CIHR Funded Research
Long COVID Physio executive board members have successfully been awarded Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) funding to conduct research on Long COVID and episodic disability, from a competitive operating grant “Emerging COVID-19 Research Gaps & Priorities - Post COVID-19 condition”.
Our Disability & Rehabilitation Co-Director Dr Kelly O’Brien and Chair Darren Brown are co-principle investigators of this funded research titled “Long COVID and Episodic Disability: Advancing the Conceptualization, Measurement and Knowledge of Episodic Disability with people living with Long COVID”. The study team have been awarded $204,205 (Canadian Dollars) to conduct this research over 1 year. The goal is to characterise the disability experiences among people living with Long COVID in Canada, UK, United States, and Ireland; and to develop and assess the properties of a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) to assess the presence, severity and episodic nature of disability among people living with Long COVID.
The research team consists of:
Kelly O’Brien (Physiotherapist, University of Toronto, Canada)
Darren Brown (Physiotherapist and Long COVID Advocate, Long COVID Physio, UK)
Colm Bergin (Physician, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
Kristine Erlandson (Physician, University of Colorado, USA)
Jaime Vera (Physician, University Hospitals Susses NHS Foundation Trust, UK)
Lisa Avery (Biostatistican, University of Toronto, Canada)
Soo Chan Carusone (Clinical Epidemiologist, Mcmaster university, Canada)
Richard Harding (Herbert Dunhill Professor, Kings College London, UK)
Larry Robinson (Physiatrist, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Canada)
Patty Solomon (Professor Emeritus, Mcmaster University, Canada)
Angela Cheung (Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada)
Hannah Davis (Long COVID Advocate, Patient Led Research Collaborative, USA)
Patriic Gayle (Patient Advocate, Gay Men’s Health Collaborative, UK)
Suzie Goulding (Long COVID Advocate, Long COVID Canada, Canada)
Margaret O’Hara (Long COVID Advocate, Long COVID Support, UK)
Cathy Thomson (Physiotherapists and Long COVID Advocate, Long COVID Physio, UK)
Hannah Wei (Long COVID Advocate, Patient Led Research Collaborative, Canada)
Lisa McCorkell (Long COVID Advocate, Patient Led Research Collaborative, USA)
Natalie St Clair-Sullivan (Physiotherapist, University of Sussex, UK).
The University of Toronto provide an executive summary and news report on this research.
Read more about this research funding award on the CIHR website.
Learn more about the conceptualisation of Long COVID as an episodic health condition in a commentary published in BMJ Global Health.
Date Last Revised: 18th June 2022