Elizabeth Saewyc receives Robert H. DuRant Award

Elizabeth Saewyc, director of the UBC School of Nursing, and other researchers at the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC) have received the Robert H. DuRant Award for Statistical Rigor and Innovation in Adolescent Health Research from the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM).

The SARAVYC team developed an innovative new analytical method that allows population health interventions to be evaluated even when randomized controlled trials — the “gold standard” in establishing the causal effects of treatments and interventions — are not feasible. It does so by drawing causal inferences from repeated cross-sectional data.

Called “Site-level Longitudinal Effects of Population Health Interventions” (SLEPHI), the method was used in a study recently published in Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, where it showed that gay-straight alliances help make schools safer for LGB and heterosexual students the longer those alliances are in place.

Saewyc, who is also a professor at UBC Nursing and executive director of SARAVYC, accepted the award at the 2019 SAHM Annual Meeting, which took place in Washington, DC, between March 6 and 9, 2019.