Health Promotion Ontario's 25th anniversary conference was an opportunity to take stock and connect with many of the Ontario based public health leaders working to address the social determinants of health.

We presented two posters on our Public Health Leadership Initiative and Health Equity Clicks: Community.

Here are a few things which resonated with me:

Keynote speaker Dr. Ketan Shankardass explored the possibilities offered by a Health in all Policies  approach to Ontario. In Canada, Quebec has adopted this through requiring health impact assessments across all government ministries.

Penny Sutcliffe, Medical Officer of Health, Sudbury and District Health Unit shared her organization's journey in embedding equity. One thing is certain we can contribute as individuals through living our values of equity and social justice. This needs to be supported by organizational commitments and investments, and advocacy at the systems level is needed to shift the policy environment.

We had the pleasure of hearing briefly from Dr. Richard Wilkinson, co-author of the Spirit Level and co-founder of the Equality Trust . Unfortunately this was cut short due to issues with technology. You can watch his 2010 Ted Talk here .

The closing remarks were given by Ted Schrecker  who I first encountered through his work on globalization and health. During his talk he noted the importance of avoiding the lifestyle trap and moving upstream to address structural determinants. Public health will need to apply more savvy political tactics to get to meaningful intervention. Stressing the importance of finance, Schrecker noted that, 'public finance is a public health issue'. This would come as no surprise to anyone who has read his work on the myth of scarcity. He also spoke about the importance of not using lack of evidence as a reason for inaction, which resonates with recommendations for the WHO Commission for the Social Determinants of Health.

In the breakout sessions I attended, Health Nexus demonstrated the power of social network analysis in strengthening networks and the Child and Youth Network of Eastern Ontario discussed their Poverty Lens, a tool designed to help organizations better support children, youth, and families living in poverty.

Click here to view tweets from the conference.

Presentations are available on the Health Promotion Ontario website

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Want to meet us in-person? We will be in Vancouver on November 22 and 23 2012 at the Public Health Association of British Columbia (PHABC) Conference and in Montreal from November 26-28 for the Journées annuelles de santé publique (Quebec Annual Public Health Days).