You are here: Welcome » Beate Sander

Beate Sander

Dr. Beate Sander, RN, MBA, MEcDec, PhD, is a Canadian infectious disease economist based in Toronto, Ontario, with expertise in health economics and simulation modeling. She is notable in the COVID-19 pandemic due to her role on the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.

She contributes substantively to federal/provincial policy decision-making, serving as an expert to national and international advisory bodies.

Education

Sander has studied at several institutions internationally:1)

Affiliations

University of Toronto

Beate is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.2)

University Health Network

Sander is the Director of Population Health Economics Research (PHER) at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute under University Health Network.3)

National Advisory Committee on Immunization

Sander is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), where she also chairs the Economics Task Group and co-chairs the Economic Guidelines Task Group. She receives reimbursement to attend NACI meetings, and acknowledges this role presents a conflict of interest with her work on the OST (including regarding COVID-19 vaccines).4)

Society for Medical Decision Making

Sander is an active member of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM), where she was elected as President.5) She had served as Vice President in 2017-2018.6) She participated in a December 26, 2020 webinar in which she delivered a talk titled “Ensemble Modelling to Inform COVID-19 Policy Response”.7) 8)

She is also on the editorial board of the Medical Decision Making journal.9)

Public Health Ontario

Sander is a scientist in Communicable Diseases, Emergency Preparedness and Response at Public Health Ontario.10)

Canadian Centre for Health Economics

Sander is a Faculty Associate at the Canadian Centre for Health Economics (CCHE).11)

THETA Collaborative

Sander is a Scientist and the Director of Population Health Economics Research at Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment Collaborative (THETA), associated with the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute.12)

Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network

Sander is a Scientific Co-Chair of the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network, a project lead by Kieran Moore, Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) for Public Health Ontario.13) The project is funded through the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), and Sander is a co-applicant on the grant.14) 15) She reported no conflicts of interest in a July 9, 2019 disclosure.16)

York University

Sander is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at York University, and a member of the LAboratory of Mathematical Parallel Systems laboratory.17) 18)

Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (2012-current)

In 2012, Sander joined as an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).19)

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2019-present)

On April 1, 2019, Sander became the Canada Research Chair in Economics of Infectious Diseases, affiliated with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the University of Toronto.20) She is principal investigator of several multidisciplinary projects funded by CIHR and other funders, including an evaluation of Zika virus and COVID-19 interventions using computer simulation.

The CIHR has awarded Sander the following grants:

  • 2014-2018: $475,367.00 as co-primary investigator for “Reducing the burden of hospital-associated Clostridium Difficile infections in Canada through optimal prevention policies: A multidisciplinary individual-based modeling approach”21)
  • 2014-2017: $450,000.00 as PI for “The cost-effectiveness of West Nile virus intervention strategies. A computer simulation model.”
  • 2014-2015: $99,000.00 as PI for “Assessing the health and economic burden of Lyme disease using laboratory and health administrative data.” One collaborator is Samir Patel, a co-OST member and Chief of Microbiology at Public Health Ontario.
  • 2014: $15,000.00 as co-PI for “The Cost-Effectiveness of Integrated Cervical Cancer Prevention Strategies in Ontario.”
  • 2013-2016: $474,627.00 as PI for “Estimating longitudinal healthcare cost for infectious diseases using administrative data.”
  • 2013-2015: $45,000.00 as PI for “Assessing the health and economic burden of mycobacterial infections using laboratory and health administrative data.”

Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table (2020-present)

Sander is a member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.22)

Research

Sander's research is focused on “developing economic strategies to evaluate interventions to combat infectious and vector-borne diseases.” She and her team “are addressing challenges in the use of costing data in economic evaluations, the need for disease-specific and comprehensive simulation models, and the broader societal impact of infectious diseases and their interventions.”23)

Additional areas of interest include “Economic evaluation of health care interventions with a focus on public health, decision analysis, health economics, mathematical modeling, use of laboratory, surveillance, and administrative data for economic evaluation, public health, vaccine-preventable diseases”.24)

Vaccines

  • Sander led a 2010 study titled “The Cost-Effectiveness of Ontario’s Universal Influenza Immunization Program”, which she credits as “the first study to provide evidence that a universal program is economically attractive in jurisdictions with influenza epidemiology and health care costs broadly similar to Ontario.”25) The study contributed to the implementation of public health policies around universal flu vaccination in Canada and the United States. Her co-authors include fellow OST member Allison McGeer.
  • She also co-authored “Is a mass immunization program for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 good value for money? Evidence from the Canadian Experience” alongside Allison McGeer and David Fisman, current and former OST comrades. The study concluded that “Ontario’s pandemic H1N1 immunization program was cost-effective as implemented”.26)
  • The benefits of pneumococcal vaccination for seniors: a Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases interdisciplinary project on healthy aging and immunization science27)
    • Funded through ICES by the Connaught Fund for a total of $248,789.00.
  • The epidemiology and economic burden of hepatitis C viral infection in the First Nations population in Ontario
  • The prevention of group B streptococcal (GBS) disease in infants

She has also received funding from the Canadian Immunization Research Network, Ontario Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the World Health Organization.28) 29)

COVID-19

Beate received funding from the Ontario COVID-19 Rapid Research Fund as principal investigator for an “Ontario Together” study titled “Ontario’s Response to COVID-19: Balancing Trade-offs and Improving Outcomes for all Ontarians”.30)

The CIHR provided her a grant as Co-Investigator for “Scalable, Customizable, Digital Health Communication Materials to Help Canada Address the COVID-19 Pandemic” at Witteman Lab.31)

Beate received a grant from the Canadian Cardiovascular Society's COVID-19 Challenge for Canada Initiative for a study titled “Co-Investigator Consequences of delays in cardiac procedures and surgeries due to the COVID-19 pandemic”. Additional funding came from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and ICES.32)

Awards and Recognition

  • Thomas and Edna Naylor Memorial Award, 201233)
    • $1,000 award presented for best paper “Thesis in Health Services and Health Care Research”
  • Lee B. Lusted Student Prize, 2010 for outstanding presentation of research.
    • $500.00 awarded to Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) at the 31th Annual Meeting, Toronto, ON, Canada

Relationships with Pharmaceutical Companies

Sander received unrestricted funding to serve as a consultant to Roche for work on Tamiflu, as well as travel grants and honoraria for speaking at meetings on pandemic influenza mitigation strategies.34)

She also received a $2,500.00 award from Sanofi for Communicable Disease Epidemiology.35)

Media

Sander was interviewed in December 2021 for the Toronto Star on the subject of the Omicron variant.36)

1) , 2) , 21) , 24) , 33) , 35)
Beate Sander. Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation; University of Toronto. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://ihpme.utoronto.ca/faculty/beate-sander/
3) , 18)
Beate Sander. UHN Research. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.uhnresearch.ca/researcher/beate-sander
5)
SMDM 2021 - 22 Officers & Trustees Election Results. (2021). Society for Medical Decision Making. https://archive.ph/O2hul
6)
Introducing the SMDM 2017 - 2018 Officers and Trustees. Society for Medical Decision Making. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/bElb9
7)
Society For Medical Decision Making. (2020, December 6). Lessons to Serve a Growing Purpose of Economic Evaluation in the U.S. in the 2020s. YouTube. https://web.archive.org/web/20220310235022/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mFqVJEOBgg
8)
Distance Learning Educational Events. Society for Medical Decision Making. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/L2MfT
9)
Editorial Board. SAGE Journals. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/D4s0q
10)
Beate Sander - Biography. Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/KaSTz
11)
Associates. Canadian Centre for Health Economics - Centre Canadien En Economie de La Santé. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.canadiancentreforhealtheconomics.ca/about/associates/
12) , 19) , 27)
Beate Sander. Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/uPGNw
13)
Meet The Team. Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/KNI39
14)
Moore, K. (2019, July 29). Disclosure of Conflict of Interest. Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.clydrn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Moore-Kieran.pdf
15)
Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network. Kieran Moore Bio. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.clydrn.ca/the-team-kieran-moore/
16)
Sander, B. (2019). Disclosure of Conflict of Interest Definitions. Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network. https://web.archive.org/web/20210509002642/https://www.clydrn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Sander-Beate.pdf
17)
Members of LAMPS. LAboratory of Mathematical Parallel Systems. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://archive.ph/hWNyW
20) , 23)
Beate Sander. (2021, June 25). Canada Research Chairs. https://archive.ph/HUfd4
22)
About Us. Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/about/#sander-beate
25) , 34)
Sander, B., Kwong, J. C., Bauch, C. T., Maetzel, A., McGeer, A., Raboud, J. M., & Krahn, M. (2010). Economic Appraisal of Ontario’s Universal Influenza Immunization Program: A Cost-Utility Analysis. PLoS Medicine, 7(4), e1000256. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000256
26)
Sander, B., Bauch, C. T., Fisman, D., Fowler, R. A., Kwong, J. C., Maetzel, A., McGeer, A., Raboud, J., Scales, D. C., Gojovic, M. Z., & Krahn, M. (2010). Is a mass immunization program for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 good value for money? Evidence from the Canadian Experience. Vaccine, 28(38), 6210–6220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2010.07.010
30)
Ontario COVID-19 Rapid Research Fund. Government of Ontario. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/I2enS
31)
Parent, E. Scalable, Customizable, Digital Health Communication Materials to Help Canada Address the COVID19 Pandemic. Witteman Lab. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://archive.ph/pVPDW
32)
Tam, D. Y., Qiu, F., Manoragavan, R., Fremes, S. E., Hassan, A., Ko, D. T., Lauck, S. B., Naimark, D., Ouzounian, M., Sander, B., Sun, L., & Wijeysundera, H. C. (2021). The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Cardiac Procedure Wait List Mortality in Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 37(10), 1547–1554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cjca.2021.05.008
36)
Arthur, B. (2021, December 10). Opinion | It’s hard to look this in the eye. But COVID’s worst is coming. The Toronto Star. https://archive.ph/nHfPM
Back to top