About the CBITN
The importance and need for generating capacity to develop effective behavioural interventions extends well-beyond pandemics. Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, COPD, diabetes, and obesity, have been responsible for 88% of deaths in Canada. This has led to major investments in pharmacological, genetic and surgical medicine to find effective treatments and cures.
Despite these investments, discoveries have not translated into significant decreases in NCD prevalence nor reduced their socioeconomic burden. In fact, NCD prevalence is actually increasing rather than decreasing, costing the Canadian economy more than $200 billion annually. This is due to the fact that the major underlying causes of most NCDs are not biological factors, but harmful human behaviours (e.g., medication non-adherence, poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking) that are poorly addressed by biomedical approaches.
With funding support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the CBITN is a unique platform designed to leverage the recent rapid innovations in behavioural intervention-based clinical trial designs, the mounting evidence demonstrating the efficacy of behavioural interventions, and the breadth and depth of behavioural clinical trials expertise within Canada and further enhance Canada’s capacity to develop, test, and implement innovative, evidence-based, effective behavioural interventions in clinical medicine and public health.
At the core of initiative will be a funded cohort of highly skilled postdoctoral fellows and graduate students (i.e., mentees), who will receive specialised training in the development, testing and delivery of behavioural interventions using innovative approaches and trial designs. These core skill sets can be applied to a variety of disease areas (infectious, NCDs), at multiple levels (individual, community/public health), and across sectors (industry, not-for-profit, government, and academia). The platform’s innovative training and mentoring program will build upon a number of pre-existing training initiatives and activities, such as those led by some of the CBITN’s scientific leads, notably Dr. Simon Bacon and Dr. Linda Carlson’s CIHR-SPOR Mentoring Chairs and Dr. Kim Lavoie’s Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine, which have resulted in the training of over 20,000 Canadian and international graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early career researchers (ECRs), HCPs (both trainees and practitioners), policy makers, and individuals from industry.
Never before has the field of behavioural medicine (behavioural sciences applied to health) been more relevant to public health and socioeconomic prosperity.
An excellent example of this has been widespread recognition of the key role played by behaviours (such as getting vaccinated, wearing masks, physical distancing) in preventing, managing, and mitigating the health and socioeconomic impacts of pandemics like COVID-19.
Our Vision
To be world leaders in promoting and advancing behaviour change interventions for the purpose of improving the health and quality of life of individuals and communities.
Commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Recruiting diverse, highly qualified individuals is a priority for the CBITN. We will base our practices on the Canada Research Chairs’ EDI best practice guidelines for recruitment, hiring, and retention.
For our competitive opportunities, we will invite applications through a variety of venues and specific efforts will be made to seek out mentees from underrepresented groups as well as from academic institutions outside of the U15. Our EDI committee will help lead production of promotional content and optimize the use of unbiased, non-gendered, inclusive language, with a focus on research interests and skills rather than experience, and specific commitment-to-equity statements will be included. Candidate selection processes will focus on academic excellence through a variety of metrics and candidate alignment with the objectives of the platform, and will value a variety of research and knowledge translation outputs. Quality and relevance of candidate publications will be emphasized over their number. Reviewers will also have completed CIHR’s Unconscious Bias in Peer Review Module and conflicts of interests will be managed using CIHR’s criteria.
Based on Canada’s population, we will aim to meet representative equity targets for our applicant pool for all competitions. Recruitment strategies will be re-evaluated and extended if equity targets are not met and the EDI committee will work closely with reviewers to identify potential sources of bias in the selection process as well as review advertising strategies and make appropriate adjustments.
Mission Statement
Increase the Canadian behavioural medicine community’s capacity to rigorously develop, evaluate, and implement behaviour change interventions and trials.
Offer a comprehensive and accessible leading-edge suite of behavioural interventions and trials training opportunities that are needs-centred, experiential, and skills-driven.
Build capacity for knowledge co-creation, sharing and translation through interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration and networking that extends beyond academia and traditional medical education.
Support a community of practice that fosters innovation, promotes evidence-based practices, and drives the implementation of research into real-world solutions, at the individual, community, system, and policy levels.
Champion a culture of inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility, paying special care to the fundamentally relevant perspectives and contributions of communities and individuals who both historically and currently face barriers in supporting and improving their health and quality of life.
Territorial Acknowledgement
We would like to acknowledge that the Canadian Behavioural Interventions and Trials Network, whose funding is administered by Concordia University and whose administrative team is located at Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur-de-Montréal as part of the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, manages its activities from within institutions located on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we manage our activities. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community.