MacART is excited to announce that one of our members, Dr. Mackenzie Salt, has been awarded a Health System Impact Fellowship from CIHR. The HSI Fellowship supports innovative research that aims to address critical challenges within health systems.
The fellowship project is a partnership with the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorder Alliance (CASDA) and co-funded with the Azrieli Foundation and Mitacs. It will involve the creation of a model for evaluating health services for autistic adults that could be applied across Canada. This framework will be informed by experts, clinicians, parents, autistic adults, and policymakers, and will be based on the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework, which focuses on functional abilities rather than diagnostic labels.
Recently in Canada, an estimated 1 in 66 children are diagnosed with Autism, making this research even more important to help inform health services for the emerging generation of autistic adults. As CASDA is a non-profit coalition of organizations and individuals guiding the federal government’s development of a comprehensive National Autism Strategy, it is well-positioned to support this work. A streamlined, cohesive model for evaluating health services for autistic adults can help build capacity for knowledge sharing of lessons learned and work to implement effective and acceptable service processes and outcomes for autistic adults across the country.
We are pleased to support this research program, which is an exemplar of the continued partnership between MacART and CASDA and the mission to advance autism care through meaningful research.