Much has transpired since the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) created the Institute of Population and Public Health (IPPH), an innovative national health organization with a very broad mandate, one that is inherently integrative. While there are many national Institutes of Public Health in the world, there appears to be only one "Institute of Population and Public Health." Why this dual mandate?
Public health involves the planning and delivery of services aimed at the protection of the public from hazards, the prevention of disease and injury and the promotion of good health. These services, perhaps more important than ever in an era of environmental threat, and global social and economic change, represent the program, policy and action arm of the Institute's dual mandate. "Population health," on the other hand refers to a transdisciplinary approach to understanding how human health is determined, especially through the interaction of physical and social environments with genetic predispositions over the life course, at both individual and community levels, in whole societies.
Under the guidance of its Advisory Board, the Institute is uniquely positioned to:
Our own experiences and backgrounds have led us to the belief that interdisciplinary research, partnered with research users in program, policy and practice, is the way of the future in this field. We look forward to working together with our sister Institutes, partners and the PPH research, policy and practice communities to realize this vision.
Sincerely,
John Frank MD, CCFP, MSc, FRCP(C)
Scientific Director, CIHR - Institute of Population and Public Health; Professor, Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto; Senior Scientist, Institute for Work and Health, Toronto
Jean-Yves Savoie, PhD
Chair, CIHR-Institute of Population and Public Health Advisory Board
Directeur Général, Institut de recherche en santé et en sécurité du travail
Following is a synopsis of key activities in relation to the areas in the CIHR planning, reporting and accountability structure. These include:
Mapping a Coherent Population and Public Health Research Agenda
Strategic Directions Outlook (2001-02) 1
With the help of the Institute's Advisory Board, the Institute initially developed a Strategic Directions Outlook (SDO), an articulation of PPH objectives and research priorities, which was used to guide our activities in
2001-02. These priorities formed the basis for the Institute's pan-Canadian consultation sessions in the fall of 2001.
Institute "SDO" Objectives
Institute Research Priorities for 2001-02
Taking Stock of our Research Priorities in Population and Public Health
Strategic Plan (2002-2007)
Under the direction of its Advisory Board, the Institute successfully developed a comprehensive five-year Strategic Plan, which builds on the Strategic Directions Outlook and is largely based on the insights gained during the cross-country consultation and a review of strategic plans of international research organizations with similar mandates. The Strategic Plan, entitled "Mapping and Tapping the Wellsprings of Health" outlines five strategic priorities (slightly revised from those in the SDO). These priorities have been used as the basis for reporting on activities undertaken by the Institute in the past year.
Capacity Building
A range of capacity building research and knowledge exchange initiatives are required to respond to the varying needs of population and public health researchers, policy makers and practitioners, and to help "level the playing field" across Canadian regions with very different PPH research capacities and strengths. These include innovative training opportunities, as well as efforts to facilitate the development and sustainability of data systems, research and public health infrastructure across Canada.
Key Institute Accomplishments - Funded Research
CIHR Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research
Current estimates indicate that Canada will need approximately 100,000 new researchers and scientists by 2010. Coinciding with this need is strong international competition to train and retain talented and experienced researchers. CIHR launched its Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research to:
As part of this initiative, IPPH provided funding support 12 innovative multi-year trans-disciplinary training initiatives across the country, in partnership with other Institutes and external funding partners. Training topics included: population health (strengthening the link between policy, research and community), two programs related to infectious disease control; analysis and evaluation of health policy interventions; work disability prevention; primary health care; community partnership research; tobacco; allergy and asthma; rural ecosystem and health; bone and joint health; and, bridging public health, engineering and policy research.
A few training initiatives are highlighted below:
Strengthening the Interface between Research, Policy and Community
Dr. Ron Labonte of the Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit (SPHERU) is leading this cooperative endeavour of researchers from the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan. The training initiative will train researchers in theoretically specific and transdisciplinary approaches to health research. This program seeks to overcome an acknowledged provincial disadvantage: the comparative lack of a critical mass of skilled and expertly qualified population health researchers in Saskatchewan.
Training New Investigators in Work Disability Prevention
This unique training program, headed by Dr. Patrick Loisel at the Université de Sherbrooke, is using a transdisciplinary approach to address the current need for training in the field of work disability prevention. The program involves researchers from six universities in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. Rehabilitation ergonomics, clinical rehabilitation and tools, program development and evaluation, and disability management are examples of specific components in addition to the provision of core training that will ensure a transdisciplinary approach is adopted.
Transdisciplinary Training in Community Partnership Research: Bridging Research to Practice
Dr. Charles Frankish of the University of British Columbia builds on the new university-based graduate courses developed with the CIHR Regional Training Centre grant, to add innovative training formats focused on shared capacity building by university and community learners. The program aims to develop the capacity of practitioners and researchers to engage in community partnership research by creating flexible learning opportunities that result in sustained partnerships.
Public Health and the Agricultural Rural Ecosystem
Dr. James Dosman of the Centre for Agricultural Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, with researchers from Laval University, Queen's University, the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta, is addressing the need for a coordinated program looking at the occupational and environmental health and safety risks resulting from the trend towards industrial farming. Using a transdisciplinary approach, the training program will emphasize basic scientific research, health promotion programs, engineering and occupational hygiene controls, risk assessment, and policy development, to encourage safe and sustainable growth of rural and agricultural health and ecosystems.
New Emerging Team (NET) Grant Program
In August 2001, CIHR launched the New Emerging Team Grant Program. This initiative provides funding over five years, to support new teams of independent investigators assuming collaborative, multi-disciplinary research in Canadian research institutions.
Under this initiative, multi-year funding support has been provided to three teams of investigators. Two of these, related to the impacts of violence, are in collaboration with the Institute of Gender and Health, while the other, addressing the consequences of prenatal exposure to maternal smoking on the brain, is funded in conjunction with the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction.
Workshop Support Funding Program
The Workshop Support Funding Program was established to financially support meetings of a limited number of persons (10-30) who are individually invited to address specific questions or problems important to the development of the strategic funding agendas of the CIHR Institutes of Population and Public Health and Health Services and Policy Research. These initiatives should be organized with the purpose of reaching a consensus on recommendations or conclusions that provide guidance regarding research gaps, opportunities or priorities.
Workshops funded included the integration of behavioural and social science research; defining a literacy and health research agenda, and a research agenda on the economic analysis of the burden of food and water-borne disease.
Integrating Behavioural and Social Science Health Research in Canada: Building a Coalition
Dr. Allan Best, of the University of British Columbia, is leading the organization of a national workshop that includes researchers, policy makers, funders, government and non-governmental employees. The goal of the workshop is for researchers from diverse disciplines to come together and articulate exactly how behavioural and social science health research (BSSR) relates to their discipline and to CIHR strategic priorities.
Toward an Agenda for Literacy and Health Research in Canada
This workshop, being led by Dr. Irving Rootman, of the University of Toronto, in partnership with the Canadian Public Health Association includes researchers, practitioners and policy makers from across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The purpose of the workshop is to develop a consensus on priority research questions and policy issues related to literacy and health, develop proposals for CIHR funding of literacy and health research projects as well as inform the potential development of a future strategic initiative on literacy and health.
Other Key Capacity Building Initiatives
Understanding and addressing the impacts of physical and social environments on health
The Institute is committed to strengthening research capacity to study these important social and physical determinants of health and their interactions over the life course, and to support policy and program intervention research to improve these environments in order to achieve population-level health benefits. In addition, the Institute supports consensus-building workshops and national networks, linking researchers and stakeholders to address these priorities together.
Key Institute Accomplishments
Needs, Gaps, Opportunities & Assessment Grants
Applications of Science in the Control of Infectious Diseases: Defining Needs, Opportunities and Gaps for the 21st Century
As the principal investigator, Dr. Robert Brunham, Director of the Centre for Disease Control at the University of British Columbia, is determining the research needs, gaps and opportunities of key stakeholders and public health practitioners with regards to infectious disease control, social determinants of health, development of enhanced surveillance activities and the use of genetic epidemiology in public health.
Housing as a Socioeconomic Determinant of Population Health
Dr. James Dunn, of the University of Calgary, in collaboration with investigators from British Columbia and Ontario, is identifying the research needs, gaps and future opportunities, in studying housing, socioeconomic status (SES) and health. The objectives of the project include establishing a database of existing literature and studies on this topic, as well as an inventory of Canadian research capacity in housing, SES and health.
Social Assistance and Health
Dr. Lori Curtis, of Dalhousie University, leads a team of investigators from Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. This team, through key informant interviews with practitioners in provincial Community Service Departments, national governmental bodies, academic institutions and non-governmental policy organizations, aims to develop an inventory of research infrastructure across the country which can be used to support research on social assistance and health.
Income, Health and Disease in Canada: Current State of Knowledge, Information Gaps and Areas of Needed Inquiry
Dr. Dennis Raphael, of York University, leads a collaborative investigation that includes investigators in Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces. The investigators will conduct an environmental scan of the current state of substantive research and theoretical activity related to the role of income and health status.
Characterizing and Reducing Health Disparities
Following the pan-Canadian consultation tour and input from the IAB, this strategic priority was identified in the third quarter of the Institute's past year of operations. It recognizes that the health status of virtually all populations varies widely across subgroups, as defined by socio-economic status, gender, race/ethnicity and geography across societies.
Key Institute Accomplishments
Environmental and genetic determinants of disease in human populations
Previously referred to as "gene-environment interactions", this strategic priority was reframed within a much broader context in response to stakeholder consultations. This strategic priority acknowledges that the new knowledge emanating from genomic research must be balanced with equally comprehensive assessments of relevant environmental exposures in order to fully understand the causal pathways leading from health to disease and premature mortality. IPPH is pleased to be collaborating with the Institute of Genetics (IG) in addressing this complex area of research.
Key Institute Accomplishments
Global Health
The Institute is pleased to provide leadership to the strategic area of global health, which seeks to understand the upstream ecological, technological, economic, political and socio-cultural forces and their heath impacts on low and middle-income countries. This cross-cutting initiative involves a number of other Institutes (e.g. Aboriginal Peoples' Health, Gender and Health, Infection and Immunity) and several external partners under the Global Health Research Initiative, including Health Canada, the International Development Research Centre (IRDC), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), as well as non-governmental organizations such as the Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH).
Key Institute Accomplishments
Supported a consensus building workshop in September 2001 involving researchers, government, non-governmental organizations, and foundations to discuss research priorities that address both disease-specific and inherently global health issues, and to scope out global health research topics and mechanisms for future funding priority for Canadian health researchers and partnering agencies; Supported the "10/90 Gap" Symposium on Global Health Research organized by the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues in September 2001; Commissioned background papers to help set global health research priorities in the following areas:
Setting Global Health Priorities for Funding Canadian Researchers: A Discussion Paper focused on inherently global issues (by Drs. Ron Labonte of SPHERU of the University of Saskatchewan and Jerry Spiegel of the Liu Centre for the Study of Global issues and the University of British Columbia) Promoting Canadian Involvement and Capacity Building in Global Health Policy and Systems Research: Perspectives, Recommendations (by Drs. Slim Haddad of the University of Montréal and David Zakus of the University of Toronto) Commissioned a briefing note on Health, Globalization and Global Health Research Priorities (by Drs. Ron Labonte and Jerry Spiegel) intended as a backgrounder for discussion among health officials and international health research funders involved in preparations for the G8 meetings in Kananaskis; and, Initiated the development of a Request for Applications with partners in the Global Health Research Initiative to provide research program development and planning grants that build research capacity in Canada to investigate and intervene on ecological, technological, economic, political and socio-cultural forces that influence health, and/or major health and health systems problems that affect low, middle income and rich countries. The initiative is also intended to build research capacity in low and middle-income countries, as well as strengthen North-South collaboration in global health research.
Partnerships
Internal
Cross-Cutting Initiatives
The Institute was actively engaged in leading or supporting the development of a number of cross-cutting initiatives such as Global Health Research (lead), Population Platforms for Integrated Gene-Environment Health Research (co-lead with IG), Rural and Remote Health (support), Environmental Health (support), Tobacco and, Reducing Health Disparities and Promoting the Health of Vulnerable Populations (support).
IPPH supported a number of priority initiatives led by other Institutes by providing funding and/or participating in the planning of the workshop or conference. Selected initiatives are highlighted below:
External
Canadian Institute for Health Information-Canadian Population Health Initiative (CIHI-CPHI)
Global Health Research Coalition
Federal Government Relations
Stakeholder Engagement
Increasing the Institute's profile
Translation and Use of Knowledge
From our stakeholders across the country, we heard that "traditional, unidirectional research transfer model must be replaced with interactive, knowledge exchange approaches, that engage the ultimate users of research evidence (policy/decision-makers, practitioners) early and often in the research process". In its first year of operations, the Institute has taken modest strides towards achieving this part of its mandate, in collaboration with the Canadian Population Health Initiative.
Facilitating Integration
The "research receptor capacity" in public health is currently hampered by declining public health infrastructure and uneven capacity across Canada's regions, which in turn affects the application of new and existing population health knowledge into policy and practice. As a result, Institute activities were directed to raising awareness of the need for a coordinated multi-jurisdictional commitment to ensure cost-effective organization and adequate funding of local and provincial/territorial public health services in Canada.
Speaking out about Public Health Infrastructure
Making the Case for a "PPH Evidence-based Secretariat"
Supporting the uptake and dissemination of innovative approaches to conducting applied public health research
PPH Network Development
Health Services Policy/Population Health Journal
Presentations
- Meetings with Prime Minister's office to discuss environmental contaminants and children's health initiative (January & February 2001)
- Presentation to Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Population Health Program on IPPH (March 2001)
- Presentation on IPPH at Canadian Foundation for Innovation Workshop (March 2001)
- Pan American Health Organization/International Development Research Centre Conference on Health Care Reform in the Americas (session moderator and presenter on IPPH) (April 2001)
- Presentation to the F/P/T Advisory Committee on Population Health (April 2001)
- Presentation to Canadian Society for International Health Conference (global health focus) (November 2001)
- Presentation to Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada Annual Meeting: "Research for Action in Work and Health: Lessons Learned" (November 2001)
- Joint presentation with IHSPR at the HEALNet Annual Conference: "The New Research Agenda of CIHR in Population and Public Health" (November 2001)
- Presentation at Canada/Japan International Collaboration Workshop (December 2001)
- Presentation at Canadian Society for Toxicology Symposium (December 2001)
- Presentation to Health Canada's Scientific Advisory Board: "A New Vision for Population and Public Health in Canada" (March 2002)
Organizational Excellence
Building the Virtual Institute
Institute Advisory Board Membership
In collaboration with the Scientific Director and staff, the Institute Advisory Board (IAB) helps fulfill CIHR's objective for all Canadians. The IAB is an essential focal point for gathering expertise, for discussion of, and deliberation on Institute priorities, for guidance on implementation of Institute plans and for dissemination to, and engagement of the broader community.
Institute Advisory Board Members for the annual reporting period 2001-2002
Jean Yves Savoie, PhD (Chair)
Directeur Général, Institut de recherche en santé et en sécurité du travail
Nancy Edwards, BScN, MSc, PhD (Vice-Chair)
Professor, School Of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa
Lillian Bayne, MHSc (March 2001 - June 2001)
Regional Director General, Health Canada
Robert Brunham, MD, FRCPC
Director, Centre for Disease Control, University of British Columbia
David Butler-Jones, MD, MHSc, CCFP, FRCPC, FACPM
Associate Clinical Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan
Catherine Hankins, MD, MSc, CCFP, FRCPC
Medical Epidemiologist, Montreal Regional Public Health Department
Clyde Hertzman, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Professor, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of
British Columbia
Ms. Marilyn Knox
President, Nutrition, Nestlé Canada Inc.
Danielle Laberge, MSc, PhD
Professeure, Département de sociologie, Université du Québec à Montréal
John McLaughlin, MSc, PhD, FACE
Head, Henry S. Rosenberg, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Samuel Lunenfeld
Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital
John Millar, MD
Vice President, Research and Population Health, Canadian Institute for Health Information
Annette O'Connor, BScN, MScN, PhD
Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Nursing and Faculty of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa
Lesley Pinder, MSc, MD
Family Physician, St. Stephen, New Brunswick
Christiane Poulin, MD, MSc
Associate Professor, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University
S. Leonard Syme, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley
Wendy Watson-Wright, PhD (June 2001 - December 2001)
Senior Director General, Population and Public Health Branch, Health Canada
Michael Wolfson, PhD
Assistant Chief Statistician, Analysis and Development, Statistics Canada
T. Kue Young, MD, CM, MSc, FRCPC, Dphil
Professor & Head, Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba
Evaluation
Participation in CIHR Corporate Committees/Meetings
Institute staff participated in a number of corporate committees and meetings of , bringing an Institute and/or population and public health perspective or contributing to the development of operational procedures across Institute (e.g. workshop guidelines and procedures). A list of selected committees and notable meetings is provided below.
Concluding Remarks
In sum, it has been an exciting start-up period at the CIHR-Institute of Population and Public Health. The Institute and its Advisory Board look forward to continuing in the coming years to:
It promises to be another year of scientific engagement and collaboration involving many disciplinary and multi-sectoral perspectives in population and public health.
The Canadian Institute of Health Research is funded entirely by federal government appropriations, although funded projects may also be financially supported through partner contributions. For the year ending March 31, 2002, federal appropriations totaled $553.8 Million. The Governing Council of CIHR delegates financial authority for the management of a portion of these funds directly to each Institute. These funds are:
Institute Strategic Initiatives: Each Institute is provided with funding annually to support strategic health research, knowledge translation and capacity building in their respective scientific areas through the awarding of peer-reviewed grants and awards in fields of inquiry related to their Institute.
Institute Support Grant: Each Institute receives an Institute Support Grant of $1 Million annually to operate the Institute and to develop research and knowledge translation capacity in the scientific community they represent through a wide array of collaborative activities.
The following tables provide financial results of operations for the year ended March 31, 2002 for each of these funding sources. Although Institutes have direct responsibility for the management of the funds described above, they also play an important role in supporting research, knowledge translation and capacity building initiatives funded through other CIHR grants and awards. .
The CIHR corporate budget supports other strategic initiatives as well as open, investigator-initiated research, primarily through operating grants and personnel awards. CIHR's Research Planning and Priorities Committee, comprised of the President and the thirteen Scientific Directors of the Institutes, decide on the overall research priorities of CIHR and make recommendations to the Governing Council on appropriate allocation of resources.
Institute of Population and Public Health Investments in Strategic Initiatives
For the year ending March 31, 2002
Institute of Population and Public Health - Institute Support Grant
For the year ending March 31, 2002
IPPH Supported Strategic Training Initiatives
| Principal Applicant / Principal Institution | Title of Proposal |
| Schurr, Erwin A* Hôpital général de Montréal |
Training centre in integrative biology of infectious disease and autoimmunology |
| Teschke, Kay* University of British Columbia |
CIHR strategic training program to bridge public health, engineering and policy research |
| Stewart, Moira A* University of Western Ontario |
Interdisciplinary research training in primary |
| Plummer, Francis* University of Manitoba |
International centre for infectious disease training program |
| Leduc, Nicole Université de Montréal |
Programme de formation en analyse et évaluation des interventions en santé pour la prise de décision et les politiques |
| Cameron, Roy A University of Waterloo |
Tobacco research training program |
| Frankish, Charles University of British Columbia |
Transdisciplinary training in community partnership research: Bridging research into practice |
| Hayglass, Kent University of Manitoba |
Allergy and asthma: From molecular regulation to population |
| Loisel, Patrick Université de Sherbrooke |
Training new investigators in work disability prevention |
| Zernicke, Ronald University of Calgary |
Alberta provincial training program in bone and joint health |
| Labonte, Ronald University of Saskatchewan |
Population health training that works: Strengthening the interface between research, policy and |
| Dosman, James University of Saskatchewan |
Public health and the agricultural ecosystem training program |
| Principal Applicant | Primary Institution | Title of Proposal |
| Brunham, Robert | Centre for Disease Control (University of British Columbia | Applications of science in the control of infectious diseases: defining needs, opportunities & gaps for the 21st century |
| Curtis, Lori* | Dalhousie University | Social assistance and health |
| Dunn, James | University of Calgary | Housing as a socio-economic determinant of population health |
| Raphael, Dennis | York University | Income, health and disease in Canada: current state of knowledge, information gaps and areas of needed inquiry |
| CAHR | Community Alliances for Health Research |
| CIDA | Canadian International Development Agency |
| CIHI | Canadian Institute for Health Information |
| CIHR | Canadian Institutes of Health Research |
| CMAJ | Canadian Medical Association Journal |
| CPHI | Canadian Population Health Initiative |
| CSIH | Canadian Society for International Health |
| IAB | Institute Advisory Board |
| IAPH | Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health |
| ICR | Institute of Cancer Research |
| ICRH | Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health |
| IG | Institute of Genetics |
| IGH | Institute of Gender and Health |
| IA | Institute of Aging |
| IHDCYH | Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health |
| IHSPR | Institute of Health Services and Policy Research |
| IHRT | Interdisciplinary Health Research Teams |
| III | Institute of Infection and Immunity |
| IMHA | Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis |
| INMHA | Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction |
| INMD | Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes |
| IPPH | Institute of Population and Public Health |
| IDRC | International Development Research Centre |
| MOU | Memorandum of Understanding |
| NET | New Emerging Team |
| NGOA | Needs, Gaps, Opportunities and Assessment |
| PHRED | Public Health Research, Education, and Development Program |
| PPH | Population and Public Health |
| RFA | Request for Applications |
| RFP | Request for Proposal |
| SDO | Strategic Directions Outlook |
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1 For a complete copy of the SDO, please consult IPPH Website.
