Dr. Alyson Mahar has received the Vanier Institute’s Colonel Russell Mann Military Family Health Research Award for her work on mental health services use in older dependents and spouses of service personnel in the Canadian Armed Forces. The award, which recognizes high-quality Canadian research that contributes to our understanding of military and veteran family health, was presented at the 8th annual conference of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR), held this year in Toronto in partnership with the 2017 Invictus Games.
Dr. Mahar, an ICES post-doctoral trainee, notes, “My co-investigators and I support the children, youth and partners of Canadian Armed Forces members by leveraging routinely collected healthcare data at ICES and increasing the amount of information available to policy makers and service providers. The CIMVHR provides a direct line of communication between our team and leadership in the Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services, Military Family Services and Military Family Resource Centres across the country to enable both evidence-based decision-making and the development of policy-relevant research questions.”
L to R: Dr. Heidi Cramm, Interim Co-Scientific Director of CIMVHR and past year winner of the award; Alyson Mahar; Nora Spinks, CEO of the Vanier Institute of the Family; Colonel (Retired) Russell Mann