In a third research area beside the governance of postsecondary campus policies and the scope of autoimmunity adverse events from the COVID-19 vaccines, RECOVER19 co-PI Dr. Claudia Chaufan also started a mixed-methods study “Examining the impact of healthcare sector Covid-19 policies on access to care in Ontario, Canada“. Details on the study’s context, research questions, methods, and significance were publicly registered with the Center for Open Science.
From late 2020/early 2021, Canadian hospitals launched vaccination campaigns targeting healthcare workers. Shortly thereafter, adverse event reports for the mRNA vaccines started accumulating. The study’s problem statement suggests that some healthcare workers were aware of potential safety signals from pharmacovigilance systems, other vaccine safety data, and early research studies, and therefore decided to forgo vaccination. This research explores how subsequent workplace mandates may have affected the healthcare labor force.
Dr. Chaufan poses the following main research question along with ancillary questions:
- What has been the impact of healthcare sector Covid-19 policies on access to care in Ontario, Canada?
- What is known from publicly accessible governmental data (e.g., Ontario Health’s databases) and Freedom of Information Requests (FOIR) from government and hospitals, about the impact of the Covid-19 vaccine mandates on the healthcare labour force, specifically staff reductions?
- What is known about the implications of this impact for access to care in the province?
- What is the rationale informing the current policy of ongoing vaccine mandates for new and existing staff?
- What are the views and lived experience of Canadian health workers concerning the crisis in the health labour force?
The aim of the study can be summarized as “to document and explain an under researched aspect of the drivers of the health crisis, specifically the impact of healthcare sector Covid-19 policies, on access to care in Ontario.” Dr. Chaufan employs a mixed-methods approach, which broadly refers to combining qualitative and quantitative research techniques. In this case, the study will include a “narrative literature review, policy analysis, FOIA investigation, survey of healthcare workers, and interview of a sample of workers from within survey respondents.”
The registration document concludes as follows:
The Covid-19 crisis has resulted in a severe understaffing of hospitals across Ontario, compounding the problems of lack of experienced health workers and staff burnout. To the best of our knowledge, there is no research into what led to the policy decision to terminate experienced, healthy unvaccinated health workers, a decision ongoing to this day. By summarizing extant evidence, identifying information gaps, surveying the health workforce, and gaining a deeper understanding of the lived experience within this workforce our research should contribute to more effective and equitable policies in the health sector moving forward, relevant not only to the province of Ontario but potentially throughout Canada.
RECOVER19 