A research study to better understand the needs of people who use opioids in pregnancy, and children with prenatal opioid exposure, has been approved for data access. Study findings from the Canadian Perinatal Opioid Project will address knowledge gaps and inform tailored preconception and perinatal integrated care to improve maternal and child health outcomes at the population-level.
The study is being led by Andi Camden, Senior Research Associate at the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children and ICES fellow; Astrid Guttmann, Chief Science Officer at ICES, a Pediatrician and Senior Scientist at SickKids, and co-Director of the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children; and Hilary Brown, Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Society and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. The project is funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
“In collaboration with community-based advisory groups, our goal is to develop a national health data system to monitor perinatal opioid use (e.g., analgesics, medications for opioid use disorder, unregulated opioid use) and investigate the impact of perinatal opioid use on maternal and child health in Canada,” says Dr. Camden.
This health data system will enable monitoring the incidence of opioid use in pregnancy and first-year postpartum over time from 2013 onwards, overall and by characteristics of interest, including geography, opioid type (e.g., analgesics, medications for opioid use disorder, unregulated), and specific subgroups with high rates of opioid use (e.g., with specific comorbidities such as disability, chronic disease, mental illness) across 5 provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan).
Important social determinants of health of people with perinatal opioid use will be examined, along with health outcomes among people with vs. without perinatal opioid use.
Long-term developmental outcomes among children (with vs. without prenatal opioid exposure) will also be investigated, including: preventive health care access; risk of developmental disorders; eye health; and developmental vulnerability identified in routine kindergarten-entry.
PopData will link health and demographic administrative data for the BC component of the project. This includes data sets from the BC Ministry of Health, the BC Perinatal Data Registry, the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and the Human Early Leaning Partnership. These data will be shared through the Canadian Perinatal Opioid Project Dashboard available at: www.CPOProject.ca/Dashboard
For more information on the Canadian Perinatal Opioid Project, visit: www.CPOProject.ca, or see the project protocol at: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/8/e103160.
The project used Health Data Research Network Canada’s (HDRN’s) Data Access Support Hub (DASH), designed to streamline and expedite pan-Canadian, multi-jurisdictional research.
