The Network’s Research Affiliates
Our network regroups affiliated researchers in Canada and abroad who work in various areas, including health sciences, political sciences, economics, technology… to name just a few!
Curious to know who these passionate research affiliates are and to learn more about their work? Or looking for new collaborations to help advance knowledge related to the safe and appropriate use of medications? You’re at the right spot! Below is a list of network affiliates and their research interests. Click on their names to find out more about them and to access their contact information.
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Research Interests: Dr Ailabouni's main research foci include co-design and consumer engagement in person-centred deprescribing, quality use of medicines in people living with dementia, and implementation science.
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Research Interests: The development and validation of clinical decision - support tools and algorithms, prescribing decisions, deprescribing guidelines and interventions, medication adherence, translational medicine, precision medicine
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Research Interests: De-adoption of cardiovascular therapies
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Research Interests: Pharmacy, physical activity, geriatrics, public health
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Research Interests: Investigate approaches to deprescribing and medication appropriateness to improve health and reduce spending.
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Research Interests: Deprescribing guidelines (Lead, antipsychotics (2018) and statins (in progress)); identifying potentially inappropriate prescribing using population health data; improving medication appropriateness with AI.
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Research Interests: deprescribing potentially hazardous medications in the elderly population; sensitizing clinicians to the intricacies of therapeutic escalation in long-term hospitalizations; enhancing the communication channels between hospitals and community pharmacies to facilitate the continuation of deprescribing practices beyond the hospital setting, with active engagement of frontline healthcare professionals.
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Research interests: Émilie is interested in the implementation of electronic decision support for deprescribing. She is looking to implement this type of tool in the workflow of clinicians treating patients at risk for polypharmacy and medication overload. She is also interested in the impact of drug-drug interactions on activities of daily living in chronically ill patients across the lifespan.
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Research Interests: Prescription appropriateness, potential overtreatment especially in patients with cancer and cardiovascular disease.
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Research Interests: Alexandre is a pharmacist and a candidate for a doctorate in pharmacoepidemiology. He is interested in population health, particularly in the context of aging. Specifically, his research focuses on the themes of polypharmacy and appropriate medication use.
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Research Interests: Dr. Sri Harsha specializes in patient safety initiatives and geriatric care optimisation, with particular focus on medication error prevention and monitoring. His research integrates artificial intelligence with clinical pharmacy practice to enhance elderly care through innovative tools and protocols, while promoting safe medication practices in healthcare settings.
Link to website
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Research Interests: Public policy, risk management and insurance; medication appropriate use, pharmaceutical and national medicine policies; social determinants of health, right to health and popular education.
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Research Interests: Dr. Conklin is a social scientist who conducts research into planned organizational and systems change. His research focuses primarily on introducing beneficial changes into Canada's seniors health system, particularly Ontario's long-term care sector. He is also affiliated with efforts to reduce polypharmacy in Canada's elderly.
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Research Interests: Evaluation of the impact of deprescribing anticholinergic and sedative medications on mobility measured by wearable sensors. Development and evaluation of pharmaceutical care transition interventions.
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Research Interests: Behavioural scientist in primary care with a particular interest in: the rational use of psychotropic medication, the implementation of deprescribing, improving the quality of care for psychosocial and psychosomatic complaints, clinical phenotyping, and telemedicine/digital health interventions.
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Research Interests: Deprescribing, transitions of care, polypharmacy, vitamin D in elderly patients
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Research Interests: Bioethics; One Health; Sustainable Health; Green Health Care; Ethical and Social Acceptability
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Research interests: medication use problems in various patient populations including older adults and people with chronic diseases, medication management and adherence through innovative technology-based products and solutions
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Research Interests: Dr. Farrell's Deprescribing Guidelines Research Program focusses on the development and implementation of evidence-based deprescribing guidelines that help people make decisions about when and how to reduce medications safely. Her research and knowledge translation interests include innovative interprofessional approaches and tools for polypharmacy management, and community engagement for deprescribing initiatives.
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Research Interests: Social science, humanities research, qualitative inquiry, dementia research including caregivers and marginalized groups, research ethics.
Link to website -
Research Interests: Marie-Eve is a nurse with a doctoral training in pharmacoepidemiology. Her research interests are focused on aging and medication use such as polypharmacy, deprescribing, potentially inappropriate medications, fall-risk-increasing drugs, falls, hospitalizations, chronic diseases. She has experience in population-based studies using quantitative methods in medico-administrative databases.
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Research Interests: Professor Gardner is interested in improving the care and health of people living with mental illness. His research focuses on improving the safe and effective use of psychiatric medications and increasing the capacity of care in the community. His interdisciplinary work includes enhancing the role of community pharmacy to support better patient outcomes. His research ranges from pharmacoepidemiological studies to program implementation and evaluation.
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Research Interests: Studies of patient-centered interventions that facilitate the deprescribing of potentially inappropriate medications, particularly gabapentinoids.
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Research Interests: Dr. Goodine research includes medication optimization, pharmacy practice, transitions of care, geriatrics, and diabetes. She wants to understand how we can improve pharmacy services to older adults so they have the tools and support they need to ensure safe and effective medication management at home.
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Research Interests: Facilitating clinical trials and observational studies in cardiovascular disease; diagnosis, prognosis, and management of coronary artery disease; optimal stroke prevention management in atrial fibrillation; secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
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Research Interests: Deprescribing with preventive medications in older persons living with cardiometabolic diseases at the end of life
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Research interests: the identification, prevention and management of adverse drug events among older adults using observational methodology; the investigation of medication optimization for older adults within a learning health system; and medical education to improve geriatric clinical pharmacology capacity among clinicians.
Joanne Ho is also Co-Executive Director of GeriMedRisk
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Research Interests: Dr. Holbrook is an international leader in evidence-based therapeutics. Current research includes randomized trials of optimization of high risk medications in the transitions of care, observational studies on benefit vs harm of computerized decision support for medications, education programs to advance prescribing competency for medical trainees, and multiple systematic reviews.
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Research Interests: Dr. Hohl practices Emergency Medicine at Vancouver General Hospital. Her main research interests are in adverse drug events, drug safety and effectiveness, health systems innovation and health information technology. She has published landmark studies on patients presenting to Emergency Departments with adverse drug events, derived and validated clinical decision rules to assist with the identification of high-risk patients, and has evaluated health system interventions to reduce medication-related morbidity. In 2019, her team received a CIHR Rewarding Success grant in partnership with the BC Ministry of Health and Vancouver Costal Health to evaluate the integration of a novel adverse drug event reporting platform called ActionADE to prevent unintentional re-exposures to medications that previously caused harm. In 2022, was awarded the Dr. Ian Stiell Researcher of the Year Award by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians.
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Research Interests: Investigating clinical and economic outcomes of deprescribing in older people and exploring pharmacogenetic-informed approaches to improve the safety of medication withdrawal; experience as a consultant pharmacist providing medication review services in the community and residential aged care settings.
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Research Interests: Dr. Huon’s research field includes deprescribing implementation trials, in hospital or primary care settings, quantitative and qualitative research methods, systematic reviews. He works on BZD and PPI problematics, and is interested in opioids issues. Visiting professor at McGill University (2022-2023).
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Research Interests: Research focuses on health services and includes evaluation of the scope of practice of pharmacists, including immunizing and prescribing and geriatric-related research, with a focus on appropriate medication use, including deprescribing. Co-Leads the Optimizing Therapy through Collaboration (OPTx) Deprescribing Research Team.
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Research Interests: Dr. Jorgenson's research focuses on primary health care practice with interests in investigating optimal roles for pharmacists in the primary health care system, interventions to improve appropriateness of medication prescribing, and chronic pain management. He is also the Director of two patient care clinics, the Medication Assessment Centre and the USask Chronic Pain Clinic.
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Research Interests: Dr. Jungo's research focuses on optimizing medication use in older adults by leveraging digital health interventions to enhance prescribing practices and implement patient-centered deprescribing approaches.
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Research Interests: medication appropriateness and deprescribing, collaborative practice, and community pharmacy models for sexual health testing, prevention and treatment. She is also the Director for the Medication Therapy Services Clinic, a pharmacist clinic run through Memorial University's School of Pharmacy.
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Research Interests: Dr. Knopp-Sihota’s research focuses on improving clinical outcomes and quality of care for nursing home residents with dementia. She is currently working on a non-drug intervention project aimed at reducing potentially inappropriate medications.
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Research Interests: Deprescribing, women's health and screening/preventing overdiagnosis. Currently leading OptimizeBP an Alberta based antihypertensive deprescribing randomized controlled trial in long-term care.
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Research Interests: Dr. Lee has an interest in medication optimization strategies for older adults living with multimorbidity, frailty and/or high healthcare costs. He currently has a focus on integrated care, transitional care, and behavioural economics. He has experience in the use of population-level health administrative databases, systematic review, and randomized controlled trials.
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Research Interests: Dr. Lundby's research is focused on medication use and deprescribing in older people and those with limited life expectancy. She combines clinical research with register-based and qualitative research to understand factors contributing to appropriate and potentially inappropriate medication use as well as to develop interventions and strategies for medication optimization and deprescribing. Dr. Lundby is a co-founder of the Odense Deprescribing Initiative (ODIN) and the Network of European Researchers in Deprescribing (NERD).
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Research Interests: rational prescribing focused on matching burden of care with capacity to benefit; innovative models of primary care service delivery. Clinical primary care research experience includes observational and interventional quantitative methods including community RCTs of new models of care and intervention trials on the reduction of single and multiple medicines. Lead of TAPER (Team Approach to Polypharmacy Evaluation and Reduction) programme of research, and TaperMD pathway tool.
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Research Interests: Dr. McCarthy uses multi and mixed-methods research approaches to study the people, processes, and resources needed to help people have better experiences with their medications through deprescribing. She co-leads the deprescribing.org Research Team which has developed evidence-based deprescribing guidelines and studies their implementation in practice. She is internationally known for her leadership of this team's signature initiatives in long-term care and on prescribing cascades.
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Research Interests: Dr Moriarty's interests include use of routine data to evaluate the effects of deprescribing in pharmacoepidemiology research, interventions to improve the appropriateness of medication use in primary care, evaluation of the impact of policies/guidelines, and economic evaluation of deprescribing interventions.
Link to website
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Research Interests: Pharmaceutical policies, access to medicines, prescribing appropriateness; pharmacare, pharmaceutical pricing and innovation.
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Research Interests: Caitlin is interested in the use of social prescribing as an innovative tool to move healthcare upstream and support healthcare quality initiatives like deprescribing. Through her doctoral work, she established the first and only internationally accepted definition of social prescribing. She also led Canada’s first social prescribing pilot for children and youth.
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Research Interests: Deprescribing, mood disturbance, LTC, geriatrics
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Research Interests: Dr. Murphy's lab (i.e., More Than Meds Lab), co-led with Dr. Gardner, prioritizes health services’ and health outcomes’ projects. Behavioural science underpins intervention design, implementation, and evaluation. Lab members engage in research following a model of learning health systems. Current medication appropriateness projects focus on benzodiazepine receptor agonist discontinuation.
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Research Interests: Sustainable development, sustainable health care, toxicology, environmental impact, environmental health.
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Research Interests: Care of older patients, Frailty, Geriatrics, Orthogeriatrics
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Research Interests: Climate mitigation and sustainable health systems; health technology innovation and regulation; and de-implementation, deprescribing and reducing low-value care, including realizing the environmental co-benefits of reducing low-value care. Her current research program focuses on pharmaceuticals and the environment, including ecotoxicity and GHG emission harms from pharmaceutical production, use and disposal.
Link to website -
Research Interests: Geriatric pharmacotherapy, frailty, falls, deprescription.
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Research Interests: Dr. Andrea Patey’s research focuses on the intersection of behaviour sciences and implementation research, applying psychological theory and methods to explain and modify health professional behaviours in a range of clinical settings. Dr. Patey's specific interest lies in examining whether de-implementation (stopping ineffective or harmful clinical practice behaviors) differs from implementation (adopting evidence-based clinical practice behaviors) and whether interventions to target each should also differ.
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Research Interests: Dr. Pinilla-Monsalve is a neurologist with expertise in pharmacovigilance and epidemiology. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Montreal University Institute of Geriatrics. His research is focused on examining adverse reactions and potential drug interactions in individuals with neurological conditions who are prescribed analgesics, antiepileptics, and sedatives.
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Research Interests: Dr. Raman-Wilms’ research relates to the optimization of medication use in the elderly, specifically through deprescribing of medications. She is a member of the deprescribing.org research team, focused on medication optimization through use of deprescribing guidelines and algorithms for clinical care and through community engagement.
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Research Interests: Dr. Refaei holds expertise in quality improvement research, having overseen numerous projects at Niagara Health (NH) Hospitals as the physician lead for the Clinical Utilization and Quality Improvement Committees. His leadership resulted in a Choosing Wisely Canada designation for NH. He is the lead for the Niagara Hematology and Transfusion Medicine Research group.
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Research Interests: Opioids, polypharmacy, deprescribing, gerontology, long-term care, nursing, clinical placements.
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Research Interests: Dr. Ronksley's research aims to improve access and quality of care for patients with multi-morbidity. He is currently leading a program of research focusing on polypharmacy and deprescribing among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
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Research Interests: Geriatric syndromes, medication optimization in older adults, and interprofessional education to teach geriatrics
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Research Interests: Learning health systems, medication prescribing patterns, using primary care EMR data for secondary use, quality improvement in primary care settings, antibiotic stewardship.
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Research Interests: Dr. Sirois’s research interests focus on the appropriate use of medications in older adults, polypharmacy and deprescribing. Her interests include potentially inappropriate medications and the conceptualization of appropriate polypharmacy at the population level. She tries to determine which combinations of medications generate more benefits than harmful effects for the health and quality of life of individuals by using different methods, including those related to artificial intelligence. She is also interested in deprescribing medication from the perspective of older adults and clinicians.
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Research Interests: As a health economist and pharmacist, Dr.Spinks has a particular interest in applying economic frameworks and methodologies to issues pertaining to medication appropriateness and deprescribing. This includes undertaking economic evaluation of interventions, developing innovative digital health and workforce solutions, eliciting preferences for health care and evaluating funding mechanisms.
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Research Interests: Leading the research initiative on the use of scaling-up approach to educating home care nurses about deprescribing to support frail older adults at home. This research is an important step into building a foundation for scaling up an effective educational plan to promote awareness about deprescribing among home care nurses.
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Research interests: Knowledge synthesis, knowledge translation, and implementation research related to deprescribing, in particular deprescribing guidelines and decision-support tools.
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Research Interests: Dr. Shanna Trenaman is a clinician-scientist who approaches the topic of appropriate drug use in older adults from the perspectives of pharmacology, epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology and health services research. Her research interests are in polypharmacy, deprescribing, drugs used by older adults with dementia, anticholinergic medications, sex- and gender-based differences in drug use, and medication and health services use in relation to sex and gender.
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Research Interests: Dr Turner's research interests focus on optimizing the safe and effective use of medications in older people, focusing on deprescribing (identifying and stopping a medication where the potential for harm outweighs the potential for benefit). His passion comes from working as a pharmacist in hospitals, community, aged care, research and policy sectors across Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada.
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Research Interests: Mental health in older adults. Person centered deprescribing. Anticholinergic and Sedatieve load
Link to website
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Research Interests: Dr. Vordenberg's research focuses on engaging adults in the medication decision-making process, specifically related to deprescribing in older adults and selection of safe and effective over-the-counter medications.
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Research Interests: Dr. Watt uses an integrated knowledge translation approach to study (1) the comparative efficacy and safety of pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions in older adults; and (2) models of care that improve health care outcomes for patients and caregivers, including medication appropriateness.
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Research Interests: Dr Weir’s research is centred around precision medicine and improving the safety of medication prescribing for older adults with multiple chronic conditions. She applies methods from machine learning, statistics and pharmacoepidemiology to real world data in her work.
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Research Interests: Deprescription of medications aimed at prevention of future events (primary and secondary prevention) in patient populations with high all-cause mortality.
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Research Interests: Judicious use of resources, screening, deprescribing, shared decision making.
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Research interests: Research interests are centered around medication optimization for older adults living with frailty and/or multimorbidity. Specific interests include appropriate prescribing/deprescribing, diabetes management, deprescribing in dementia, and multidisciplinary team-based care.
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Research Interests: Dr. Anthony Yeung is a geriatric psychiatrist at the St. Paul’s Hospital Elder Care Clinic and sleep disorder medicine fellow at UBC Hospital. His research interests are in deprescribing, neuropsychiatry, identifying clinical risk factors and biomarkers for dementia, and AI/technology in mental health.