Centre for Health
Promotion
University of Toronto
Public Health Sciences
155 College Street, Suite 400
Toronto, ON
M5T 3M7
Tel: 416-978-1809
Fax: 416-971-1365
centre.healthpromotion@utoronto.ca
- Director's Remarks
- News from the Centre
- News from The Health Communication Unit
- News from the International Health Promotion Unit
- Ontario Health Promotion Summer School 2006
- Health and Literacy Update
- Update on the Special Interest Groups
- Update on the Centre’s Special Projects
To subscribe to the email version, contact us at centre.healthpromotion@utoronto.ca.
Spring is the time of year for changes and new beginnings. At the Centre for Health Promotion there have been some changes since the fall. The biggest one for me is that Nora Sellers, my wonderful Financial and Administrative Assistant has taken a job as an undergraduate student coordinator with the psychology department. I miss her greatly but this represents a position she has wanted for a while. I am in the midst of hiring a replacement and I am certain that Nora will make a contribution in her new job.
The other change is that the Department of Public Health Sciences has started a new global health Masters concentration and I am the Program Director. This concentration is like a double major at the Masters level and allows me to work with colleagues across all of the basic disciplines taught in public health sciences (health promotion, community health and epidemiology, community nutrition, occupational and environmental health, biostatistics, and family and community medicine). David Zakus is co-Director and this is an opportunity to link the great international work we do at the Centre for Health Promotion and the work he has done with the Centre for International Health. At the same time, there have been pressures to recognize the time I put into the MHSc in health promotion in the form of salary support, and the Department of Public Health Sciences has now made a commitment to provide 50% of my salary. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse continue to be strong partners of the Centre.
In other changes, Rick Wilson has retired from the ‘Ottawa Office’ of the Centre and is enjoying a life of golf and pleasant thoughts. Reg Warren and the team in Ottawa have valiantly carried on, although there continue to be restrictions on the kind of contract work possible with the federal government.
The Centre is a nexus for health promotion work and we have four health
promotion students using space at the Centre for practicum projects
right now in conjunction with Street Health, Canadian Portuguese Congress,
Association of Ontario Health Centres, and Better Beginnings Now/Building
Brighter Futures. These relationships continue to build and the Centre
plays a key role. In addition, volunteers - Abdul Fattah, Sharyar Murshed,
and visitor, Veronica Mingor from Chile, are also at the Centre, either
while they are making transitions or taking a mini-sabbatical. The
Health Communication Unit is sharing space with the Centre and I have
appreciated that all of us have been together since we moved to the
building last fall. The adjustments we have made to each other and
our new space have gone very smoothly and it is a pleasure to come
to work. Many thanks to everyone who makes this possible!
--Suzanne F. Jackson, Director
Congratulations to Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Chair of the CHP Cancer Prevention Working Group, for receiving the Biophilia (Love of Life) Award of the Jazzpurr Society of Windsor. For many years, Dorothy has shared her knowledge and passion about the need for action on environmental health issues and policy. The Biophilia Award recognizes individuals who have worked diligently and had the greatest impact in making our community one where we recognize the importance of living a life integrated with the full diversity of Nature. It is through this "Love of Life" philosophy that we will be able to pass on to our children and grandchildren a living and healthy planet and a respect for all life and its delicacy.
Dorothy also won the 2005 Woman of the Year Award from the American Biographical Institute.
-- Suzanne F. Jackson, Director
News from The Health Communication Unit (THCU)
UPCOMING THCU EVENTS
This year, 2006-2007, THCU is hoping to offer the four annual Provincial Workshops in various locations across the province.
Introduction to Health Promotion Program Planning, May 2006
Eastern Region, Larry Hershfield and Heather Graham
Media Advocacy, June 2006
South West Region, Nancy Dubois
Introduction to Evaluating Health Promotion Programs, November 2006
North Region, Robb MacDonald
Making the Case, October 2006
Greater Toronto Area, Heather Graham (To be co-hosted with the United
Way of Greater Toronto)
For each two-day event we are looking for partners who will help us select a location for the workshop and promote the workshop to appropriate local organizations and individuals. All costs will be covered by THCU.
If you would like to partner with THCU to bring one of the following workshops to your region, please contact us at 416-978-0522 or hc.unit@utoronto.ca. We have identified preferred regions and approximate dates for each 2006 workshop, but these details may be negotiated with interested partners.
All workshops are free of charge for Ontario residents. For more information on the agenda for these workshops, or to find out when a specific location and date has been selected, please visit our website at http://www.thcu.ca.
THCU’s Workplace Project has now completed its 6th year of promoting comprehensive workplace health promotion to intermediaries across Ontario. The Workplace Project recently held a Provincial Gathering: “Building a Future for Healthy Workplaces”, which brought together representatives from each public health agency in Ontario as well as other workplace health promotion stakeholders from across the province. The Gathering was a combination of educational sessions, including two speakers – Dr. Graham Lowe on organizational culture and Dr. Louise Hartley on employee engagement – and a facilitated exploration of the development of a provincial “association” of workplace health promotion stakeholders and intermediaries. The development of the “association” (working title) is still in its early stages, and continues to be developed and facilitated by THCU and a planning committee.
The Workplace Project has also worked under the guidance of an Advisory Committee to create a catalogue of “well-regarded” workplace health promotion interventions. The catalogue will contain a variety of accessible, useable and well-regarded workplace interventions.
The Workplace Project’s Virtual Community at www.thcu.ca/workplace/vc, continues to provide a space for interested parties to share insights, opinions, and resources relating to supporting comprehensive workplace health promotion initiatives. Although there is no special access required to read the Virtual Community posts, if you’d like to contribute a story or resource and be updated with Virtual Community email reminders, be sure to login and create a free user account.
The Workplace Project worked in its 5th year to create a resource that examines and recommends situational assessment tools that are effective, plausible and/or practical for implementation in Ontario workplaces. Comprehensive Workplace Health Promotion: Recommended and Promising Practices for Situational Assessment Tools is an online searchable catalogue and background resource designed to help workplace health promotion intermediaries and practitioners in Ontario to:
a) select and implement a situational assessment tool in their workplace,
and
b) replicate and/or adapt the best practice methodology used to generate
the tools.
To access this and other resources visit www.thcu.ca/workplace/infoandresources.
Hardcopy Info-packs (including Introduction to CWHP Info-pack, Influencing the Organizational Environment to Create Healthy Workplaces Info-pack, and Evaluating CWHP Info-pack) and the Situational Assessment Tools Catalogue are available for free from the Workplace Project (in limited numbers)!
If you have Workplace Project questions, comments and/or requests for materials, please contact Ali Kilbourn at workplace_admin@thcu.ca.
NEW LEARNING COMMUNITY AT THCU!
We are pleased to launch our new Learning Community (http://www.thcu.ca/blogs/lc) with a summary of a recent web forum featuring Vicki Freimuth--former director of communications of the CDC in Atlanta--on the topic of risk communication.
We have posted her comments regarding
• Finding the right spokesperson
•
Internal communication during a crisis
•
Dealing with literacy levels in risk communication
•
Enlisting media as partners
•
Dealing with media misinformation
•
Communicating difficult decisions sensitively
•
Planning for workload during a crisis
•
Communicating about risk communications
•
Prioritizing internal communication during a crisis
•
Controlling dissemination of confidential information
We invite you to visit and continue the discussion by adding comments, questions and resources about any of these topics.
We will be monitoring the community to answer your questions and suggest resources that may assist you.
Our new community runs on weblog software called Wordpress. If you are new to the world of blogs, background information is available at http://www.thcu.ca/blogs/lc/?page_id=2, to help you get started.
-- Cathy Duerden, Jodi Thesenvitz, Ali Kilbourn, Noelle Gadon
YOUTH ENGAGEMENT TRAINING PROGRAM
The Youth Engagement Training Program was initiated to increase local youth tobacco action in Ontario with a specific focus on small, urban, rural and northern communities. The goal was to train Ontario youth servicing agencies (e.g. youth centres, public health agencies, schools) how to build the capacity of youth and community organizations to engage in local tobacco control activities.
The project was designed with three components:
• A series of train-the-trainer workshops held in four communities – Chatham-Kent,
Thunder Bay, Petawawa and Toronto. Two days of training were offered
in each location with the first day focusing on organizational improvement
and the second on youth action.
•
Capacity building support in the form of individual consultations,
a website and a virtual community
•
Broad-based community dissemination of a Chinese smoking zine, a
Chinese language online smoking prevention and cessation resource.
The workshops, based on the Youth Action Guide and Making Changes Work in Youth Centres: Step by Step, were conducted in the fall of 2005. Check out the project web site (http://www.thcu.ca/yetp) to view the presentation slides and to access copies of these workbooks.
Community response to the workshops was strong as reflected in responses to follow-up interviews. The project is now entering the final phase of evaluation.
-- Barbara Scott
The Youth Tobacco Vortal Project is now in its 6th year of encouraging and supporting community public health agencies make use of web-based technologies to communicate with and engage young people in tobacco control issues. The project’s central website, Smoke FX (www.smoke-fx.com), provides local agencies a gateway to information and resources targeting young people. Since its inception, the Youth Tobacco Vortal Project has grown to include 32 community-based affiliate sites, 8 of which joined this year.
The YTVP supports its affiliate base by assisting them in developing their own regional websites that focus on tobacco control and youth. As part of the YTVP’s promotional campaign the YTVP affiliates all received bookmarks promoting SmokeFX and its network of sites. A banner ad campaign also ran throughout March 2006, driving traffic to SmokeFX and our partners’ websites.
The YTVP continues to grow and evolve as a result of a partnership that was formed with Smoke Free Ontario’s Stupid.ca (www.stupid.ca) campaign in 2005. Changes to both websites are planned over the next few months which will result in linking the two websites in a seamless manner. This in turn will heighten awareness of both projects as well as link visitors of both sites to relevant regional information and events.
Comments and/or questions about the Youth Tobacco Vortal Project can be directed to Julie Duda (SmokeFX.Julie@thc).
-- Julie Duda
News from the International Health Promotion Unit
The work of the international unit of the Centre from December 2005 to March 2006 was focused on six major projects:
1. Creation of a mental health promotion course for the summer institute
at University of Chile in Santiago.
2. WHO meeting in Singapore to follow up on the Bangkok meeting
3. Guide to understanding economic evaluation in health promotion
4. Youth and Health in Serbia and Bosnia with Canadian Society for
International Health
5. Chapter on International Health Promotion for reissue of “Health
Promotion in Canada”
6. Student exchange between Canada and Europe.
Suzanne Jackson and Andrea Stevens Lavigne from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health worked together to design and deliver a course on mental health promotion in Chile in January 2006. After introducing the basic concepts, the course focused on how to build healthy public policies, stigma, and examples of mental health promotion programs in a variety of settings including families and early years, schools, communities, workplaces, and clinical care. A key partner in delivering the course was Maria Teresa Valenzuela who acted as interpreter and co-instructor in Santiago. The course was well-received and we are looking for opportunities to give this course in English in Ontario.
The World Health Organization (WHO) organized a meeting in Singapore in February 2006 for the WHO Collaborating Centres in Health Promotion to follow up on the actions identified in the Bangkok Charter. Suzanne wrote a background paper on policy coherence and co-chaired the meeting with the CEO of the Health Promotion Board in Singapore. The collaborating centres agreed to work together on building capacity, doing research and evaluation and exchanging information. The Centre will be exploring some further work on policy coherence with WHO.
The group writing the “Guide to Understanding Economic Evaluation in Health Promotion” met in Toronto in March 2006. The group includes Suzanne Jackson, Ligia de Salazar from Colombia, Alan Shiell from University of Calgary, and others from PAHO and CDC. The Guide has been split into two parts – one part that is a simple description of economic evaluation for application to simple health promotion interventions and a second part that describes the special challenges faced by health promoters and health economists alike as they grapple with evaluation of complex, interactive and evolving interventions that operate at multi-levels in multi-sectors. The Guide is expected in English and Spanish by the fall.
Fran Perkins, Suzanne Jackson, and Harvey Skinner are all part of the proposal-writing phase of a CIDA-funded Canadian Society for International Health project on youth and health in primary care in Serbia and Bosnia. Fran went on the inception mission to Serbia and Bosnia in February and the team has been working on the full proposal ever since. If funded, work on this project will continue until 2009.
Suzanne Jackson is the lead author on a chapter on International Health Promotion for the re-issue of the book “Health Promotion in Canada” edited by Irv Rootman, Ann Pederson, Michel O’Neill, and Sophie Dupere. The chapter involved collaboration with Valery Ridde and Helene Valentini in Quebec as well as MHSc student Natalie Gierman in order to ensure that activities across Canada and Quebec were included. The book will be published in French in fall 2006 and in English at the IUHPE conference in 2007.
With funding from HRDC in Canada and the European Union in Europe, the University of Toronto, University of Victoria, University of Alberta, Brighton University, Magdeburg University and University of Athens are partners in an international student exchange regarding health promotion. The first students will be starting the exchange in 2006. The Centre will be the location for students arriving in Toronto from Europe and Suzanne will be helping to coordinate the U of T students who want to go to Europe.
In other work, the Centre continues to run the Canadian arm of the North American Regional Office for IUHPE. We are now in the home stretch for planning the big IUHPE conference in Vancouver in June 2007. Fran Perkins sits on the planning committee and Suzanne is on the Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research Board that is overseeing the whole project.
-- Fran Perkins and Suzanne F. Jackson
Ontario Health Promotion Summer School 2006 (HPSS)
The Centre for Health Promotion is hosting its 13th annual Ontario Health Promotion Summer School in Toronto. The Summer School will once again be held at the luxurious and affordable BMO Institute for Learning between June 26 and 29, 2006. A ‘Preschool’ day of optional workshops (Health Promotion 101, Evaluation 101 and Developing Healthy Public Policy will be offered on Sunday, June 25.
This year’s theme is Creating Supportive Physical and Social Environments, and participants may choose to participate in the general, Aboriginal or Francophone stream.
A limited number of travel subsidies will be available for those participating in the French-language stream. Tuition subsidies are also available to nurses through the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario.
A range of stimulating workshops, toolbox sessions and personal development workshops will be available, as well as a variety of social and cultural events, and opportunities for professional and personal networking.
For more information about HPSS 2006 and subsidies, please contact the Summer School Coordinator, Lisa Weintraub at 416-469-4632 or at hpss@rogers.com. Our detailed web site provides information www.utoronto.ca/chp/hpss. Participants can register on-line or download the form and register by fax at 416-780-0290 or toll free at 1-888-780-0663.
-- Lisa Weintraub
The project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ended in February and a final report was submitted. A version of the report is available on the website established by the project [http://www.nlhp.cpha.ca/clhrp/index_e.htm].
Although the project has officially ended, it is anticipated that the momentum that it has generated in research, policy and practice will continue. This should be spurred on by the release of a supplement of the Canadian Journal of Public Health within the next few months based on the knowledge shared at the Second Canadian Conference on Literacy and Health. It will also be spurred on by the work of the Expert Panel on Health Literacy which is being coordinated by the Canadian Public Health Association with funding from the Canadian Council on Learning as well as by the research that has been funded by CIHR and SSHRC.
Finally, it will be spurred on if the project to develop capacity for literacy and health research in Canada is funded by the National Literacy and Health Program. Even if it isn’t funded however, there is no doubt that work in the field of literacy and health will continue in Canada, in part, as a result of the SSHRC project administered by the Centre.
-- Irv Rootman
Update on the Special Interest Groups
Urban Health Promotion Research Working Group
The Urban Health Promotion Working Group was ably chaired by Shelley Young while she was employed by the Public Health Agency of Canada, Toronto Nunavut Regional Office. The group was defining a research proposal to be submitted for funding and is somewhat adrift at the moment because Shelley had to resign as chair in February 2006. The group will be resurrected when another able volunteer chair has been found. If you are interested, please contact Suzanne Jackson.
-- Suzanne Jackson
Cancer Prevention Interest Group
The Cancer Prevention Interest Group participants continue working
on many fronts:
In February, 2006 Susan Aaron showed a film at OISE/UT called "Powerlines",
about electromagnetic fields and their impact on health followed by
a discussion with informed scientists and a nutritionist.
Ruth Grier (co chair) and Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg work with the Toronto Cancer Prevention Coalition (Environment And Occupational Working Group) where the major project is Community Right to Know which is a campaign for a bylaw on the subject. See the new map/pamphlet "Toxics in Toronto: You have a right to know" www.torontoenvironment.org/toxics. Other work is related to the prevention of the expansion of nuclear power in Ontario and the health impacts of radioactive carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens released into the air and water of Lake Ontario, the drinking water supply for millions of people.
The group supports the letter by Toronto Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKewn calling for a safe, sustainable energy policy of energy efficiency, conservation and renewables instead, based on the Pembina/ CELA Report (www.pembina.org).
Liz Armstrong, Michael Gilberston, Rich Whate, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg and others in Ontario and across the country are engaged in the creation of a (soon to be announced) national cancer prevention network "Prevent Cancer Now!"
Several of us are engaged in a consultation process on primary prevention with Cancer Care Ontario on environmental and occupational cancers in the recently created Cancer Prevention Unit.
The film, "Toxic Trespass: Children's Health and the Environment",
a NFB co production dealing with children and cancer as well as other
environmentally related conditions is expected to be released in the
fall of 2006.
-- Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg
Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition
Fran Perkins is the Centre for Health Promotion representative on the Healthy Schools Coalition. This group is continuing to meet under the leadership of Carol MacDougall and will provide more information in the next issue of this newsletter.
-- Carol MacDougall, Fran Perkins
The Chair of the Healthy University of Toronto Interest Group met with the Health Science and Social Work Deans to present our proposed Charter for a Healthy U of T and ask for adoption of the charter by Governing Council. The Deans supported sending the Charter forward, through the Provost, to the committees required on the way to the Governing Council. The group is currently reviewing the 4th version of the Charter for Health Promoting Universities developed by the Edmonton conference for Health Promoting Universities.
-- Jody MacDonald
Update on Centre's Special Projects
MHSc Student Practicums in Health Promotion
From May 2006 to the present, four University of Toronto practicum students joined us at the Centre.
Natalie Gierman, MHSc.(cand.)is currently a co-investigator on a larger study entitled Best Practices in Evaluation of Primary Health Care Interdisciplinary Teams being investigated by researchers from the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, University of Western and the Association of Ontario Health Centres (AOHC). The project is being funded through the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) via the Primary Health Care Transition Fund. Her academic Supervisor is Suzanne Jackson, PhD.
Fatima Jorge is working as a research assistant on the Viva!Health Project, an action research project funded by the Population Health Fund, of the Ministry of Health. The project aims to increase the capacity of Portuguese communities across Canada to take action on the social and economic factors that adversely affect their health and increase their risk of chronic disease. Fatima will be conducting a literature review on the social determinants of health and immigrant/Portuguese communities and draft a report on the Health Status of the Portuguese community in Canada.
Kate Mason is conducting research to document and define best practice in peer education harm reduction programs for illicit drug users. This study is being undertaken on behalf of Street Health, a community-based agency that provides health care and advocacy for homeless and under-housed men and women in Toronto.
Heba Sadek is conducting a qualitative research evaluation for the
Early Parenting Program in North Toronto. The objective of the evaluation
is to explore the impact of the program on the establishment of the
mother-child attachment relation and whether what the mothers learned
during their participation in the program continued to be useful to
them as their infants develop. The evaluation will be done as a comparative
qualitative study between parents who graduated from the program and
those who dropped out after attending one session. The researcher is
looking into understanding the participants' experiences in order to
provide information about the program impact on the mother-child attachment
relation.
Centre E-info Update
Centre for Health Promotion
University of Toronto
155 College St., Suite 400
Toronto, ON M5T 3M7
http://www.utoronto.ca/chp
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