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
• News from the Centre's Funded Units
• News from the Centre's Working Groups and Committees
• Upcoming Events

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

Director’s Remarks

It is now official: I am the director of the Centre for the next three years! I am thrilled to be in this position and look forward to discussions with the Centre’s partners about a fresh look for the Centre to be announced in our next newsletter.

Since our last newsletter, the Centre has continued its involvement in key health-promotion activities in Canada:

• I have been part of consultations on sun safety and cancer prevention at a think-tank on measuring community capacity in Edmonton, a team at the University of British Columbia looking at indicators of community capacity, a meeting of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s (CIHR) Institute of Population and Public Health on public-health research infrastructure in Canada, and a peer-review committee for CIHR.
• In February, Michael Goodstadt, Barbara Kahan, and I were at a meeting sponsored by Health Canada to develop a consortium around best practices in chronic-disease prevention.
• Barbara Ronson and I have attended a couple of Toronto workshops looking at intersectoral action around safe schools.
• The Centre’s designation as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre has been extended to 2007, and we have been active in maintaining our international profile with other projects (see News from the Centre’s Funded Units for more information).

There are more people around the Centre these days, and soon space will be hard to find.

• We have moved out of our offices on the fifth floor of the Banting Building. Ivan Brown and the Disabilities Support Unit are now at the Faculty of Social Work, and Fran Perkins of the International Health Promotion Unit now shares Michael Goodstadt’s space in our second-floor main office.
• From January to April, the Centre had two MHSc health-promotion practicum students: Catriona Mill and Juliana de Paula. Catriona was working with me on an evaluation of early-parenting programs in North Toronto. Juliana has been working on an information-system project with funding from the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) in Brazil.
• Paula Gardner has joined us for one day a week and is researching health promotion and seniors.
• Andrea Tricco (MHSc student in Community Epidemiology and Biostatistics) is volunteering half a day a week to finally complete the evaluation of the Newmarket youth and well-being project begun a couple of years ago.
• Barbara Ronson continues to work on healthy-schools proposals with the Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition.
• Noelle Gadon still gives me much needed administrative support one day a week, and Barry MacDonald keeps the Centre’s finances in the clear.

I am thrilled to have more people around and engaged in work linked to the Centre.

As for our future, the funding is secure for a few more years, which gives the Centre a chance to demonstrate its entrepreneurial spirit and build up its ongoing core funding. Our new advisory board met for the first time on March 24. The members represent our major funders and supporters: Peter Coleridge, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Myrna Gough, Ministry of Health and Long-term Care; Harvey Skinner, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto; David Zakus, Centre for International Health; Anuradha Marisetti, Health Canada Regional Office; Fran Scott, Toronto Public Health; and Connie Clement, Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse. With direction from this board, the Centre will clarify its mission, and I can finally update our print and electronic materials.

Other future projects include

• a health promotion summer school for international visitors,
• accreditation of the Ontario summer school and The Health Communication Unit’s courses (toward a diploma in health promotion),
• contributing to a new graduate program in global health, and
• building up our role as an initiator and incubator of collaborative, community-based, applied-research projects with our community partners.

Drop me a line at (416) 978-1100 or suzanne.jackson@utoronto.ca if you are interested in being part of the Centre for Health Promotion’s current or future work!

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News from the Centre

This year’s summer school will be held June 23 to 26, 2003, at the Institute for Learning in Toronto. Its title is "Health Promotion in Action," and its two major themes are community mobilization and building healthy public policy. Each theme will be explored in a series of nine- hour workshops, which follow a learning path from concepts and models, to deepening skills, to evaluation and looking to the future. Some sessions will be in small groups, which will give more time for reflection and application of the ideas to participants’ own work. And, of course, we will continue to provide tool boxes, community stories, social events, and opening and closing plenaries.

We are particularly excited because this is our tenth anniversary! The regional office of the Population and Public Health Branch of Health Canada is funding a tenth-anniversary commemorative workbook that will summarize some of our experiences and lessons learned over the last ten years, focusing on community mobilization and building healthy public policy concepts and resources. This bilingual resource will also reflect the integration of mainstream, Francophone, and Aboriginal perspectives about health promotion.

There is lots more information, and online registration, at http://www.utoronto.ca/chp/hpss.

The summer school committee that is planning the next four years has also been hard at work. For the 2004 school, we have chosen the major themes, and an invitation to host the summer school outside of Toronto has been prepared (see News from the Centre’s Working Groups and Committees in this newsletter). We know that many aspects of the summer school will benefit from the host’s unique, local perspective, but some aspects of the school will be planned by the Centre (which will also provide centralized logistical support) so that we can award continuing education credits.

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News from the Centre's Funded Units

Ontario Tobacco Research Unit

Since its inception in 1993, the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit (OTRU) has monitored the Ontario Tobacco Strategy (OTS), a comprehensive, tobacco-control program funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. Each year, the OTRU Monitoring and Evaluation Group produces an annual monitoring report that documents changes in the province's tobacco-control climate (including policy and program initiatives) and trends in tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours.

Over the course of 2003, our Monitoring and Evaluation Group will be releasing its ninth annual Monitoring and Evaluation Series, reporting on the OTS’s progress toward meeting its goals of preventing tobacco-use, supporting cessation, and protecting people from environmental tobacco smoke. For the second straight year, the series will consist of four monographs:

1. Tobacco Control Highlights: Ontario and Beyond--a comparative analysis of developments in Ontario and elsewhere designed to help us interpret our level of tobacco control in the province
2. OTS Project Evaluations: A Coordinated Review--a largely qualitative summary of accomplishments by OTS-funded projects
3. Indicators of Progress--an overview of quantitative data of tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours from a variety of surveys and other sources
4. OTS Progress and Implications--a discussion of the results and implications of the findings in the other three modules.

All of the Monitoring Reports can be found on our newly updated website at http://www.otru.org.

As the OTS matures, OTRU continues to enhance its monitoring and evaluation capacity. One promising initiative is the application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to tobacco-control surveillance. OTRU plans to hold an invitational workshop to examine the utility of GIS in the spring of 2003.

International Health Promotion Unit

The biggest news is that the Centre’s WHO Collaborating Centre in Health Promotion designation is now extended to February 2007. A WHO collaborating centre is a national institution designated by WHO’s director-general to form part of an international, collaborative network carrying out activities in support of WHO’s mandate for international-health work and its programme priorities. There are thirty-one collaborating sites, on a range of topics, in Canada and twenty-four sites focussed on health promotion worldwide. More information can be found at http://whqlily.who.int/general_infos.asp .

Suzanne has continued with PAHO’s working group on the Evaluation of Healthy Municipalities. To date, the group has developed a participatory-evaluation toolkit that will be piloted in all four languages of the Americas in 2003–04. Accompanying this toolkit is a document for mayors and other decision makers about the value of evaluation in health promotion. This document was developed by the Centre (our thanks to Rick Edwards) with examples drawn from across the Americas. Both documents are being translated and produced by PAHO over the next few months, and sub-groups of the overall team will be developing funding proposals for the pilot phase.

Suzanne will be travelling to Colombia to meet with Ligia de Salazar. They will be working through some of the thorny issues in economic evaluations of health-promotion initiatives before inviting health economists and other experts from the Americas to develop a conceptual framework for economic evaluation. This project is extended to 2004 because a second year of funding from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta has been received.

The Centre is part of the team preparing the North America Regional Office (NARO) contribution to the International Union for Health Promotion (IUHPE)-WHO project on the global effectiveness of health promotion. Marcia Hills (University of Victoria) and Stephen Fawcett (University of Kansas) are the co-chairs. This is a huge initiative, in every region of the world, to collect models, strategies, and indicators of effectiveness in health promotion. Each region will be presenting its progress at the IUHPE international conference in Australia in April 2004.

Suzanne has active connections to Brazil as they determine what the role for health promotion will be with the new government there. Juliana de Paula has been in Brazil over the last few months working on a set of indicators of health promotion that can be built into the data-collection systems for primary-care practitioners. In addition, we have been working with Brazil to submit a proposal to Canadian International Development Agency for a distance-education system in health promotion.

The Health Communication Unit

At The Health Communication Unit (THCU), we are always looking for examples of health-communication campaigns to use in our training, consultation, and information dissemination services (please see http://www.thcu.ca for more details). Currently, we are collecting examples for our Overview of Health Communication Campaigns workshop to be held in September 23 and 24, 2003.

We are interested in the campaign products as well as the process you went through to develop them. Naturally, our preference is for current, Canadian, practical, and cost-effective examples.

If you have been involved in a health-communication campaign on any topic in the last few years, and would be willing to share your materials and experiences, please contact Jodi Thesenvitz at j.thesenvitz@utoronto.ca or (519) 837-3659. If you have a specific

interest in presenting and fielding questions about your health-communication campaign for about one hour at the September workshop, please let us know. THCU trains and consults to several thousand people per year, and our website is widely used. We believe that our use of these materials will bring recognition, distribution, and learning opportunities to the organizations that developed them.

Participation will only take a few minutes of your time and would be a great help to THCU and the Ontario health-promotion community!

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News from the Centre's Working Groups and Committees

The Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research partners with Health Canada to explore the effectiveness of the community-intervention component of Health Canada programs. This collaborative project is an exciting opportunity for the Consortium to contribute new knowledge to the area of indicators of success in community interventions, using the wealth of experience and data available from Health Canada’s major national initiatives, e.g., diabetes, the Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) and the Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program (CPNP), and tobacco. Suzanne and the Centre are part of the small group planning and leading this initiative.

The Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition has been very active this year. Prior to the upcoming Ontario election, it has been following up with representatives from health and education in the three political parties to continue to encourage them to incorporate Comprehensive School Health and Health Promoting Schools (CSH/HPS) concepts into their election platforms.

The coalition was asked by the current government to submit a proposal for a three-year strategy to implement the CSH/HPS models in Ontario. Three drafts of the proposal have been produced, and the co-chairs of the coalition have met with policy advisors in health, education, and recreation to get their input and feedback. The proposal asks, among other things, for inter-ministerial policy support for CSH/HPS (a Memorandum of Agreement), which is consistent with recommendation thirteen in the Education Equality Task Force Report, chaired by Dr. Mordechai Rozanski. The proposal also recommends joining the WHO-supported, global school-health initiative, which encourages and enables the kind of inter-ministerial support that is needed. As well, the proposal asks for inter-ministerial support for a coordinating centre for CSH/HPS in Ontario. The coalition is planning an inter-ministerial symposium on a Healthy Schools Ontario strategy this summer, in collaboration with other partners.

The coalition is examining strategies to promote CSH/HPS within the many program

areas that are supported by the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, e.g., physical activity and nutrition promotion via the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association’s healthy schools initiatives (especially diabetes prevention and the Active Schools program), the Heart Health Resource Centre, and the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition.

The coalition continues to build links with Ontario organizations that are committed to the health and learning of children and youth in Ontario, such as People for Education, the Ontario Teachers' Federation, and the Ontario School Counsellors' Association.

The coalition is compiling an overview of activities happening around the province that demonstrate CSH/HPS principles and is working on creating some models that could be adopted by others who want to start working on CSH/HPS in Ontario.

For more information, you may contact the Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition co-chairs: Barbara Ronson, b.ronson@utoronto.ca, (416) 946-5659, or Carol MacDougall, cmacdoug@toronto.ca, (416) 338-7864.

Host Needed for the 2004 Ontario Health Promotion Summer School Needed--You Are Invited to Express Your Interest

Over the past ten years, the Ontario Health Promotion Summer School has been an important learning vehicle for health-promotion practitioners in Ontario. Offered over a period of four to five days, the summer school has been located mostly in Toronto, with moves to Ottawa, Sudbury, and London in alternate years. Such moves enhance the accessibility of the summer school and inject a regional flavour. In all locations, the summer school strives to integrate Francophone, Aboriginal, and mainstream perspectives, providing a unique, multicultural atmosphere for exposure to the latest information and tools in health promotion from a mixture of academic and practice-based experts.

The Ontario Health Promotion Summer School has a reputation as a high-quality event that attracts international participants, senior managers, policy makers, and practitioners who work in a variety of settings. Typically, we attract between 150 and 200 health-promotion practitioners, managers, and policy makers from all over Ontario.

A typical summer school includes plenary sessions at the beginning and the end, concurrent workshops, toolboxes, community stories, and small-group discussions. The host would have substantial input into the opening and closing plenaries, toolboxes, and community stories. Only the concurrent workshops on pre-determined themes would be mainly developed by the Centre.

In 2004, the Centre for Health Promotion intends to offer the summer school for graduate and continuing education credits (toward a diploma or certificate in health promotion from the University of Toronto). With this in mind, there are some aspects of the program that have been set as part of a curriculum, and there will be extra requirements for those who wish to take the summer school for credit. The school will still be available to practitioners in Ontario who want to participate but not want to do the extra work for credit.

The Centre for Health Promotion is looking for an organization outside of Toronto to host the summer school in mid to late June 2004. Working in partnership with the Centre, the host organization will have some ownership and responsibility, while the burden of work is reduced through the support of the coordinator (who handles all logistics), the director of the Centre, and an existing program format, academic instructors, and instructional materials developed over the last ten years.

The benefits to the host are

• raising the profile of your organization in relation to health promotion provincially, nationally, and internationally (the summer school draws participants from across Ontario, Canada, and the world, and the Centre’s website is internationally accessible);
• profiling your community’s strengths and uniqueness (there are many opportunities for you to showcase your culture, case studies, or ways of doing things);
• raising awareness about health promotion in your community;
• increasing your participation in regional networks and other partnerships;
• experiencing the integration of Aboriginal and Francophone perspectives (there are province-wide subcommittees that work closely with the planning committee to organize the event–see note on structure below);
• getting an evaluation of a large, instructional event in your community (the evaluation of the summer school is part of the budget);
• shaping the future of other summer schools (e.g., Sudbury introduced the Aboriginal component, and Ottawa introduced the Francophone component);
• making health-promotion training more accessible to people in your organization and others in your region (e.g., planning-committee members attend the summer school for free).

The host is encouraged to enhance the program (e.g., through spirit, style, adult-learning techniques, and additional concurrent themes). The host organization will be required to

• establish a planning committee with a local chair who will identify topics and speakers for many parts of the summer school (the committee typically meets once a month from October to May, perhaps twice a month at the beginning);
• organize a social program, and possibly site visits, that complement the formal program;
• assist in local fundraising related to special events, program elements, or the social program;
• work with coordinator to publicize the summer school (including input into the design or look of the workbook, the website, and other publicity materials); and
• provide some volunteers on-site (usually drawn from the planning committee) to help the coordinator.

For its part, the Centre for Health Promotion commits to

• providing an experienced coordinator to manage all logistics and planning;
• maintaining a connection to the director of the Centre, who will sit on the planning committee and oversee the academic quality of the summer school;
• providing members of the Francophone and Aboriginal subcommittees;
• providing financial responsibility, accountability procedures, and secure funds to support the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the event;
• writing proposals for funding the summer school (including the Aboriginal and Francophone components) from the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care and other sources;
• providing the academic support for the concurrent sessions (speakers and materials);
• providing overall structure and themes of summer school (see four-year plan for themes);
• preparing the binders and workbooks for participants;
• organizing and conducting the registration process;
• establishing fees;
• organizing and conducting the publicity process (including website); and
• being on-site during the summer school for trouble-shooting.

Typical planning structure of the summer school is as follows:

• An overall-planning committee chaired by someone from the host community (who will also be the chair of the summer school) plus the director of the Centre for Health Promotion, the coordinator, and the chairs of the three main subcommittees--Francophone, Aboriginal subcommittee, and mainstream subcommittee. The planning committee works with the coordinator to oversee and plan the whole event, including keynote plenary speakers or topics, publicity, the social program, additional local features, and suggestions for venue.
• The Francophone and Aboriginal subcommittees already exist and have members drawn from across the province. They will identify speakers and topics relevant to those communities and connected to the summer-school themes. The host community will, we hope, add a member or two to both subcommittees.
• The mainstream subcommittee will consist entirely of members drawn from the partner organizations of the host community. This committee identifies mainstream speakers and topics for the plenary sessions, toolboxes, and community stories.
• The coordinator sits on and works with all planning committees.

The Centre for Health Promotion invites interested parties to express their interest in a one- to two-page letter to Suzanne Jackson by May 30, 2003. The letter can be in any format and must address the following criteria:

• ability to bring together a group of organizations to spearhead the project by setting up a planning committee;
• local physical capacity (e.g., conference facilities, accommodation) to hold the event for 200 people over four to five days in mid to end of June 2004;
• accessibility and attractiveness to Francophone and Aboriginal populations in Ontario (both culturally and financially).

Selection will be made in time for the host to observe the 2003 summer school, if they desire, and for an announcement to be made to this year’s participants.

For more information, or to submit your written proposal, please contact Suzanne Jackson by calling (416) 978-1100, faxing (416) 971-1365 or emailing suzanne.jackson@utoronto.ca.

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Upcoming Events

• Introduction to Health Promotion Program Planning, June 9 and 10
• Overview of Health Communication Campaigns, September 23 and 24 (rescheduled from May)
• Introduction to Evaluating Health Promotion Programs, October 7 and 8
• Managing the Communication Campaign Development Process, November 25 and 26

For more information on these events, visit THCU’s website at http://www.thcu.ca. Our workshops are free of charge but open to residents of Ontario only.

June 23 to 26, 2003
Institute for Learning, Toronto

The Centre for Health Promotion, at the University of Toronto, partners with a number of community organizations to offer a thought-provoking week of interactive learning. This year, we invite you to attend our tenth anniversary, where two current themes—community mobilization and building healthy public policy—will be explored in depth, from multiple perspectives, including Aboriginal and Francophone, and in English and French.

Visit http://www.utoronto/ca/hpss for your guide to this year's summer school, providing you with detailed information about the curriculum, and social and recreational activities. Updates will be available in French and English on this website.

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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: 06/05/03