Sanjeev Sridharan of the Centre for Research on Inner City Health developed Evaluation Matters: a series of workshops on evaluation of complex social and policy issues.  I presented one session on health equity strategy as an illustration; one part of this was setting out key challenges for evaluation that can help to ground and guide health equity interventions.

“One of the greatest challenges to the human mind is to comprehend and to gain access to those things we know exist but cannot see. Not everything that is real and useful is tangible and visible. Time, for example, is real, but it can only be efficiently managed when it is represented by a clock or a calendar.”

from Hernando de Soto’s book The Mystery of Capital

Reinforcing feedback means that movement in the system in one direction leads to a future movement in the same direction.

1.  Introduction

• Why Health Equity?

• Context

• What This Resource Provides

2.  The Problem to Solve: Health Inequalities in Ontario and Canada

• How To Analyze the Social Determinants of Health Inequality

3.  Thinking About/Acting on Equity

• Definitions

• Equity and Population Health

• Building From Solid Evidence

• Making a Case for Equity

4.  Developing Heath Equity Strategy

5.  Starting From a Clear Strategic Commitment

• Planning and Delivering Equity in Tough Times

6.  Building Equity Into Planning

• The Right Tools for the Right Purposes

• Health Equity Impact Assessment

7.  Effectively Using Levers to Hand

8.  Building Equity Into Performance Management

9.  Aligning Equity With LHIN Priorities and System Drivers

• Diabetes and Chronic Disease Prevention and Management

10.  Targeting For Equity Impact

11.  Building Equity-Focused Evaluation

12.  Building Equity-Focused Innovation

13.  Partnerships and Community Engagement Towards Equity

Download the resources: 1: all the linking text together, 2: all the slides together

Given that the roots of health inequalities lie far outside the health system, LHINs and their partners need to be able to incorporate the wider social determinants of  health into their planning and actions.  Cross-sectoral partnerships and collaboration are seen to be critical ways in which the underlying social determinants of health inequalities can be addressed on the ground.

Among Wellesley papers, a brief to the  Senate Sub-Committee on Population Health, a policy paper, an article on the potential of local mobilization, a seminar for the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, and a series of speeches have addressed how this can be done.

These notes set out some starting points on both community engagement and building collaborations and partnerships to address the social determinants of health.

These notes highlight this potential.

Wellesley partnered with the Paloma Foundation to develop resources for participatory evaluation.

These notes set out a framework to ground equity-focused evaluation.

These notes set out starting points.

Wellesley participated in a workshop on how to apply a specific equity planning tool – the urban health framework developed by GTA Community Health Centres – to diabetes planning.

This provides resources on how equity can be built into plans and initiatives to achieve these priorities.

Diabetes and Chronic Disease Prevention and Management

Put more proactively, diabetes and other chronic conditions, mental health and other key issues are greatly influenced by the wider social determinants of health and these priorities cannot be achieved without taking equity into account.

This links to how.