Meet the 2026 PREPPP Award Winners

Before the grant, the groundwork

Many of the biggest decisions in a research project get made before a grant application is even submitted: what questions to ask, who classifies as an expert, what success looks like. By the time patients or community members are invited to the table, those decisions are often already set.

CHI’s Preparing for Research by Engaging Public and Patient Partners (PREPPP) award exists to change that order. It funds a planning stage where patients, families, and communities are invited into a project before the formal grant gets written. Their priorities help shape the research question.

This year, CHI is funding five projects, each built around a different group of people with unique needs and perspectives. Team members from each project gathered on September 22, 2026 to celebrate the funding news, learn more about CHI and PREPPP, and understand their next steps.

Supporting families after a sudden hospitalization

When a loved one is unexpectedly admitted to the hospital, care teams focus on the patient while family members can be left to manage the fallout on their own. While some supports exist for families of patients in the intensive care unit, this support is not always available across the hospital.

Dr. Asha Pereira, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba’s College of Nursing, will use her PREPPP award to build a Family Advisory Group. Through sharing circles and regular meetings, the group will guide how future research and hospital supports address the needs of families thrust into a caregiving role.

Partnering with firefighters on mental health research

Firefighters and other first responders face repeated trauma on the job. Workplace culture and stigma can make it hard to ask for help even when supports exist.

Dr. Pamela Holens, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba’s Department of Clinical Health Psychology, along with co-applicant Dr. Shay-Lee Bolton, PhD, will use their award to formalize a partnership with a peer support group started by Manitoba firefighters in response to the loss of a colleague to suicide. Through PSP RISE, group members will help set the priorities for future mental health research with the goal of creating outcomes that reflect the needs of Manitoba firefighters.

Opening a youth mental health council in ceremony

Winner of the Dr. Wattamon Srisakuldee Memorial PREPPP Award.¹

Young Indigenous people face disproportionate risk related to mental health concerns and substance use. This risk is linked to a legacy of colonization that traditional research doesn’t account for.

Dr. Tamara Taillieu, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba’s College of Community and Global Health, along with Dr. Amani Hamad, are building a Youth Advisory Council of eight young people with lived experience of depression, anxiety, or substance use. Using an Indigenous approach to gathering, the group will help provide much needed direction for future programs and research. In contrast to typical academic meetings, the group won’t begin with an agenda; rather, they will open with a land-based ceremony. This deliberate choice aims to ground the council’s work in Indigenous protocol before it sets research priorities.

Building a patient advisory group for recurrent yeast infections

Recurrent yeast infections affect daily life in ways that rarely get discussed and. access to specialist care in Manitoba isn’t consistent: people in rural areas or with lower incomes often struggle to get the right care.

Drs. Penelope Kahn and Aleeza Gerstein will use their funds to form a cross-Manitoba Patient Advisory Group of people with lived experience of recurrent infections. The group will choose the research questions, shape the study design, and decide how results get shared. Their efforts will help the team better understand where care breaks down across the province.

Reconnecting ceremony, medicine, and Indigenous knowledge systems

Colonization disrupted Indigenous Peoples’ relationships to land, ceremony, and traditional knowledge. Access to sacred medicines—particularly for those living in urban centres—has historically been limited.

Jacqueline (Jack) Avanthay Strus, on behalf of the Rematriation Pathways Collective, will use the PREPPP funds to bring together Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and community members in research circles to talk through barriers to accessing sacred medicines and priorities for future work. The project will treat the conversations themselves as a form of research, the results of which will inform CIHR funding applications guided by the principles of healing and self-determination.

Five projects, one starting point

Different topics, different communities, same starting point: the people most affected by a research question get to craft the question and guide the research.

Congratulations to this year’s PREPPP award recipients. We’re looking forward to seeing where this early groundwork leads.