanding work and trailblazing innovations of Dr. Robyn Tamblyn, former Scientific Director of CIHR-IHSPR.
The Robyn Tamblyn Innovator Award recognizes research excellence and innovation in health services and policy research among Canadian Mid-Career Investigators and awarded to the highest ranking Mid-Career Investigator in CIHR’s Project Grant competition working within the mandate of IHSPR. This prize entails a $25,000 supplemental grant to support research and/or knowledge mobilization for the duration of 1 year.
In recognizing and supporting research excellence, IHSPR Career Awards are a key strategy to help advance IHSPR’s 2021-26 Strategic Plan: Accelerate Health Care System Transformation through Research to Achieve the Quadruple Aim and Health Equity for All and CIHR’s 2021-31 Strategic Plan: A Vision for a Healthier Future.
About the Recipient
Dr. Allison Crawford
Allison Crawford, MD, PhD is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She is a psychiatrist and Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), where she is the Chief Medical Officer for 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline. She is also University of the Arctic Chair in Public Mental Health and Community-based Digital Innovation.
Allison’s research focuses on public mental health and suicide prevention, particularly equity-focused and community-engaged approaches to increasing access to culturally relevant mental health services. She also works in circumpolar communities, including with the Sustainable Development Working Group of the Arctic Council. She founded HeART Lab to further community engagement and knowledge translation through art, research, and technology.
Dr. Crawford’s CIHR-awarded research seeks to inform policy and practice. Participating researchers, people with lived and living experience, and policy makers from across the country will collaborate to add to the knowledge base helping to distinguish suicidal thinking from wishes for medical assistance in dying (MAID). They will examine the impact of media reporting on MAID requests on a suicide crisis line, and analyse interactions on the crisis line that reference MAID. They are interested in the needs of service users and of crisis line responders. They aim to develop ways to respectfully approach suicide prevention within the context of MAID.
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