Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath)

• Phillip Awadalla, Ph.D.
  Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
• Trevor Dummer, Ph.D.
  University of British Columbia
• John McLaughlin, Ph.D. (Executive Director)
  University of Toronto

Principal Investigators (PIs):

Funded Since: 2008
Funding Source: Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, Genome Canada, Alberta Cancer Foundation, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Genome Quebec, and the Government of Alberta
Year(s) of Enrollment: 2009-2017
Study Website: https://canpath.ca/

The Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) (formerly the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project or CPTP) is a pan-Canadian, longitudinal cohort established to provide researchers with a platform to better identify and understand the links among the many known and unknown risk factors linked to cancers and chronic diseases. Initiated in 2008, CanPath is a unified network of six cohorts across Canada: the BC Generations Project in British Columbia; Alberta's Tomorrow Project in Alberta; the Ontario Health Study in Ontario; CARTaGENE in Quebec; the Manitoba Tomorrow Project in Manitoba; and the Atlantic PATH, which includes Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Labrador.

Cumulatively, CanPath's six regional cohorts represent more than 300,000 individuals aged 30-74 years residing in of one of the nine provinces listed above. Each participant has completed a baseline questionnaire that included information on socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age and sex, country of birth, languages, ethnic background, education, marital/partner status, income, family and household structure, job-related information), cancer screening history, personal and familial history of cancers, personal and familial history of diseases, medication use, reproductive history, lifestyle and health behaviors (e.g., alcohol use, tobacco use, passive smoke exposure, fruit and vegetable intake, sleep patterns, sun exposure, physical activity using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire [IPAQ]) and self-reported physical measures (e.g., height, weight, and waist and hip circumferences).

A subset of more than 90,000 participants have also visited study centres and provided physical measurements that include height, weight, waist and hip circumference, blood pressure, grip strength, and resting heart rate. A range of biological samples have also been collected from the cohort, including non-fasting venous blood samples (> 150,000 participants), urine samples (> 101,000 participants), toenail samples (> 31,000 participants), and saliva samples (> 18,000 participants).

Participants have provided consent to be re-contacted for follow-up data or biosample collection events, for the opportunity to take part in new sub-studies of a particular focus, and for passive follow-up through linkage with their provincial health administrative data.

CanPath's central Access Office welcomes all queries from researchers. Controlled access will be managed with the support of an independent Access Committee. The interactive online CanPath portal allows researchers to browse the CanPath data dictionaries and facilitates electronic submission of Access Applications, as well as tracking of the access process. Researchers who wish to access CanPath resources do not have to be formally affiliated with CanPath investigators.