School of Nursing assistant professor wins CIHR Embedded Early Career Researcher Award

Jillian Halladay, an assistant professor at McMaster University’s School of Nursing and a clinical researcher at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research, has been awarded the Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Researcher Award. The award, co-funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), McMaster and St. Joe’s, will provide $400,000 over four years to support research on substance use disorders and concurrent mental health among youth.

Halladay, an alumna of McMaster’s School of Nursing, has worked as a registered nurse specializing in youth mental health throughout her career. She is also a trained clinical epidemiologist, having earned her PhD from McMaster’s Health Research Methodology program. She recently returned to Hamilton from the University of Sydney in Australia, where she held a CIHR Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, a global leader in research on substance use and concurrent disorders among youth.

“I am thrilled to be part of the inaugural CIHR Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Researcher cohort. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue working with youth and the health system to prevent the onset and impact of co-occurring substance use and mental health concerns among youth, and I look forward to learning with and from established and emerging health systems leaders across Canada,” says Halladay.

The Embedded Early Career Researcher (ECR) is a new stream within the Health System Impact (HSI) Program, led by CIHR’s Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR). There are three streams, each aligned with different training and early career research stages. The goal of the ECR stream is to develop embedded researcher roles and skills, while also addressing current high-priority health system challenges.

Halladay’s research program is designed to enhance our understanding of the factors that contribute to co-occurring substance use and mental health concerns among youth, and how we can prevent and treat these co-occurrences. Her Health Systems Impact embedded research is specifically centered around deepening our understanding of young adults, aged 18 to 25, who enter the adult hospital system with substance use concerns.

For this work, Halladay will be embedded within St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. There, she will be mentored by Lehana Thabane, vice-president, research at St. Joe’s and professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI), as well as James MacKillop, professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences and director of the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research at St. Joe’s. The work will aim to understand more about who these young people are, why they present, and how the health system can better engage and support them.

“Dr. Halladay is a rising star and represents the next generation of researchers who will be taking St. Joseph’s Health System to the next level of sophistication in research and keeping us in the forefront of innovation in treatment and management of youth with substance use and mental health issues. I am delighted for the opportunity to work with her in this program as part of her mentorship team,” says Thabane.

According to MacKillop, “Dr. Halladay will be a crucial member of our team, leading the way to understand the unique aspects of substance use in youth,” adding “Dr. Halladay’s award will be critical to bridge the gap between traditional research approaches and research that is fully embedded in the health systems where care is delivered.”

These initiatives aim to advance embedded research methods, strengthen embedded research capabilities within health system organizations, mentor up-and-coming embedded researchers, and produce evidence-informed solutions for critical challenges faced by these organizations.

“I believe we need to better understand the trends and pathways that lead to co-occurring substance use and mental health concerns among youth while, at the same time, we identify creative solutions that can immediately improve existing care,” says Halladay. “Given the urgency of youth substance use and mental health challenges, policy and practice change need to occur at the same time as research. This award is designed to achieve this goal,” she says.