Cardiovascular research chair first for Atlantic region

Halifax, NS – Dr Jafna Cox, a noted cardiologist at Capital Health, director of research at the Division of Cardiology at Dalhousie Medical School, and long time Heart and Stroke Foundation funded researcher, has been named the inaugural chair holder of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia Chair in Cardiovascular Outcomes Research.

The chair is the first such research position in cardiovascular health in the Atlantic region, and is being funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia, Fred and Elizabeth Fountain, Marjorie Fountain and the late Sheldon Fountain, and the QEII Foundation.

“Nova Scotia faces many challenges over the next several years,” said Dr Cox. “Simply put, relative to much of the rest of Canada, we are burdened with higher rates of cardiovascular disease, a more rapidly aging population, and steeper health care costs. We need to begin to entrench health promotion, risk reduction strategies, and prevention methods. But we also need to become more innovative in the delivery of care, and any new approaches should be planned and assessed through the sort of inter-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder knowledge translation, effectiveness and outcomes research that this Province has proven we can conduct as well or better than anywhere else. Thus, whatever cardiovascular health care challenges are looming, we should see them as potential research opportunities to develop the means by which we, and others, can best meet them.”