Using Administrative Data in Rural Dementia Health Services Research

Using Administrative Data in Rural Dementia Health Services Research

The Rural Dementia Action Research (RaDAR) Team works to advance the quality of care for individuals living with dementia in rural communities. In this session, they discuss the importance of recognizing and addressing rural-specific issues in dementia care research and highlight related initiatives. The session offers an overview of studies examining health service use, including those that use linked clinical and administrative data, and describes methods for identifying rural populations and persons with dementia.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Julie Kosteniuk is an Assistant Professor in the Canadian Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health, Department of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds a PhD in Psychiatry and a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Saskatchewan. She is Co-lead of the Rural Dementia Action Research (RaDAR) Team, which has partnered with primary health care teams in several rural communities in Saskatchewan to develop and implement local primary care memory clinics. Dr. Kosteniuk's research focuses on rural dementia care, including rural primary care for persons living with dementia, community-based services for older adults in rural settings, and health service use by rural persons with dementia.

Dr. Jacqueline Quail is a consultant supporting all aspects of research and analysis tasks through the lifecycle of a project. She worked as a researcher at the Health Quality Council for 15 years, using Saskatchewan’s administrative data to conduct health services research. In 2015, she joined the Canadian Network of Observational Drug Effect Studies team as a researcher and was the Saskatchewan Site Lead from 2018 to 2022. In 2023, she joined the Saskatchewan Coroners Service as a community coroner, seeking to see the front-line reality of the information captured in databases. She currently works for the Public Health Agency of Canada as a Public Health Officer in Substance-related Harms and Public Health Death Investigation. Dr. Quail holds a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy and a Master of Science in Community Health and Epidemiology from the University of Saskatchewan, and a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University.

Beliz Açan Osman is a senior researcher at the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council supporting informed decision-making grounded in evidence and real-world needs, and using health and health services data to accelerate improvement in health and health care throughout Saskatchewan. Beliz guides research teams through every aspect of the research process, from data access to the establishment of analytical methodologies and development of study protocols. She also focuses on contributing to the foundational work around improving the infrastructure needed for research. Beliz has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Bilkent University and a Master of Arts in Economics, with a specialization in health economics, from the University of Saskatchewan. Prior to HQC, she served as the Co-lead, Data and Data Services Platform of the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research.

About the Series:

The Big IDEAs About Health Data Speaker Series features a variety of experts discussing how data can be used to advance health equity. It aspires to create a space for conversation about whether and how data can be used to advance equity in Canada; specific uses of and guidelines for the use disaggregated data (sex and gender, race and ethnicity, disability, income, housing, language etc.); and advancements in data research practices and methods that embed inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility in algorithms, distributed analytics, community involvement and equity assessment tools.

PLEASE NOTE: This presentation is in English. The webinar will be recorded and posted on hdrn.ca.