Gavin Tansley

Background

Gavin Tansley completed his undergraduate studies and medical training at the University of British Columbia before moving to the opposite coast for General Surgery residency at Dalhousie University. There Gavin completed two years of postgraduate clinical training before entering the Clinician Investigator Program. Within this program Gavin completed a Masters of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as well as a Masters of Medical Research based at Dalhousie University. His research focuses on using geospatial methods to understand the influence of spatial factors on the care of injured patients in both high and low-income settings.

Research Summary

Trauma is one of the leading contributors to the burden of disease in Canada, accounting for nearly 15,000 deaths and $20 billion in healthcare expenditures annually. Several studies have previously confirmed that timely care at designated, high volume trauma centers has a positive impact on this disease burden by reducing trauma-related mortality. However, concentrating resources at discrete geographic locations has the unintended consequence of reducing the accessibility of these resources for subsets of the population. This may have significant implications for trauma system design, but currently the relationship between trauma care accessibility and outcome is poorly understood.

Using geospatial statistical methods to combine population-based trauma registries with injury and hospital locations, Gavin’s research attempts to clarify the relationship between access to trauma care and outcomes. Ultimately this research aims to identify populations with the poorest access to trauma care as well as the subsets of the injured population who are most significantly affected by poor access to care. Gavin’s studies involve both high- and low-income settings, and he hopes the results of his research will inform the structure and design of the trauma systems he studies.