Mandate
The National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health (NCCDH), one of the six National Collaborating Centres for Public Health (NCCPH), is developing a distinctive niche to assist public health organizations and practitioners learn about and use evidence to better address determinants of health to advance health equity.
Goals
- Synthesize, translate and exchange evidence-based knowledge to support public health practitioners and policy makers.
- Identify gaps in the use of evidence in public health practice and policy making.
- Develop and strengthen partnerships and intersectoral collaborations to address the determinants of health in order to address health equity.
- Strengthen capacity through networks of public health practitioners, policy-makers and researchers in determinants of health.
Work to Date
- Conducted a comprehensive national environmental scan on the determinants of health for public health practice, programs and policy. The environmental scan, Integrating Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity into Canadian Public Health Practice: Environmental Scan 2010, is available in English and French at http://www.nccdh.ca/ and http://www.ccnds.ca/.
- Recruited and hired new Scientific Director: Connie Clement.
- Initiated identification of organizations and individuals who champion public health interventions regarding social determinants of health and health equity. The electronic resource will be translated in 2011-12 and released in both languages.
Current Activities 2011-2012
- Produce practice-oriented ‘implication' introductions to key reports and newly published research to help practitioners understand application possibilities of new knowledge.
- Build mechanisms to increase knowledge exchange between researchers and practitioners, among practitioners. We will develop a new e-enabled learning community, update our website to function more as a portal and use webinars and social media more.
- Adapt a Pan American Health Organization online course about social determinants of health for Canada.
- Undertake rapid reviews about evidence-informed strategies identified in 2010 that can be effectively implemented by regional/local health departments.
- Deliver presentations and workshops. This includes co-delivering a full-day session at CPHA about the strategies named immediately above and about recent research on how to communicate with diverse populations about determinants of health.
- Undertake an applied learning project to analyse best-available practices to report population health in ways that better illuminate health inequities and suggest possible policy directions.
- Scan literature and expert opinion to better understand leadership enablers and barriers and present intervention considerations to support public health leaders to escalate health equity gains.
Host
St. Francis Xavier University
Contact Information
National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health
St. Francis Xavier University
P.O. Box 5000
Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5
Phone: 902-867-5406
Fax: 902-867-6130
email: nccdh@stfx.ca
www.nccdh.ca