Childhood arthritis

Ph.D. candidate Jiahao Tian and Professor Tom Loughin are working on a project concerning childhood arthritis. It is a collaboration with pediatric rheumatologists through Dr. Jaime Guzman at BC Children's Hospital. The overarching goal of the work is to base medical decisions more on managing patients' -- children's -- quality of life (QOL) rather than on purely clinical outcomes. They have taken a deliberate path from understanding what families consider important to trying to predict family and QOL-centred outcomes based on initial measurements of disease severity. They are now trying to determine the causal roles of treatment regimes on QOL and then will try to develop tools to help physicians and families better understand these potential impacts when they make difficult decisions regarding treatment of children. The project has heavy statistical requirements, and the research has become truly collaborative.