Public Health Assessment and Surveillance

Role of the Board of Health

• The board of health will take a leadership role and build collaboration amongst community partners.

Key Focus Areas

• The board will use surveillance data in accordance with the Draft Population Health Assessment and Surveillance Protocol, focusing on local priorities and including:
• Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and early relational health
• Food environments (access, affordability, and food insecurity at a local level)
• Active living environments (including active transportation)
• Injury prevention (inflicted and unintentional)
• Mental health and well-being
• Climate change resiliency in accordance with the Draft Health Hazard Management Protocol

Data Sharing and Communication

• The board will share health promotion surveillance data, including social determinants of health and health inequities, with community partners.
• The data shared will be relevant to the local population and will help communicate and prioritize public health needs of priority populations.

Primordial Prevention Collaborations

• The board of health collaborates with community partners to prioritize primordial prevention of non-communicable diseases, injuries, and harms associated with substance use, and promote population mental health and healthy growth, development, and aging.
• The collaboration aims to inform, develop, and implement healthy local public policies, including laws, rules, regulations, ordinances, and plans.

Building Healthy Local Public Policy

• Engage with various community partners to develop healthy local public policies for primordial prevention.
• Identify gaps and barriers to adopting healthy local public policies and work to mitigate them through engagement, collaboration, and sharing of health promotion surveillance data.
• Promote health equity approaches, trauma and violence-informed approaches, and life course approaches to local policies.

Creating Supportive Environments

• Collaborate with community partners to support programs or services that generate healthy living, working, learning, and playing conditions.
• Ensure the availability, dissemination, and promotion of evidence-informed resources and communications to increase public and community partners' awareness of primordial prevention.
• Collaborate with school boards and other community partners to identify and target strategies towards comprehensive school health.

Strengthening Community Action

• Interpret, understand, and exchange knowledge of health promotion surveillance data to support community planning and action.
• Build on existing community services and assets to support capacity building, regional harmonization, collective impact, community development, and mobilization of community partners for primordial prevention.

Public Health Practice

• Public health practice responds to current and evolving conditions to contribute to the public's health and well-being.
• Programs and services are informed by the population's health status, including social determinants of health and health inequities.

Board of Health Responsibilities

• The board of health uses data to influence and inform the development of healthy local public policy and programs.
• The board of health aligns planning and delivery of local public health programs with the identified needs of the local population, including priority populations.

Collaboration and Partnerships

• The board of health collaborates with community partners to design and deliver local public health programs and services that meet the jointly identified needs of priority populations.

Population Health Assessment and Surveillance

• Population health assessment and surveillance information is used to support the allocation of resources to reflect public health priorities, including emergent public health priorities.
• Relevant public health practitioners and community partners receive timely information regarding risks to take appropriate action.

Information Dissemination

• The public, community partners, and health care providers are aware of relevant and current population health information.
• Relevant community partners have population health information, including information on health inequities, necessary for planning, delivering, and monitoring health services that are responsive to population health needs.

Indigenous Data Governance

• Relevant board of health staff understand and apply Indigenous data governance principles.
• Data is assessed, collected, and used in a culturally safe way.

This quiz assesses knowledge on public health assessment and surveillance protocols, including data collection and collaboration among community partners.