POPCORN Welcomes Dr. Olivier Drouin as Network Director

POPCORN is pleased to welcome Dr. Olivier Drouin as the platform’s new Network Director, following the leadership of founding Network Director Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh.

In his new role, Dr. Drouin will continue to build on the strong foundation established under Dr. Quach-Thanh’s leadership. POPCORN extends our gratitude to Dr. Quach-Thanh for her vision and leadership in building a national collaborative platform that connects researchers, clinicians, and institutions across the country, aiming to advance pediatric and maternal research infrastructure. POPCORN is thrilled to wish Dr. Quach-Thanh all the very best as she takes on her new role as Quebec’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with her in her new capacity as a valued knowledge user.

Dr. Drouin is a clinician-scientist in General Pediatrics at CHU Sainte-Justine in Montréal, and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Université de Montréal. He has actively been involved in POPCORN as Co-Lead of the Knowledge Mobilization Pillar, where he first brought his extensive experience in pediatric research and leadership to the platform. His expertise in inpatient and outpatient general pediatrics, health services research, behavioural sciences, implementation science,  health economics and public health, along with his long-standing commitment to POPCORN and to collaboration across Canada's pediatric research community, will help guide and support POPCORN's next phase of growth and impact as we continue to strengthen connections and drive innovation throughout Canada's pediatric and maternal health research community.

We welcome Dr. Olivier Drouin as our new POPCORN Network Director and look forward to continuing to grow and strengthen our platform under his leadership! We send our deepest thanks to Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh for her outstanding contributions to POPCORN since our inception and congratulate her on her remarkable new role!

POPCORN Awarded CIHR Interim Funding to Advance Child and Maternal Health Research

POPCORN is proud to announce that we’ve received 2 years of interim funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to continue strengthening child and maternal health research across Canada. This new funding will support ongoing pandemic preparedness, continue to make critical health data accessible, and engage patients and families in research that informs policy and care.

Funds will be used to strengthen POPCORN’s national networks and enhance core data systems, support centralized biostatistics and data management, advance equity, diversity, and inclusion across its projects and teams, and maintain meaningful patient and family engagement.

Launched in 2022, POPCORN has brought together 16 children’s hospitals, maternal health centres, and national research networks to share data and deploy studies more quickly, train researchers, and help doctors, researchers, and policymakers make better decisions.

We would like to thank and congratulate everyone whose work led to the success of this grant funding!

Congratulations to Dr. Patricia Li and the REIaL-P Research Team!

The Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous identity and Language preference for Pediatric research in the hospital setting (REIaL-P) research project has been awarded a one-year project grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and will be led by several POPCORN platform members, including Drs. Patricia Li, Samina Ali, Ananya Banerjee, Brett Burstein, Matthew Carwana, Evelyn Constantin, Olivier Drouin, Jessica Foulds, Gabrielle Freire, April Kam, Christina Maratta, Nathalie Orr-Gaucher, Shazeen Suleman, and Gita Wahi.

In the United States, research shows that children’s hospital care and health outcomes are not the same for everyone. They often differ depending on a child’s race, ethnicity, Indigenous identity, or language (REIaL). In Canada, there isn’t much known about these differences because this kind of information isn’t usually collected. Without it, health providers and researchers can’t fully understand or address racism and discrimination in children’s health care.

This study will work directly with youth and parents to create a safe and respectful way to collect REIaL information (called REIaL-P). Together, the team will:

• Learn how REIaL factors affect children’s health care experiences, including decision-making with doctors, use of hospital services, and safety events.

• Listen to youth and parents from different REIaL backgrounds about their experiences in hospitals and emergency departments.

• Partner with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Parent and Youth Advisory Boards to help design the project, guide the research, and share results.

They will involve families from seven children’s hospitals across Canada and use what they learn to help improve health care for all children and reduce unfair differences in care.

Congratulations to the entire REIaL-P research team!

POPCORN Conference 2025: Thank You

This year’s annual POPCORN conference took place in beautiful Montréal from May 22-23, 2025, bringing together more than 100 attendees - both in person and online - from across Canada. Each year, this event serves as a valuable opportunity for our platform to reconnect, network, share progress, spark new ideas, and reflect on the year’s achievements. 

Over two energizing days, we heard updates on current and upcoming POPCORN and affiliated projects, celebrated the impact of our collective work, and engaged in thoughtful discussions on what’s next for our platform. Highlights included compelling keynotes from world-renowned experts, insightful project presentations, and meaningful opportunities for collaboration and networking. 

To view a collection of photo highlights to celebrate the event, check them out on our Conference page. We also have conference recordings coming soon to our website – stay tuned! 

We welcome ongoing collaboration. If you have a project idea you’d like to share with the POPCORN team, please fill out our Project Request Form.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this year’s event such a success! We look forward to seeing you again at our next conference – stay tuned for details in winter 2025. 

New Youth-Led Publication: Now Available

A powerful new article is now available in the Journal of Patient Experience, “Informing Eating Disorder Support Through Lived Experience”.

Written by youth patient partners engaged through POPCORN, this publication explores how disruptions to daily routines and challenges within the health system during the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to rising eating disorder hospitalizations. Their lived experience offers important insights for improving care and highlights the value of youth voices in research, treatment, and policy.

You can read the full article here!

Congratulations to Samantha H. Irwin, Abigail McCluskey, Sunny Y. Dong, Isra Amsdr, Anne Marie Portelli, Carla Southward, Britt Udall, Francine Buchanan, Matt Carwana, Nadia Roumeliotis, and the POPCORN Executive Committee on this publication!

Congratulations to Dr. Samina Ali for her award in the 2024 IHDCYH Talks competition!

POPCORN is pleased to announce that Dr. Samina Ali, our Emergency Medicine Pillar Lead from the University of Alberta, has received special commendations in the 2024 IHDCYH Talks competition! Dr. Ali earned these commendations for her submission in the infographic category, "Just the Facts for Families: Intranasal Fentanyl".  

We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Ali and all of this year's awardees!

You can view all of the winning submissions on the CIHR website here.

Shared Knowledge Supports Further Research and Call to Action in Support of Proposed Online Harms Act (Bill C-63)

We’re so proud of Dr. Nadia Roumeliotis and the Indirect Consequences team for their recently published articles on hospitalization rates related to mental health conditions during pandemic periods and the relationship between stringency measures and eating disorder admissions.  A special thank you to the youth and parent partners recruited from across Canada to provide insights on eating disorder-related hospitalizations during the COVID-19 pandemic and help interpret the results. The shared experiential knowledge supported the research and helped inform a Free to Be Safe call to action in support of Canada's proposed Online Harms Act (Bill C-63).  Stay tuned for a commentary written by the youth partners on the data from the published studies and recommendations for policymakers, researchers, and clinicians to support youth with eating disorders in Canada.

Indirect Consequences Project Team Publish Findings in JAMA Network Open and JAMA Pediatrics

The Pediatric Outcome ImProvement through Coordination of Research Networks (POPCORN) has published their latest research findings in JAMA Network Open on mental health hospitalizations of children and youth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings then led the team to evaluate the relationship between hospital admissions for eating disorders and public health restrictions; published in JAMA Pediatrics.

You can learn more on the Indirect Consequences Publications page.

POPCORN 2.0: A $16 million investment to prepare a better response to a future pandemic

We are happy to announce that our next phase, POPCORN 2.0, has been funded! This second phase will be led by Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh and the team at CHU Ste. Justine, and was made possible with $16 million in new funding from the Canadian government, through the Canada Biomedical Research Fund

You can read the full article here.

CIHR-IHDCYH and NICHD Webinar

You can now watch recordings of the “Understanding the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Promoting Health Equity Among Children, Adolescents, and Families in Canada and the United States” webinar that was held on October 25, 2023. This training session highlights research that has identified what worked well to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, adolescents and families, while also recognizing the serious and negative consequences of the pandemic.

You can find the full recording here.

CURNLS Project Launch!

We are thrilled to announce that COVID-19 seroepidemiology in children Using Retrieved POPCORN site Leftover Samples (CURNLS) project launched on Feb 1, 2023!

COVID-19 Study Launch!

We are excited to announce that the POPCORN COVID-19 Platform Prospective Cohort Study was officially launched on January 18, 2023!

Platform Annual Conference
May 3-4, 2023

The first POPCORN Annual Conference has been scheduled for May 3-4 in Toronto. This will be an opportunity for POPCORN collaborators to discuss the progress to date and the future of POPCORN. For more information about the conference, please contact POPCORN@micyrn.ca. 

$6.7 million to study the impacts of COVID-19 on children

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was in Montreal on April 26 to announce a new investment of 6.7 million dollars by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The investment will create a Canada-wide research platform to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people. Minister Duclos said the platform will allow researchers in pediatric centres across the country to monitor COVID-19 infections, vaccination, and the social impact of the disease on children and youth. 

Read the full news story at:
McGill - Department of Pediatrics
McGill University Health Centre

Feds invest $6.7 million on research platform looking at impact of COVID-19 on youth

The federal government is investing $6.7 million on a Canada-wide research platform to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on children.

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters today in Montreal the platform will involve researchers at 16 Canadian institutions.

Read the full news story at:
City News
Global News

Pediatric Outcome Improvement through Coordination of Research Networks (POPCORN)

Since March 2020, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) have invested more than $320 million in research to support the Government of Canada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes funding for research aimed at examining and mitigating the impacts of the pandemic on children, youth and families.