On January 27th, SCPHRP Director John Frank was invited to present to the staff of Public Health Ontario — the main provincial agency for applied public health research, in Canada’s most populous province, and also John’s original home. The content of his presentation was “Seven Best Investments for Health Equity: Scotland, rUK* and Canada Compared.” This is an extension of a paper about Health Equity Investments over the life-course, in Scotland versus rUK only, written by all SCPHRP research staff and trainees in 2014, and published in Social Science and Medicine in mid-2015*.
The PHO staff-room was quite full, with many other audience members, from public health units across Ontario participating online for the presentation, which was well received. The main message was that Canada, while typically priding itself on its egalitarian political culture, has done far less than Scotland in the last decade to even measure and monitor health inequalities by social class in its citizens, let alone act on them, with policy and programme initiatives.
You cab view the presentation video here Public Health Ontario
*Frank J, Jepson R, Bromley C, Doi L, Estrade M, McAteer J, Robertson T, Treanor M, Williams AJ. Seven key investments for health equity over the life-course: A Scotland – UK Comparison. [8,000 word monograph] Soc Sci Med 2015; 40: 136-146. DOI:10.1016/socscimed.2015.07.007.
