At Nova Scotia Health, research is care. Not only does it drive better treatments, and advance medical knowledge, it helps shape the future of health care. With approximately 600 clinical research professionals supporting more than 1,500 active studies at any given time, many dedicated teams are focused on improving health outcomes for Nova Scotians.
But to succeed, researchers need funding. In Canada, research funding can come from various organizations, including federal agencies such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, provincial and territorial governments, post-secondary institutions, industry and non-profit organizations. Other federal sources include the National Research Council and various economic development agencies.
Through the Nova Scotia Health Research Fund — an annual competition designed to strengthen research capacity and ignite new opportunities across disciplines and institutions — Nova Scotia Health continues to invest in the future of care.
This year, four researchers have received funding to advance four exciting new projects.
Prebiotic Intervention to Support Cognitive Health
Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, a clinician scientist, has taught at Dalhousie University since 1991 and practices at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre.
A leading authority on frailty, he has more than 600 peer-reviewed publications and nine books to his credit. He has extensive collaborations internationally, including work on younger people with frailty in the UK, a deprescribing clinical trial, an intergenerational dementia prevention trial, and a large multi-center study of frailty, all in Australia.
Dr. Rockwood has recently completed a clinical trial of UVC light to prevent viral respiratory infections at three nursing homes in Nova Scotia. He is also working with Cape Breton University on healthy aging and dementia prevention.
About the project:
Researchers have recently discovered that gut bacteria play an important role in our overall health, including brain health and conditions like late-life dementia.
Prebiotics can support better gut function, which may in turn support the brain.
In 2024, Dr. Mary Ni Lochlainn and her team at King’s College London found that giving older adults a powdered prebiotic and protein supplement for three months improved their brain health.
Now, Dr. Rockwood’s team plans to test this finding in a group of older adults who, on average, have more memory and thinking problems than those in their original study. If similar improvements are observed, this could offer a low-cost way to support memory health, potentially cheaper than many new drug treatments. If successful, it will set the stage for a larger follow-up study, which is needed to prove the treatment works widely.
This project is the essential first step to research like this, because to receive support for a large, multi-site trial, he must first show the treatment can work in a small group.
In this study, older adults with existing memory problems will take either a protein supplement plus a mix of prebiotics or a protein supplement plus a placebo that looks and tastes identical but contains no prebiotic. People will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups.
Before and after the twelve-week treatment, participants’ brain function will be measured and they’ll be asked to set personal goals and at the end of the study, those goals will be measured.
Expanding Access to Stereotactic Radiotherapy in Rural and Underserved Communities in Nova Scotia: An Evaluation of Clinical and System Outcomes
Dr. Aba Scott is a dedicated radiation oncologist with extensive experience in modern radiotherapy techniques for cancer treatment. She pursued advanced training at the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and later at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, specializing in advanced radiotherapy treatment techniques, and image-guided and interstitial needle brachytherapy techniques for gynecological malignancies. She is currently a radiation oncologist at the Cape Breton Cancer Centre, and an assistant professor with Dalhousie university.
As a dedicated educator, she has mentored numerous residents, fellows, and healthcare professionals, contributing significantly to human resource development in cancer care. Her research focuses on global oncology, health disparities and health economics.
Dr. Scott has received notable awards, including the ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation Award, the 2021 Princess Margaret Global Oncology Award, the Gardner/Holt Women’s Health 2023 award, and the 2025 Nova Scotia Research award. Her research work has been published in reputable peer-reviewed journals.
About the project:
People in rural or underserved areas often struggle to access advanced cancer treatments like radiation therapy, which can lead to worse survival outcomes. Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) is a faster, more precise form of radiation therapy with fewer side effects, but many rural patients face delays due to travel, limited services or financial barriers.
These delays matter; rural patients with delayed SABR have a two-year survival rate of 27%, compared to 76% for urban patients.
To improve equity in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Health launched a SABR program at the Cape Breton Cancer Centre in 2020, serving rural communities in Eastern Nova Scotia and reducing long travel time and distance. Prior to this, patients who needed SABR had to travel to Halifax to receive this treatment. The program now treats lung cancer, brain tumours and bone cancer. However, since its inception, its impact on patient-reported outcomes and provider perspectives have not been assessed. Understanding these experiences can help improve rural cancer care in Nova Scotia and beyond.
This study will examine how effective the Cape Breton Cancer Centre SABR program has been by looking at access to care, treatment outcomes and patient experiences. It will also identify and address gaps in the current program to maximize the system-level impact of the SABR program.
This will further strengthen the Cape Breton Cancer Centre as a center of excellence for clinical care, and ensure access to fair, high-quality cancer treatment no matter where patients live.
The VALUeD-EMS Study: VALidation of an Urgent Dialysis Prediction tool in EMS
Dr. Patrick Fok is an Associate Professor in Dalhousie University’s Department of Emergency Medicine, Emergency Medical Services. He is an emergency physician at the Halifax Infirmary, a Medical Communications Centre physician for Emergency Health Services, and a transport physician for EHS LifeFlight.
Dr. Fok obtained his PhD in Experimental Medicine at McGill University. He is the Nova Scotian provincial co-lead for the Canadian COVID-19 Emergency Department Rapid Response Network and the Canadian Emergency Department Research Network.
His research interests lie in prehospital airway management, optimizing prehospital care of vulnerable populations, and non-opioid analgesia. His latest work focuses on improving prehospital transport decisions for stroke patients needing endovascular thrombectomy and for patients with chronic kidney disease. He is the principal investigator of studies evaluating the outcomes of prehospital intubations by Critical Care Transport teams and leads a quality improvement project to encourage the use of femoral nerve blocks as a non-opioid analgesic for hip fracture patients in the emergency department.
About the project
Patients on hemodialysis (a treatment for kidney failure) use prehospital emergency medical services more often than the general population - about 20 times more frequently in Nova Scotia. In many cases, they can be safely treated at hospitals that don’t have dialysis, depending on their medical condition. But some dialysis patients do need timely or urgent dialysis soon after arriving at the hospital.
By knowing which patients are most likely to need timely dialysis, healthcare providers can send them directly to hospitals that are prepared to give them dialysis.
Dr. Fok’s team has created a tool called a Risk Prediction Model that can help identify which dialysis patients are likely to need urgent dialysis after calling 911.
Low oxygen levels and going more than 24 hours without dialysis were strong predictors of needing this life-saving treatment. Early results are promising, but additional validation is needed before the tool can be safely implemented in patient care.
This study will re-test the risk prediction tool using current data from ambulance calls, determine if patient outcomes improve when they are redirected to the right kind of hospital, and its potential to reduce overall health care system costs.
Providing Comprehensive Concussion Care in Nova Scotia Where and When it is Needed
Dr. David Clarke is a Professor within the Departments of Surgery (Neurosurgery & Otolaryngology), Medical Neuroscience, Medicine (Endocrinology), and Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and the former Head of the Division of Neurosurgery, Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Health,
He obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from McGill University and completed his neurosurgical training at the Montreal Neurological Institute where he received the Penfield Award in Neurosurgery. He earned his PhD in neuroscience from McGill University, research that was supported by a Medical Research Council of Canada Fellowship.
Over the past 20 years, traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been a predominant area of focus in both his clinical research and in the laboratory. His interest in TBI from a basic science perspective grew from graduate studies. Earlier in his career, as Director of the Neuron Survival and Regeneration laboratory, he focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal response to injury as well as survival and regeneration of injured neurons. In recognition of this research, he was awarded Dalhousie’s Clinical Research Scholar Award.
More recently, he has focused on clinical research across the full spectrum of traumatic (TBI, from injury prevention to acute care. As Chair of the Division’s weekly TBI rounds, he reviews all admitted cases with the research team for quality assurance and data acquisition. The team has prospectively examined long-term outcomes following moderate and severe TBI and partnered with the Nova Scotia Trauma Program to develop and evaluate mechanisms to expedite tertiary care access, while continuing to advance knowledge translation strategies. Their Head Injury Guideline was the first province/state-wide guideline for pre-hospital TBI management. They are currently collaborating with Dr. Rob Green at Trauma Nova Scotia to examine the provincial epidemiology and economic burden of alcohol use in TBI.
Dr. Clarke has also advocated extensively for TBI services, leading an initiative involving structured post-discharge phone follow-up assessments and patient education. Their nationally recognized TBI prevention program has demonstrated leadership in injury prevention and partnered with a university-based arena to implement Canada’s first all-ages mandatory helmet rule. Findings from their ski hill helmet-use study informed the provincial government’s passage of the world’s first all-ages helmet law for snow sports. In partnership with the RCMP, they developed a bike helmet enforcement program recognized by the Public Health Agency of Canada as a best practice, and they currently collaborate with colleagues in Vancouver on a national program studying drug use in injured drivers.
Dr. Clarke has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles.
About the project:
The goals of this project are twofold: 1) to better understand the rate of concussions in Nova Scotia; and 2) to pilot a novel clinical pathway that provides early management and support for those suffering from concussion. When completed, it is anticipated that it will be a proven model of concussion care that can be applied province wide.
Concussion, a mild traumatic brain injury, is a major health issue; although the exact number of concussions in Nova Scotia is unknown, it’s estimated at thousands each year. These injuries can cause long-lasting problems with thinking, emotions, and daily functioning.
Right now, concussion care in Nova Scotia is fragmented, so it can be difficult for people to find timely, appropriate help. This leads to longer recovery, missed work, strain on families, and pressure on emergency departments and other providers.
This project will begin to address this gap by measuring the size of the problem and by testing a new concussion navigation service.
First, the team will use existing emergency and medical data to estimate how many concussions occur in the province. They will also survey Nova Scotians with lived experience, in partnership with the Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia, to learn about their care needs and the challenges they have faced.
The second part of the project is to pilot a concussion navigator. This coordinator will receive real-time information about patients discharged from local emergency departments and from health care professionals through a web-based referral system.
Within a week, the navigator will contact patients, check symptoms and offer self-management advice. Individuals with ongoing symptoms detected through follow-up assessment will be connected to appropriate and timely community services. This proactive, directed support will ensure all patients will have access to the early advice and care they need and deserve.
In the end, this work will show the true burden of concussion in Nova Scotia and whether a centralized navigator model can improve care. Results from this pilot are intended to guide the creation of a Province-wide concussion care system that has the potential to help thousands recover more effectively.
