Centre for Health Promotion
University of Toronto
The Banting Institute
100 College Street, Rm 207
Toronto, ON
M5G 1L5
Tel: 416-978-1809
Fax: 416-971-1365
centre.healthpromotion@utoronto.ca

Contents

• Director's Remarks
• News from the Centre's Funded Units
• News from the Health Promotion Summer School
• News from the Centre's Special Projects, Interest Groups and Committees
• Upcoming Events

To subscribe to the email version, contact us at centre.healthpromotion@utoronto.ca.

Director’s Remarks

It is time to reconnect to all of you and let you know what is happening at the Centre for Health Promotion! There are new faces here and some clarity about the mission of the Centre. First of all, I would like to warmly welcome Nora Sellers as my full-time Administrative and Financial Assistant. It has been truly wonderful to have Nora around full-time - a lot of the little things that are so important are finally getting done. Although Nora is replacing Barry McDonald, who is supposed to be retired, Barry has actually not gone yet. I am pleased that he is continuing to be the Business Officer for the Centre part-time over the next six months to a year. At some point, Barry will find something he likes more and he will really retire from the University. A special thanks to Noelle Gadon who helped me out so much part-time over the last couple of years. It was great to have Maria Grant and Teresa Petch join the Centre over the summer on MHSc student practicum placements. I also want to warmly welcome Dr. Weizhen Dong, a sociologist, who is the recipient of the Virchow post-doctoral fellowship supervised by John Frank, Scientific Director of the Institute of Population and Public Health, and me. She will be studying the knowledge transfer process - from research into policy - particularly around issues of equity for vulnerable populations.

The Advisory Board of the Centre has met several times since the last newsletter and we have drafted a mission and work plan for the Centre. Please see the mission statement in this newsletter and let me know if you see any major difficulties with this direction. I am keen to hear from you. The main thrust of the Centre is around knowledge transfer in health promotion, particularly in relation to education, evaluation and research. Our major activities reflect this thrust as well as our commitment to being a community-academic partnership. We have a more streamlined structure which reflects the change in mission and the relocation of several initiatives and individuals. For example, OTRU is in the process of becoming more independent of the Centre while still maintaining close ties.

I will be going forward with a proposal to accredit the annual Health Promotion Summer School this fall, building on our strong continuing education focus. Other proposals that were submitted in September and October were a proposal to CIHR in partnership with the Social Planning Network of Ontario and Health Canada on “Increasing Social Inclusion: Translating Research into Policy Action through Community Engagement,” and a proposal to SSHRC in partnership with the Toronto Community Housing Corporation on “Health Effects of Waiting for Social Housing in Toronto.” These research proposals are great examples of community-academic partnerships on topics with immediate implications for policy. They also both provide many opportunities for student practicum support. I was also a co-applicant on a successful proposal to CIHR to create a Centre for Urban Health Research. The Department of Sociology will have the lead for creating this Centre in collaboration with investigators in Public Health Sciences and the Wellesley Urban Health Corporation.

I have been very busy but very happy and my international work is described later in the newsletter. One of the next activities will be to reach out to all of you and develop more processes to engage more people from the wider community in Centre activities. Please look out for our Annual General Meeting on December 3, 2003 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. I hope to see you there!

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News from the Centre's Funded Units

Latin America

Suzanne has been on a Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) Committee re Evaluating Health Municipalities since 2001. Although the group has stopped meeting, the work has continued. There is a draft of the participatory evaluation resource manual finally available in English for field testing. Suzanne has been in conversation with Lorna Heidenheim of the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition to see whether there is interest in field testing the evaluation manual in a few sites in Ontario. The next step will be to submit a proposal for funding the testing phase.

This has been an active time for the collaborative project between the CHP and the Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Technology in Public Health at the Universidad de Valle in Cali, Colombia funded by the US Centres for Disease Control. This project is developing a conceptual framework and a guidebook for conducting economic evaluations in health promotion initiatives. Meetings were held in April and August in Colombia with health economists from Canada, Colombia and Cuba. The guide is under development and we expect it to be available for field testing in 2004.

Suzanne is in Mexico in October with colleagues from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) to conduct some training in mental health promotion, working with vulnerable populations, and exploring indigenous approaches in Mexico around issues of mental health and addictions. This invitation grew out of the visit in the summer by Maria del Consuelo García Andrade from Instituto Nacional De Psiquiatria Ramon de la Fuente Muniz in Mexico City.

Eastern Europe

For the first two weeks of July, the Centre hosted a group of 11 Croatian public health professionals who came for a Summer School in Health Promotion. Fran Perkins took the lead for this event and at the end of two weeks, the Croatians produced some amazing health promotion plans on a wide range of topics (e.g. nutrition, environment, tobacco, drugs in youth, bullying and violence prevention). In a subsequent visit in September, Fran reported that many of these plans are being implemented and planning is underway for this group to train others in health promotion in Croatia.

Suzanne has been invited to sit on the Canadian Advisory Committee for the second phase of a CIDA-funded Youth Health in Ukraine project operated by Canadian Society for International Health in Ottawa. This builds on the previous work that Michael Goodstadt and Barbara Ronson were part of.

Visitors

The Centre was host to several visitors from other countries. In July, Dr. Jaime Sapag came for five weeks and will be setting up a Centre for Community Health and Health Promotion at the Universidad Catolica de Chile and Corporacion Municipal de Puente Alto in Santiago, as well as running a course on health promotion. Also in July, Dr. Maria del Consuelo Garcia Andrade visited from Instituto Nacional De Psiquiatria in Mexico City. She combined her visit with CAMH with a particular focus on working with indigenous populations. In the fall of 2003, the Centre is a temporary home to Reza Shidfar from Tehran University in Iran and Dr. Asm Abdul Fattah, with a PhD in public health from Shinshu University in Japan.

Suzanne continues to sit on the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) North American Review of Health Promotion Effectiveness Committee with Marcia Hills and Stephen Fawcett as co-chairs. Progress on this review of literature has been somewhat stalled while the search for finances continues. The first report is due to be presented at the IUHPE conference in Australia in April, 2004.

-- Suzanne F. Jackson

The Health Communication Unit

Online, Interactive Health Communication Workbook

Announcing the launch of The Health Communication Unit's New Online, Interactive Health Communication Workbook! The workbook will guide you through steps 5-7 of THCU's 12 step process to developing health communication campaigns: setting communication objectives; selecting channels and vehicles; and combining and sequencing events. This handy tool will allow you to create, save and print a full text summary of your campaign, as well as an attractive visual timeline. These can then be shared and modified at any time, from any computer!

The Interactive Workbook is accessible through THCU's home page at http://www.thcu.ca

Overview of Health Communication Campaigns Workshop Slide Show

We've updated our Overview of Health Communication Campaigns Workshop Slide Show. These workshop slides complement the Overview of Health Communication Campaigns Workbook and Workshop. We update and add to these slides much more frequently than the workbook, which was last updated in 1999, so they reflect our most current health communication content. This is a rich source of information for those new to health communication and the seasoned practitioner.

These slides are available at http://www.thcu.ca/infoandresources/general_communication.htm#tp.

Our Newsletter: The Update

The latest issue of The Health Communication Unit's newsletter, the Update, is ready! This special issue on policy development includes some thought-provoking articles by a great line-up of writers as well as the latest THCU news. Visit http://www.thcu.ca to download a PDF file of the newsletter. We have decided to make this issue only available online, instead of mailing hard copies. Please let us know what you think of this trial practice by calling (416) 978-0522 or emailing hc.unit@utoronto.ca.

Recent Website Additions

• a guide to THCU's French language resources;
• map of THCU's health communication resources (there are some new and exciting ones here -- including our recently updated criteria for developing effective, persuasive health-communication materials);
• What We're Reading page with insightful annotations to help you decide whether you should be reading it too;
• Campaigns to Watch page;
• Health Communication Campaign design checklists: No time to read the whole manual? Use these checklists to make sure that you've covered the basic principles of an effective campaign before using your precious resources;
• Fun Finds page with some entertaining tidbits that didn't fit anywhere else on our site. This is also the place to find some candid photos of our team!
• An updated page of literature searches that have been done for clients. Additions include:
  * Effectiveness of Cinema and Movie Advertising to Youth
  * Risk Communication Resources
  * Effectiveness of Mass Mail and Newsletters
  * Campaigns to Promote Library Use
  * West Nile Virus Education
  * Reaching Physicians with Newsletters
  * Messages about Domestic Abuse to Pregnant Women
  * Injury Prevention Campaigns
  * Reaching Women 55-65 Part I
  * Reaching Women 55-65 Part II

These new additions are accessible from our homepage at http://www.thcu.ca. Don't forget to let us know what you think!

-- Jodi Thesenvitz

Ontario Tobacco Research Unit

Fall Highlights

Fall is always a busy time at the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit (OTRU). This September, our Program and Policy Research and Development group held a technical workshop on Multi-Level Modeling and Tobacco Control at our University of Waterloo site. The workshop was led by Dr. Scott Novak, Department of Community Health, Brown University. Dr. Novak’s major research interests are in the genetic and social epidemiology of psychiatric disorders and substance use. The workshop proved to be an exciting day that offered all involved an opportunity to learn more about multi-level modelling within a tobacco control context and stimulated our thinking about how we can use multi-level design in our research.

This fall, Lakehead University joined the Universities of Toronto, Waterloo, British Columbia, and McGill, in offering the graduate-level course, Tobacco and Health: From Cells to Society, to students using state-of-the-art videoconferencing technology. OTRU Principal Investigators, Dr. Roberta Ferrence and Dr. Joanna Cohen, have led the course since 1999. The course, offered by the Graduate Department of Public Health Sciences, is an elective of the Collaborative Program in Addiction Studies (COPAS) at the University of Toronto. OTRU is one of the sponsoring units of COPAS, along with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

The deadline for Round 1 of OTRU’s Graduate Studentships for Research in Tobacco Control is October 31, 2003. This funding program is designed to increase the tobacco research capacity in Ontario by developing a future cadre of tobacco researchers and practitioners. Five studentships of up to $7,000 each will be awarded in this competition.

The Ontario Tobacco Research Unit is also offering four awards of up to $7,500 each to OTRU affiliated co- and collaborating investigators this fall. The purpose of these awards is to stimulate and support tobacco control research in a variety of areas including intervention, policy, program, health effects or basic research. The awards may be used to initiate, conduct or complete academic research in tobacco control. Two of the four awards are designated for early career investigators. An early career investigator is an investigator in the first five years of an independent research career. Eligibility criteria and application information for both of these funding programs can be found on our website.

Each year, OTRU produces a four-part Monitoring Report series to examine the progress of the Ontario Tobacco Strategy. Our first report in the series, Tobacco Control Highlights: Ontario and Beyond, was released in September. The report provides an overview of recent tobacco control developments, providing a context for what is happening in Ontario. This report, and others in the series are posted on our website when available. To find out more about the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and our ongoing programs visit us at www.otru.org.

-- Marilyn Pope

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News from the Health Promotion Summer School

10th Anniversary Ontario Health Promotion Summer School (HPSS) 2003

Highlights

Last year’s Summer School took place in Toronto, at the very comfortable Institute for Learning during the last week of June. One hundred and fifteen individuals from all over Ontario – and out of province and out of country – attended the 10th year anniversary and celebratory activities marking this event – this in spite of Toronto’s SARS epidemic, which erupted at key points during registration. Although HPSS 2003 was not as big as previous years (usually we get around 200 participants), we felt it was a success.

Three committees actively helped plan the event – the Aboriginal and Francophone subcommittees, as well as the General Planning Committee, and close to 40 presenters helped deliver the curriculum. Two themes were offered: Community Mobilization and Building Healthy Public Policy. Within these two themes, participants were able to choose French-language sessions, as well as Aboriginal workshops and presentations. A new approach to «Community Stories» entailed international presentations showcasing special health promotion projects in other countries. The international Francophone celebration – St. Jean Baptiste Day – was also celebrated on site and at Toronto’s Harbourfront.

With special funding from Health Canada, the Centre for Health Promotion created a special health promotion workbook for participants, focusing on HPSS 2003 themes.

HPSS 2003 was rated very positively by participants: they appreciated the excellent facilities, and perceived the event to be dynamic, well-organized, and inspiring. Here are some of their comments:

«The Summer School was a fabulous experience. The presenters, the facilities and the food contributed to its success. Many thanks and congratulations to the organizers.» (Stephanie Tomicic, Family Health Supervisor, HBHC East Director, City of Ottawa, Participant, French-language sessions)

«I couldn’t have been happier with the summer school…» (Amanda Hanufer, Dental Assistant, Brant County Health Unit, Brantford, Participant)

«… my thanks for an excellent and exciting learning experience. I especially appreciated the Aboriginal-specific component and the Aboriginal Planning Sub-Committee’s consideration of the unique health needs of Aboriginal people. …I would like to commend you and Planning Committee for your dedication and hard work in making the Summer School such a great success. (All of the sessions) were informative and relevant to current health promotion perspectives…» (Robert Fenton, Aboriginal Diabetes Worker, Ontario Native Women’s Association, Thunder Bay, Participant)

«…I enjoyed the summer school event. It was a pleasure to be there what with such lovely facilities and every need accommodated. The sessions I (attended) were very interesting and informative as well…you did a marvelous job of bringing this (and so many diverse people) together. I have told lots of people about the summer school and they are already interested in next year’s session.» (Melissa Kanne, Centre Liaison, Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth-Centered Prairie Communities, Presenter (Aboriginal Component))

Health Promotion Summer School 2004

Next year’s Summer School is scheduled for June 20-24, 2004, in Toronto, highlighting Aboriginal and French-language sessions. Two themes planned are: Developing Personal Skills and Reorienting Health Care (for more details, look under upcoming events in this newsletter).

-- Lisa Weintraub, Coordinator

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Advisory Board

Mission (DRAFT)

The Centre for Health Promotion (CHP) is a community-academic partnership. It commits to excellence in education, evaluation and research. In a multi-disciplinary, collaborative context it activates, develops and evaluates innovative health promotion approaches in Canada and abroad. The Centre is an active, high quality, internationally recognized leader in health promotion.

Goals (DRAFT)

1. To develop and deliver high quality education and training in health promotion for university students, practitioners and partners.

2. To contribute to evaluation of health promotion initiatives via development of new models.

3. To contribute to new health promotion knowledge, especially via collaborative, community-based applied research projects.

Principles (DRAFT)

• To favour research projects that are collaborations between at least one university partner and at least one non-University partner;
• To commit to a focus on equity and work with vulnerable populations;
• To favour participatory research and evaluation approaches;
• To focus on a critical social science approach;
• To operate the Centre in a style consistent with health promotion principles.

Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research

The Canadian Consortium added another new member over the summer. Dennis Raphael will be the representative of the York Centre for Health Studies. The planned project with Health Canada to “Evaluate Community Interventions” is still waiting for a funding agreement with the Consortium. The Consortium has also been unable to meet until funding is arranged.

-- Suzanne F. Jackson

Cancer Prevention Interest Group

The Cancer Prevention Interest Group (CPIG) continues to actively support the Recommendations of the Ontario Task Force on the Primary Prevention of Cancer (1995), with special focus on the areas of environmental and occupational health. At their spring/summer 2003 meeting, the following issues were discussed.

Cancer 2020 Update

In spring 2003, Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) and the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) released Cancer 2020, an action plan for cancer prevention and detection. Since then the plan has undergone certain changes. A key chart in the report that showed an estimated 17% of cancer deaths as the result of unknown causes and 9% attributed to occupational risks has been revised as it was apparently inserted into the report in error. The errata to Cancer 2020 was issued without consultation of the advisory committee, which included members with extensive environmental and occupational experience. While Cancer 2020 recommendations continue to call for more surveillance of those exposed to carcinogens and more study of designated substances, CCO has yet to develop an implementation plan. The CPIG urges public health units and groups involved in cancer prevention to contact CCO and urge that implementation be a collaborative process.

Pesticides and Health

The CPIG will also continue push CCO to issue a public statement calling for a ban on the ornamental use of pesticides, indicating their cancer/health implications, particularly given that the CCS, in 2002, already took such a strong public position.

Toronto has passed a bylaw banning the use of pesticides for cosmetic use, to be implemented in the coming year. Congratulations to all members of the successful Toronto Pesticide Partnership Bylaw campaign. The Partnership, headed by the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), includes such groups as The Ontario College of Family Physicians, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, the Registered Nurses of Ontario, the Women's Healthy Environments Network, the Breast Cancer Prevention Coalition, the United Steelworkers of America and the Canadian Environmental Law Association, to name just a few.

Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg participated on a panel on pesticides and health in Lyon, France where she spoke of the CCS statement recommending a ban on the ornamental use of pesticides, the Toronto Pesticide Bylaw campaign, and how Loblaws has gone "green" in their 440 lawn and garden centres. These initiatives are seen as a reflection of the work many of our organizations have been doing over the years, as were presented as such.

Other Projects

CPIG members Ruth Grier and Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg sit on the Toronto Cancer Prevention Coalition Environmental and Occupational working group, with its focus on Community Right to Know. The working group has applied for and received funding from CCO through their regional programs. The specific case study to be dealt with is the area of South Riverdale which has a long history of toxic releases into the air, water and soil due to contaminating industries, the Gardner Expressway traffic. Largely occupied by a marginalized immigrant population over the years, it has developed strong levels of community activism with the South Riverdale Community Health Centre and others etc.

Members from Hamilton brought encouraging news of climate change/health initiatives in the area.

Also at the meeting, video clips were shown from If You Love Our Children: Children's Health and the Environment, a documentary video currently in production. The video features Jean Dominc Levesque Rene, a childhood cancer (non Hodgekins lymphoma) patient, who from the age of 11 has been an ardent activist for pesticide bylaws; Dr. Philip Landrigan, of Mt. Sinai (New York) Medical Centre and expert on children's health and the environment; Nita Chaudhuri, environmental health promoter (Paris); Devra Lee Davis, epidemiologist and author; Drs. Irene Buka and Harold Hoffman of the only children's health and environment clinic in Canada (Edmonton).

The film’s producer, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, and associate producer, Jody Macdonald of U of T’s Faculty of Nursing, are currently raising money for the production, and the film is being developed in conjunction with the National Film Board of Canada. The film is anticipated to be completed by fall 2004, with plans for television sales, educational programs and community distribution. Charitable status receipted donations for the film may be made to The Women’s Healthy Environments Network (WHEN). Cheques should be made out to “WHEN – The Children’s Film” and mailed to WHEN, 101 - 24 Mercer St. Toronto, ON M5V 1H3. Their email address is when@web.ca for further information.

The other film shown was on Health Care Without Harm, the Greening of Hospitals and health care facilities. Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA) are the two Canadian organizations promoting this necessary work of reducing toxics in these facilities.

The next CPIG meeting will be held in late fall of 2003.

-- Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg

National Literacy and Health Research Project

The National Literacy and Health Research Project, under the direction of Irving Rootman, the former Director of the Centre, has progressed well since it was reported in the Fall 2002 E-info newsletter. Among the accomplishments during this period were:

• the report on the environmental scan and needs assessment in both English and French was placed on the project website at www.nlhp.cpha.ca/clhrp/index_e.htm;
• the proceedings of the October 2002 National Workshop in both official languages was placed on the website and paper copies were distributed to workshop participants, funders and others;
• a research protocol to evaluate the National Literacy and Health Program was developed;
• a research proposal on the Measurement of Health Literacy with Irving Rootman and Jim Frankish as the Principal Investigators was funded by CIHR;
• a contract with Irving Rootman and Allan Best as the Principal Investigators was awarded to evaluate BC Health Guide Program;
• the first issue of an electronic newsletter was placed on the project Website;
• a workshop on Culture, Literacy and Health was held at the CPHA Conference;
• several presentation on the project were made by investigators;
• a Summer Institute on Literacy and Health Research was held at University of Victoria; several papers were published;
• and a Logo for the National Literacy and Health Research Program was developed.

Thus, the project is making excellent progress to accomplishing the objectives which it set out in the proposal funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

-- Irving Rootman

Special Projects

As usual, the Centre has had several special projects over the last few months.

Ken Hoffman was primary author of a report for the World Bank entitled “A Review of the Evidence for the Effectiveness and Costs of Interventions Preventing the Burden of Non-Communicable Diseases: How Can Health Systems Respond?” This review focused specifically on the literature relevant to and from Latin America.

The Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research got a contract from Department of National Defense to develop self-teaching web-based course modules for each of the five action areas of the Ottawa Charter. CHP did the module on Healthy Public Policy with Rick Edwards as the primary author.

In collaboration with the Toronto Community Housing Corporation and the Toronto Social Housing Connections (who maintain the waiting list for rent-geared-to-income housing in Toronto), the Centre conducted a pilot study to test the participant recruitment process and the questionnaire for a study of the health effects of waiting for social housing in Toronto. In 2003, around 72,000 households were on the waiting list and some of them have to wait 7-15 years to be placed! Maria Grant, MHSc student, did this work as her summer practicum.

Suzanne has been part of the Community Systems Alliance in North Toronto since 1994 and Teresa Petch, MHSc student, did her summer practicum helping Suzanne organize and analyze some of the interviews and other materials that have been collected over the years. There are similarities and differences with the healthy settings projects around the world.

Suzanne and the Centre are working closely with CAMH as part of the partnership agreement between CHP and CAMH. A couple of these responsibilities include training CAMH staff about health promotion and planning an international summer school on mental health promotion and addictions for 2004.

-- Suzanne F. Jackson

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Upcoming Events

CHP ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2003
Wednesday, December 3, 2003, 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Croft Chapter House, University College
15 King’s College Circle, Toronto
To RSVP call (416) 978-2182or email centre.healthpromotion@utoronto.ca.

THE CENTRE FOR HEALTH PROMOTION ANNOUNCES
ONTARIO HEALTH PROMOTION SUMMER SCHOOL 2004
Toronto, June 2004
Come and learn more about:

Developing Personal Skills
* behaviour change models
* working with vulnerable populations
* designing health communications

Reorienting Health Services
* putting health promotion into primary care
* changing health organizations
* intersectoral collaboration
* writing funding proposals

Students may be able to apply for Continuing Education credits at the University of Toronto.

Look for announcements in November 2003 on our Website: www.utoronto.ca/chp/hpss
or contact our Coordinator at: 416-469-4632 or hpss@rogers.com

THE 2003 HEALTHY U OF T AWARD

The Centre is now accepting nominations for the annual Healthy U of T Award. The Award was established as a way of recognizing an individual, department or organization within the University of Toronto (student, student group, staff or faculty) that has made a substantial and lasting contribution to the health and well-being of campus life and/or the broader community.

The deadline for nominations is Wednesday, November 5, 2003.

For nomination forms and additional information, please contact the Centre at
(416) 978-2182 or visit our website at www.utoronto.ca/chp/.

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Centre E-info Update
Centre for Health Promotion
University of Toronto
100 College Street, Suite 207
Toronto, ON M5G 1L5
http://www.utoronto.ca/chp

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The Centre for Health Promotion, Last updated: 22/10/03