The Societal Issues Intake 4 (SOC4) provides an opportunity for researchers to explore and test countermeasures to local challenges of adopting genomics testing in BC’s healthcare system. SOC4 is open to any researcher exploring a qualitative research question. However, expertise in relevant methods is required.
In the past, this program has explored societal issues emerging from genomics-based1 innovations and challenges for adoption. These complement the wider knowledge in the space. Identified adoption challenges include:
- Lack of awareness: Both patients and clinicians need better education about genomic medicine options
- Communication gaps: Patients may not receive culturally appropriate information or understand their options for testing
- Equity of access: Socioeconomic and other factors can limit access to testing
- Addressing distrust: Indigenous peoples and marginalized groups have a history of being exploited in research, leading to a lack of trust in the scientific community
SOC4 aims to support research on exploring identified challenges and potential countermeasures to increase the adoption of genomic testing in BC’s healthcare system.
SOC4 supports three research phases:
- Understanding and appreciation of a known challenge in BC
- Ideation and assessment of countermeasures to a known challenge in BC
- Implementation plan development and piloting of the countermeasure(s) to a known challenge in BC
Although all three phases will be supported, each category has a defined effort allowance (refer to Eligibility guidelines).
1 Genomics is the science that aims to decipher and understand the entire genetic information of an organism (i.e. plants, animals, humans, viruses and microorganisms) encoded in DNA and corresponding complements such as RNA, proteins and metabolites. Broadly speaking, this definition includes related disciplines such as bioinformatics, metabolomics (the study of the metabolite pools of an organism), proteomics (the study of the full or partial set of proteins encoded by a genome) and related areas of research. Surrounding these biological systems, social sciences and humanities research is essential.
