Fred Ashbury, PhD, received his doctorate from York University in 1991. Fred holds an Adjunct Professor position in the Division of Psychosocial Oncology, Department of Oncology, University of Calgary. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Ashbury’s research program focuses on supportive care needs, including point-of-care decision support and the psychosocial sequelae at time of cancer diagnosis, during treatment and post-treatment. He has also conducted research in workplace health, including the impact of health conditions, risk factors and organizational factors on absenteeism, presenteeism and productivity. His other patient and population health studies include knowledge, attitudes and practices influencing participation in cancer screening programs, diet interventions, and tobacco control. Fred has also contributed to policy development in environmental exposures, tobacco control, and clinical practice guidelines.
During his career, Fred has held senior positions in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, including managing research and evaluation at the Workers’ Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario, where he focused on behavioural research into the factors influencing occupational disease reporting and evaluation of return-to-work programs and policies. Fred was Associate Director of the Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation at the National Cancer Institute of Canada, where he designed and conducted research and evaluation into patient issues, including survivorship and rehabilitation, and evaluated Canadian Cancer Society programs and services. As Chief Scientific Officer, OptX Corporation, Fred was responsible for the design, implementation and evaluation of physician decision support tools and patient outcomes research, and the development and evaluation of decision-support tools at point-of-care.
At Cancer Care Ontario, Fred served as Scientific Director to establish the Ontario Health Study, a large-scale cohort research platform to investigate the effects of lifestyle, environment and family history on the onset of chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, asthma and Alzheimer’s. At the Alberta Cancer Board, Fred served as the Vice-President of Population Health, a division comprising Surveillance, the Alberta Cancer Registry, Cancer Screening, Population Health, and Population Health Research.
His recent interests in personalized medicine research include knowledge, attitudes and practices of physicians with respect to personalized genetic and genomic testing, and public and patient information needs for effective participation in decisions concerning genetic testing and treatment decision-making. He is co-founder of and Chief Scientific Officer at VieCure, which has developed an artificial intelligence platform and integrated electronic medical record to support clinical decision-making at point-of-care in the oncology setting. Fred is Editor-in-Chief of Supportive Care in Cancer, an international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing high-quality original research and reviews into all aspects of supportive care concerning cancer patients and caregivers. He also serves on the editorial board of other major journals. He has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles and major reports. Fred is a member of the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology (for which he also served as a member of the board for 10 years), the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (and currently as a board member and Chair of the Guidelines Committee), the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the American College of Epidemiology.