IPPH Moving Forward Report

Dear colleagues,

I am happy to announce the release of the CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health report, ‘Moving Forward from the COVID-19 Pandemic: 10 Opportunities for Strengthening Canada’s Public Health Systems‘,which summarizes the discussions and ideas that emerged from our collaborative Spring 2021 community dialogue series. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this dialogue series was held for several reasons – to collect thoughts about priorities about the future of Canada’s public health systems from the public health community, to bring public health actors together to work towards a shared vision, and to inform IPPH’s refreshed strategic plan which will be released in 2022.

Our Moving Forward report highlights the challenges facing Canada’s public health systems and outlines 10 key opportunities for action that seeks to address these challenges. The 10 opportunities for action are: 1) advance equity, 2) increase investment, 3) create governance structures, 4) align globally, 5) define standards, 6) revisit core competencies, 7) build evidence, 8) ensure adaptability, 9) strengthen community partnerships, and 10) link research and practice. This report is intended to be a summary of the discussions as a starting point to much work still to be done. Of course, issues facing public health extend beyond what we heard from the 400 dialogue participants at any one time.

I hope that this report is useful for researchers considering the evidence gaps that need to be filled to activate on opportunities, for institutions collaboratively working towards a shared vision, and for decision-makers who are determining how to rebuild and reinforce our vital public health systems as we collectively work to improve our systems and advance public health.

While we have not quite reached the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to COVID-19, like many of our partners, IPPH has used the last nine months to take stock of our successes and shortfalls to help determine what comes next so that we can continue to improve health outcomes and health equity. The Moving Forward report is one of several outputs from this process. In the next few months, we will also release an Impact Report which measures the progress IPPH has made on our current strategic plan. Finally, in mid-2022 we will release our refreshed strategic plan. I look forward to sharing more with you over the coming months and will keep you updated on all of IPPH’s work.

Best,

Steven

Steven J. Hoffman JD PhD LLD | @shoffmania
Scientific Director, CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health
Director, Global Strategy Lab, and
Professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science, York University

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