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What’s New With the OHS?

Since 2010, the Ontario Health Study (OHS) has been working hard to build a platform for chronic disease research. Working together with the research community and Ontarians across the province we are now following the health of about 225,000 people and have collected more than 40,000 blood samples. We’re building a database of health information and a biobank so researchers can better understand the link between genetics, lifestyle and environment—and the role they play in our health.

In this section, you’ll find information about the various Study activities and upcoming initiatives.

Blood tubes in the laboratory centrifuge

CanPath: Canada’s Population Platform for Personalized Medicine

Feb 15, 2022 // Study Updates

The emerging field of personalized medicine, or precision medicine, offers huge potential to help doctors tailor medical treatments to the individual, based on their medical history and personal circumstances. Read how CanPath (and the OHS, as its largest contributor) is helping researchers explore how biology, behaviours, and environmental exposures influence the development of chronic diseases

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Data from 10,000 OHS participants studied for vaccine effectiveness

Feb 8, 2022 // Study Updates

Ontario Health Study investigators merited a $500,000 CIHR operating grant to relate COVID-19 antibody levels to vaccine effectiveness by looking at COVID-19 infection levels, hospitalization rates and deaths in vaccinated OHS participants. They will also assess how immune response to vaccination varies by: Type of vaccine (AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Moderna) including mixed doses Number of

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Machine learning models using OHS data can help detect risk of Acute Myeloid Leukemia years earlier

Dec 2, 2021 // Study Updates

In this 2021 presentation, Kimberly Skead, a PhD student and coordinator of the Canadian Data Integration Centre, and Philip Awadalla, the Executive Director of the Ontario Health Study, provide insight into why some people develop a type of leukemia while others do not, despite an age-related increase in mutations in blood cells in the European

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