May 21, 2012

Alex Leighton Joint CPA-CAPE Award in Psychiatric Epidemiology

First awarded at the CPA Annual Conference in 1998.

2011
Dr. Jitender Sareen, an epidemiological researcher, has focused national attention on the importance of treating Canadian soldiers with mental illness, revealing a strong link between a number of mental health problems and exposure to deployment-related traumatic events such as combat, peacekeeping and witnessing atrocities. His research has also demonstrated that anxiety disorders are associated with an increased risk for suicidal behaviour and has shed light on the socio-economic factors related to mental illness.

2010
Dr. Boyle is a Canada Research Chair in the Social Determinants of Child Health. The constant pursuit of his research has been to understand the social, economic and environmental factors that shape child mental health. His present research is focused on using sophisticated analytic techniques to translate empirical information into better services and access for children and their families.

2009
Dr. Scott Patten has made a significant contribution to the advancement and diffusion of Canadian psychiatric epidemiology in the area of mood disorders. His current research seeks to integrate the various epidemiologic estimates such as incidence, recurrence, prevalence, recovery and mortality into a comprehensive description of the epidemiologic pattern. He is exploring the use of simulation methods to achieve this goal. He is also working to describe the adverse health consequences of depressive disorders and how these combine with chronic medical conditions.

2008
Dr. Richard Boyer was recognized for his pioneering work in public mental health, in both Quebec and Canada. In the late 80s he obtained funding for the first Canadian case controlled psychological autopsy studies on young adult suicide. In the late 90s he conducted the first such study of elderly people and created the elderly mental health research network. He lead the first computer-assisted population-based psychiatric survey. He also validated the psychological distress Illfeld scale which is now a standard in Quebec health surveys. Through his work with governmental statistical agencies in both Quebec and Canada he has contributed greatly to knowledge transfer and has fostered an awareness within government about the importance of mental health problems in public health.

2007
Dr. Alain Lesage was recognized for his research into the service needs of the mentally ill--principally the severely mentally ill--using evaluative, epidemiological and health services approaches. His research assists national and regional planners, clinical decision-makers and health and social services managers offer better services in a balanced mental health care system. At the university of Montreal and at the Louis H. Lafontaine hospital he heads a team dedicated to developing and evaluating innovative psychiatric treatment. He is currently secretary to CIHR's mental health in the workplace research agenda taskforce. In addition he is the associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry and the former editor-in-chief of Santé Mentale au Québec.

2006
Dr. Carl D’Arcy was recognized for a lifetime of dedication to the study of the interface between population health, epidemiology and sociology. His work examines many topics such as the sociology of health, health care systems, aging in Canada, the sociological factors that effect the rates of drug abuse, delivery patterns of psychiatric care, nursing practices in rural Canada and public attitudes towards mental illness.

2005
Dr. Nicholas Kates was recognized for leadership and dedication to health care research and the health of the Canadian population. He is a national and international expert on shared-care modes of primary care in psychiatry, an area on which he has written extensively and conducted research through grants from Ontario and national research granting bodies.

2004
Dr. David Streiner was recognized for continuous, innovative and inspirational teaching of methods relevant to psychiatric epidemiology, clinical epidemiology, clinical research and knowledge transfer.

2003
Professor Jane Murphy directed the Stirling County Study, a long-term investigation of psychiatric epidemiology in a general population that has laid the foundation for a 40-year perspective on trends regarding prevalence, incidence, course of illness and mortality.

2002
Dr. Morton Beiser was recognized for exceptional commitment and scientific work toward culturally sensitive health care and the use of epidemiological approaches.

2001
Dr. Paula Goering was recognized for her work in health systems research including the authorship in 1997 of Best Practices in Mental Health Reform and numerous mental health policy studies, and the design and analysis of the Ontario Mental Health Supplement to the Ontario Health Survey in the 1990s.

2000
Dr. Dan Offord

1999
Dr. Roger Bland

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