Overview
MICYRN was founded in 2006 as a collaborative national initiative to build capacity for high quality clinical research in Canada. MICYRN links 17 participating academic health centres and hundreds of investigation teams across the country.
The overarching goal of MICYRN is to empower the health research community to develop and implement solutions to issues affecting maternal infant child & youth health and health services
Why focus on maternal-child health research?
Total health care expenditure in Canada was estimated at $183.1B in 2009, and consumes 40% of provincial budgets. Major issues are chronic diseases in an aging population. Yet, there is strong evidence for the foetal origins of adult disease: complex, as-yet-not fully understood maternal-foetal interactions influence susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, even cancer, later in life. And, there is increasing recognition that the earliest years of children's lives (0-age 6) have a significant impact on their well-being and competence later in life, affecting socialization and employability. Investing early in prevention decreases disease later in life, and impacts the associated health care costs.
Maternal-Child Health Issues
Canada is failing to manage serious issues. Among 29 OECD nations, Canada ranks 22nd on preventable childhood injuries and deaths; 27th in the absence of childhood obesity; 21st in child well-being, including mental health. There is growing disparity in the health of First Nations people, who experience twice the maternal and child mortality of other Canadians. Chronic disease affects up to 20% of Canadian children and youth. Premature birth rates are rising.
Current State
There is a rich diversity of maternal-child research activity in Canada. Over 120 research networks have been formed by investigators working in the same specialty, on diseases, or populations. Over 50 birth cohort studies are underway, involving about 40,000 pregnancies, to better understand how maternal experiences and exposures affect child outcomes and influence disease risk. Over 450 paediatric clinical trials are recruiting at sites in Canada, making us second only to the USA in world paediatric trials activity. However, each of these investigation teams are facing barriers and having to develop solutions, and there is no opportunity to share experiences and best practices, or to gain efficiency and reduce duplication of effort.
Why now?
In recent years, Canada has achieved unparalleled collaboration to advance the health and health care of children and youth. In 2004, the Coalition for Child and Youth Health was formed, and now comprises eleven member organizations. The broad range of constituents and stakeholders across the continuum of child and youth health include all children’s hospitals, the majority of child and youth rehabilitation centres, all academic child health research institutes, all departments of paediatrics, all paediatric surgical departments, the national association of paediatricians, over 30 child and youth focused mental health organizations, a leading national child and youth injury prevention organization, and 11 family advisory groups. The Coalition is committed to ensuring rapid and efficient development of new knowledge through research in areas of national importance to the health and well-being of children and youth. In 2006 the Coalition formed the Mother-Infant-Child-Youth Research Network (MICYRN) with the mandate to create the alliance between 17 participating child/child-maternal academic health centers, and develop strategies to build capacity and facilitate research collaboration.
Elsewhere, in the USA, United Kingdom, and Europe, there has been a major commitment of infrastructure support for clinical research, so that the considerable scientific advances made in laboratories can more rapidly be translated into improved health and health care. Internationally, the need for paediatric trials has drawn attention, since 70% of medicines used in children have never been tested in children. Legislation now encourages new agents to be tested in children in order to gain regulatory approval (USA, UK, EU,). This ‘medicines for children’ initiative has prompted creation of national networks in the UK and European countries, and engages the World Health Organization for developing countries, to provide the necessary infrastructure support for research, and find solutions to impediments. Strategies developed by MICYRN will empower Canada’s investigator teams to establish international collaborations, to the benefit of Canadians.
Why MICYRN?
MICYRN’s vision is that the synergistic strength gained from a formal collaborative network of researchers who are enabled by integrated infrastructure will spur tremendous advances that are unattainable by individual groups.
MICYRN is working to enhance the productivity of the mother-child research community by sustaining and augmenting collaborative research networks and networking activities; addressing impediments to multicentre research activity; and developing key methodology-technology platforms. MICYRN intends to improve the quality and safety of maternal-child research activities by building a sustainable human resource capacity; and promoting standards and best practices.
Working groups are addressing core issues including BioBanking, Data Management, Relationships, Research Ethics & Regulatory Affairs (RERA), and Training & Professional Development; and key research activity themes including Clinical Trials, longitudinal Cohort studies, and Health Services & Systems.
A Coordinating Centre organizes and oversees MICYRN activities. These efforts will be aided by MICYRN ‘site correspondents’ who are embedded at participating sites, to support networks and investigators undertaking multi-centre studies, and to provide input to and from MICYRN’s Coordinating Center.
The MICYRN national Coordinating Centre is hosted at the Child & Family Research Institute in Vancouver, BC.
Director – Anne Junker, MD ajunker@cw.bc.ca
Associate Director – Aubrey Tingle, MD, PhD atingle@cw.bc.ca
Executive Assistant – Maureen Lowe mlowe@cw.bc.ca 604-875-2345 (4788)
