Citizen partners

The COVID-END citizen partners bring the voices of citizens to ensure their perspectives are woven into COVID-END’s work, along with those of researchers, providers, policymakers and other stakeholders. Citizen partners are making a significant contribution to COVID-END by:

  1. identifying (and prioritizing) issues to be addressed along the full spectrum of decisions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and response (i.e., public-health measures, clinical management, health system arrangements, and social and economic responses)
  2. ensuring that new evidence syntheses (e.g., living systematic reviews) being conducted address questions and outcomes that are important to them and involve citizens in their work
  3. ensuring that the pandemic response will reflect the values and insights of citizens, as well as equity considerations
  4. providing strategic guidance to the work of COVID-END global and COVID-END in Canada.

Citizen partners are actively engaged in:

  1. the COVID-END global partner steering group
  2. the COVID-END in Canada’s secretariat, steering committee, and collaborators’ group
  3. the COVID-END global and Canadian horizon-scanning panels
  4. four of the COVID-END global working groups (Prioritizing, Accessing, Engaging, and Advocating)
  5. the COVID-END global Equity task group
  6. the Citizen Partnership task group, which engages COVID-END global citizen partners 
  7. rapid synthesis work, including the production of plain-language summaries. 

The list of citizen partners is provided below. 

COVID-END global

  • Brian Stafford (Australia) 
  • Cynthia Lisée (Canada) 
  • Elizabeth Opondo (Kenya) 
  • Euphrasia Ebai-Atuh Ndi (Cameroon) 
  • Janice Tufte (United States) 
  • Jenny Camaradou (United Kingdom) 
  • Lynn Laidlaw (Scotland, former partner) 
  • Maureen Smith (Canada) 
  • Phil Collis (United Kingdom) 
  • Richard Ballerand (United Kingdom) 
  • Toby Stewart (Canada) 

COVID-END in Canada 

Twenty-two citizen partners are contributing to the CIHR-funded COVID-END in Canada initiative (December 2020 to November 2021) and collaborating with research teams on evidence-synthesis products.

  • Abu Boakai Dukuly (Manitoba) 
  • Alies Maybee (Ontario) 
  • Alison Irons (Ontario) 
  • Amanda Doherty-Kirby (Prince Edward Island) 
  • Annie-Danielle Grenier (Québec) 
  • Blake Hawkins (British Columbia) 
  • Cynthia Lisée (Québec) 
  • Émilie Rufray (Québec) 
  • Eva Waldona (British Columbia) 
  • Janet Gunderson (Saskatchewan) 
  • Johanne O'Malley (Québec) 
  • Juanita Garcia (Manitoba) 
  • Juanna Ricketts (Nova Scotia) 
  • Judy Porter (Nova Scotia) 
  • Kimberly Strain (British Columbia) 
  • Laurie Proulx (Ontario) 
  • Linda Wilhem (New Brunswick) 
  • Maureen Smith (Ontario) 
  • Natasha Trehan (Ontario) 
  • Sandra Moroz (New Brunswick) 
  • Therese Lane (Ontario) 
  • Toby Stewart (Ontario)