The Nova Scotia Public Health Standards (2011-2016) and cross-cutting Health Equity Protocol (2015) arose out of a dedicated 2-year renewal process. Together they require public health staff to “understand the principles of health equity and social justice, develop critical analysis skills, and apply health equity approaches and tools.” This requirement spurred groups within NS’s Department of Health & Wellness, the NS Health Authority, and the NCCDH to locate and develop tools that could support staff in taking a health equity approach.

The means by which public health practice can be shifted to address health equity is informed by conventional and informal knowledge channels. Recognizing that it is those who work in the field that are often the best source of knowledge when it comes to knowing how to do this, we draw on our audience to help us identify priority areas for action.

St. Francis Xavier Human Nutrition honours student, Sarah Ngunangwa, shares her experience of integrating health equity into undergraduate work, what her research found, and what she learned about herself along the way.

Connie Clement, our NCCDH Scientific Director, was recently profiled among Canadian public health leaders in an interview published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health. The interview is part of a series intended to capture the personal perspectives of Canadian public health leaders.

NCCDH and NCCEH recently attended “Innovation Beyond Inspection”, the 2016 annual education conference of the Canadian Institute for Public Health Inspectors in Edmonton, AB to explore integrating health equity principles into environmental public health practice.

NCCDH recently attended Pathways to health equity: Levelling the playing field in Winnipeg, an event designed to engage researchers, trainees, practitioners, and decision makers with each other to explore how to translate research knowledge into practical actions to address health equity.

NCCDH was fortunate to be invited to Sparking Population Health Solutions, an international summit held in Ottawa that brought together researchers, influencers, and decision makers to discuss shifting the emphasis from studying the problem to creating solutions for population health.

This past year, we have seen an explosion of interest in how the work of Public Health Inspectors (PHIs; a.k.a. Environmental Health Officers – EHOs) intersects with social determinants of health (SDH) and health equity.

In February 2016, the NCCs for Determinants of Health and Aboriginal Health hosted The North West Health Equity Forum. Using an innovative approach, the event linked over 100 stakeholders across four regions to explore a collective impact approach to improving health equity in rural/remote settings.