Upstream Lab

11/20/2025

Check out Upstream Lab's November newsletter for new research and publications on primary care, a Research Assistant job opportunity, upcoming events & more ➡️ https://mailchi.mp/0cae64610e95/november-2025-newsletter-14766972

In this issue:

🔵 Dr. Archna Gupta (pictured) shares how her work as a family doctor inspired her research, which found: Almost 13% of Ontarians — over 1.2 million people — live more than 30 kilometres away from their family doctor

🔵 Upstream Lab is hiring a full-time temporary Research Assistant II, based in the Emergency Department at St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto, to support on-site recruitment and data collection for our research studies

🔵 Upcoming events, including Dr. Andrew Pinto's Big IDEAs About Health Data Speaker Series event on November 27 with Health Data Research Network Canada

✉️ Sign up for Upstream Lab's newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dcgbLH

11/12/2025

Update: Due to the high level of interest in this opportunity, please submit your application through the Unity Health Toronto portal: https://gen-ezjf9k52wb5ac52e-prd.tam.ca1.inforcloudsuite.com/hcm/xmlhttp/shorturl.do?key=2P5. Kindly refrain from emailing the Upstream Lab team directly. We appreciate your understanding, and thank you for your enthusiasm! Please note that only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

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WE'RE HIRING: Upstream Lab is looking for a full-time temporary Research Assistant II to support on-site recruitment and data collection for our PREPARED and TreatResp initiatives: https://gen-ezjf9k52wb5ac52e-prd.tam.ca1.inforcloudsuite.com/hcm/xmlhttp/shorturl.do?key=2P5

The Research Assistant II will be based on-site in the Emergency Department at the St. Joseph’s Health Centre site (30 The Queensway, Toronto) of Unity Health Toronto.

In this role, they will play a key part in recruiting patients who present to the ED, including obtaining informed consent, collecting nasal swabs, randomizing participants, and conducting follow-up in accordance with the study protocol.

Qualifications include an undergraduate degree and one year of relevant experience, or demonstrable equivalent combination of specialized education and experience. Previous experience in clinical or research settings preferred.

The role is offered as a one-year contract with the possibility of extension, and there are additional opportunities to contribute to ongoing projects within the Upstream Lab.

Closing date: November 25, 2025

11/03/2025

As Canada faces a primary care crisis, new research from Upstream Lab scientist Dr. Archna Gupta shows that patients who have a family doctor may still face barriers to accessing healthcare, such as travelling long distances to see their doctor.

Her new study of nearly 10 million patients enrolled with a family doctor in , published today in CMAJ , finds:
- About 13% of patients lived farther than 30 km from their family physician
- These patients were more likely to visit the emergency department for non-urgent reasons, and less likely to have screening for colon cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer

Read more in CMAJ:
Distance to primary care and its association with health care use and quality of care in Ontario: a cross-sectional study: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.250265

Authors: Archna Gupta, Tara Kiran, Lesley Anne Pablo, Andrew Pinto, Eliot Frymire, Peter Gozdyra, Shahriar Khan, Michael E. Green and Richard H. Glazier

Unity Health Toronto

10/31/2025

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth today at the BioHubNet symposium in Toronto! Isobel Okoye and Abdalla Sheikh, senior research associates at Upstream Lab, enjoyed speaking with attendees about PREPARED, our national initiative to help prepare Canada for a future pandemic. One of PREPARED's goals is to partner with the industry to develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests faster. Sign up for our newsletter for updates on PREPARED: https://mailchi.mp/495f5d882d99/prepared-initiative

✉️ prepared@unityhealth.to
🔗 https://preparedcanada.org

10/24/2025

Meet a member of our PREPARED team: James White has joined PREPARED, our national initiative aimed at creating a coordinated early warning system for pandemics across Canada, as a project manager.

James is a Registered Nurse with a PhD in Global Health and 20+ years of experience as a development professional.

"This Fall is an exciting time for our project, as we have launched free rapid testing for respiratory viruses - such as COVID, flu and RSV - for patients at an emergency department and health clinic in southern Ontario, and at several pharmacies in Alberta," he says.

Learn more about James and see updates on PREPARED in Upstream Lab's October newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/4c842198505b/october-2025-newsletter-14766391

10/24/2025

New guidelines for using machine learning in population and public health: Upstream Lab director Andrew Pinto and a diverse team of experts from multiple fields have five key recommendations in a newly published research paper:

1️⃣ Prioritize partnerships and interventions to support communities considered structurally disadvantaged
2️⃣ Use machine learning for dynamic situations, such as public health emergencies, while adhering to ethical standards
3️⃣ Conduct risk assessments and bias mitigation strategies aligned with identified risks
4️⃣ Ensure technical transparency and reproducibility by publicly sharing data sources and methodologies
5️⃣ Foster multidisciplinary dialogue to discuss the potential harms of machine learning-related bias and raise awareness among the public and public health community

📑 Read more in this new paper published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance:
Machine Learning Applications in Population and Public Health: Guidelines for Development, Testing, and Implementation
https://doi.org/10.2196/68952

Authors: Andrew D Pinto, Sharon Birdi, Steve Durant, Roxana Rabet, Rahul Parekh, Shehzad Ali, David Buckeridge, Marzyeh Ghassemi, Jennifer Gibson, Ava John-Baptiste, Jillian Macklin, Melissa D McCradden, Kwame McKenzie, Parisa Naraei, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Laura C Rosella, James Shaw, Ross Upshur, Sharmistha Mishra

10/23/2025

We are developing short online courses designed to support frontline workers and learners in topics related to PREPARED (https://preparedcanada.org), our national initiative to help prepare Canada for future pandemics.

We’re hoping to build a diverse and engaged group of facilitators who can help shape the content and delivery of these courses. We’re looking for individuals with expertise or interest in the following areas:

🔵 Federated Learning
🔵 Participatory Research
🔵 Clinical Trials
🔵 AI Applications in Data Mining
🔵 AI and Data Governance

To learn more, please contact: Upstream Lab scientist Benita Hosseini: benita.hosseini@utoronto.ca

10/23/2025

As cold and flu season approaches, pharmacists are seeing more people with symptoms of respiratory illnesses. Several pharmacies in are now offering free rapid testing for respiratory viruses through PREPARED, Upstream Lab's national research study to help prepare Canada for future pandemics.

Heba Elbayoumi, owner and licensee of Heathers Pharmacy in , spoke to CityNews about offering free testing for respiratory viruses such as COVID, influenza A and B, adenovirus and RSV.

📺 Watch video: https://calgary.citynews.ca/video/2025/09/25/respiratory-virus-season-in-alberta/
📍 PREPARED pharmacy locations in Alberta: https://preparedcanada.org/locations/alberta/
✉️ Sign up for PREPARED's newsletter for updates: https://mailchi.mp/495f5d882d99/prepared-initiative

10/22/2025

For patients with Type 2 and food insecurity, can a monthly grocery store voucher for healthy foods help with diabetes control?

A randomized clinical trial of 390 adults in Toronto found that a voucher did not improve diabetes control – but it did increase self-reported vegetable and fruit consumption. 🍎🥦

Read more in this article by Nav Persaud and Upstream Lab director Andrew Pinto and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine: http://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.5420

📑 Voucher for Healthy Foods and Diabetes Control: A Randomized Clinical Trial
Published in JAMA Internal Medicine
Authors: Nav Persaud, Moizza Zia Ul Haq, Adelaide Buadu, Areesha Sabir, Lavanya Sinha, Kevin E. Thorpe, Keying Xu, Stephen W. Hwang, Andrew D. Pinto, Enza Gucciardi

This randomized clinical trial measures the effects of a monthly voucher that allows primary care patients with elevated hemoglobin A1c to access healthy foods.

10/21/2025

Former Upstream Lab summer student Sarah Ahmed is now sharing her research.

"I had an amazing opportunity to attend my first Trillium Primary Health Care Research Day today (October 17), not only as an attendee but also as a presenter for my summer research project! I presented my poster, 'Patient Perspectives on the Collection of Demographic and Social Needs Data in Primary Care Clinics across Four Canadian Provinces,' as part of the SPARK Study with the Upstream Lab. Being part of my first conference was such a meaningful experience; it was incredibly rewarding to have thoughtful conversations with attendees who were genuinely interested in my research and its implications for advancing health equity in primary care."

The SPARK Tool is a questionnaire that can be used to collect demographic and social needs data from patients in primary care settings. Learn more: https://sparktool.ca

10/10/2025

Are you a healthcare provider or a policymaker interested in the impact of collecting data about patients’ social needs in healthcare settings? Take a look at these key takeaways from our new research paper, which finds that collecting and using data to address patients’ social needs may be associated with reduced healthcare costs and decreased health service use: https://upstreamlab.org/publication/collecting-and-using-social-needs-data-in-health-settings-a-systematic-review-of-the-literature-on-health-service-utilization-and-costs/

📑 Read more:
Collecting and using social needs data in health settings: a systematic review of the literature on health service utilization and costs: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-13458-2
Published in BMC Health Services Research
Authors: Mélanie Ann Smithman, Oluwasegun J. Ogundele, Laure Perrier, Menna Komeiha, Iryna Artyukh, Paras Kapoor & Andrew D. Pinto

Background Social determinants of health significantly influence health outcomes and contribute to health inequities across populations. Systematic and routine collection of social needs data and its use to inform interventions within healthcare settings are proposed to reduce health services utiliz...

10/02/2025

The healthcare system can play a role in addressing the housing crisis: A new research paper, by Dr. Han Yan from the Upstream Lab and colleagues, identified three ways healthcare providers can help refer their patients to stable housing: https://upstreamlab.org/publication/addressing-housing-insecurity-as-a-social-determinant-of-health-a-systematic-review-of-interventions-in-healthcare-settings/

1️⃣ Active Community Resource Referrals:
Connect patients with a healthcare professional (such as a social worker or case manager), who can actively refer them to housing services, instead of passively sharing information

2️⃣ Utilizing Complex Interventions:
Not only address patients’ housing needs, but also connect them to additional health and social supports, such as mental health services, employment skills or opportunities, and supportive social environments

3️⃣ Case Management or Assertive Community Treatments:
Use specifically engaged case managers, community healthcare and social care teams to provide comprehensive supports to meet the complex health needs of patients

📑 Read more:
Addressing housing insecurity as a social determinant of health: A systematic review of interventions in healthcare settings
Published in Social Science & Medicine: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118557
Authors: Han Yan, Allyson J. Gallant, Alannah Delahunty-Pike, Jodi E. Langley, Alexander Zsager, Eunice Abaga, Carolyn Ziegler, Jeff Karabanow, Stephen W. Hwang, Andrew D. Pinto