Building on the work done by the AOHC, the Wellesley Institute commissioned a number of generic communications tools to help advocates effectively incorporate Second Stage ideas in health reform debates. We hope progressive health organizations will find them useful. We take a creative commons approach to this kind of knowledge mobilization. Please use these tools […]
Driving Health Equity for Kids: From the Earliest Years to Transforming the System
Health inequalities faced by children are storing up a lifetime of problems. I recently spoke at a conference on Achieving Health Equity For Kids: Whatever It Takes organized by the Hospital for Sick Children. I set out a roadmap to drive the fundamental changes needed to reduce the health disparities kids face across the province […]
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Rising Physician and Drug Costs Through an Equity Lens
The latest Canadian Institute for Health Information report on health care expenditures highlighted that hospitals, drugs and doctors are the largest components of overall spending. Spending has been increasing fastest in physician services and drugs. Some media discussion has correctly highlighted how the incentives built into fee-for-service payment – to see as many patients as […]
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Welcome to Ontario – Don’t Get Sick
Eliminating health disparities is a complex challenge. But not all of it: some solutions are quick and immediate. Ontario denies access to OHIP for new immigrants for three months. This is discriminatory and dangerous to a vulnerable population – and easily fixable. I am supporting the Right to Health Care Coalition’s demand to remove the […]
Driving Community Impact: Complex Evaluation for Complex Problems
Progressive community advocates, researchers and policy analysts argue that comprehensive community development interventions are a crucial component of the policy and social change needed to address deep-seated problems such as health inequities. But how do we know what works?
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Addressing Systemic Access Barriers: the Potential of Peer Health Ambassadors and other Community-Based Innovation
Addressing systemic barriers in access to care is one of the crucial challenges facing the Ontario health system. One such area is inequitable access to screening and preventative care, inequities that can have devastating outcomes. Some very promising collaborations are underway in Peel Region to improve access to cancer screening for South Asian populations. I […]
Can a basket of supports help to avoid poor health for people on social assistance?
My last blog about reforming social assistance in Ontario talked about building the vision of a health-enabling social assistance system. This was the cornerstone of our submission to the Commission for the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario, for which we partnered with health leaders in Toronto. The basic problem is that poor people in […]
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Drawing Out Links: Health Equity, Social Determinants of Health, and Social Policy
The Wellesley Institute engages in policy development and advocacy to advance population health. Our work also sees us working with researchers and community groups to help develop policy capacity, and we often speak on how to maximize the policy influence of research and knowledge exchange. Earlier this week, we spoke to a graduate-level social work […]
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Work and Health: Building Assets
The idea of building assets is something that we typically associate with our financial well-being. But a new report from the Health Action Partnership International and the Government of Scotland highlights the connections between “health assets,” work, and health. The report, Working for Equity in Health, argues that approaches to public health almost always focus […]
PhDs for Fair Taxation? Sign Me Up
A group of leading community medicine and public health doctors have founded Doctors for Fair Taxation. They argue that physicians have become increasingly concerned about growing income inequality after seeing the consequences of poor and inequitable health daily in their practices. The response has been quick: over 200 doctors have already signed their petition calling […]