{"id":14421,"date":"2013-05-06T12:43:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T12:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nccdh-dev.media-doc.ca\/tophc-linda-reflection-2\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T19:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:26:05","slug":"tophc-linda-reflection-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccdh-dev.media-doc.ca\/fr\/tophc-linda-reflection-2\/","title":{"rendered":"My time with the NCCDH & the Ontario public health community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Written by Linda Chan, Master of Public Health (MPH) Student at the University of Toronto (Health Promotion Specialization)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health (NCCDH) kicked off their time at the Ontario Public Health Conference (TOPHC) with Strengthening organizational capacity within public <\/a>he<\/a>a<\/a>lth <\/a>units to address health equity<\/a>. The NCCDH held this preconference workshop on April 2, 2013, in partnership with the alPHa-OPHA Health Equity <\/a>Workgroup<\/a> and the Community Health Nurses Initiative <\/a>Group <\/a>(CHNIG)<\/a>, an interest group of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a student volunteer, I was able to see firsthand how the NCCDH engages public health professionals, encourages resource sharing<\/a>, and helps local staff to incorporate theory and evidence into everyday practice. I also had the opportunity to learn about prominent issues public health staff face every day in working towards health equity.<\/p>\n

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Small group dialogues<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh<\/a>, a Knowledge Translation specialist at the NCCDH, facilitated the event using a method called open space technology. Participants identified several topics, and then engaged in related dialogues. Each dialogue was led by a participant who had expressed specific interest in exploring that topic, and participants were able to attend whichever dialogues they felt would be most useful for their practice. The energy and passion in the room was palpable.<\/p>\n

The open space dialogues gave participants the opportunity to discuss -among other topics – the role of the social determinant of health Public Health Nurses. For those who love acronyms, this role is often referred to as the “SDH P<\/strong>HN”<\/strong> – a position found in local public health units across Ontario.  Other dialogue topics included health equity tools, organizational capacity-building, methods for data collection and health equity measures, intersectoral partnerships, influencing policy and advocacy, engaging with socially and economically excluded populations, and communicating about health equity and the social determinants of health. (For resources related to these topics, see \u00ab\u00a0related\u00a0\u00bb at the bottom of this page.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The dialogues had some common threads. Participants expressed the need and desire to:<\/p>\n