Government of Canada invests in addressing public health evidence gaps (2024)

Backgrounder

The Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health, announces an investment of $6,621,475 through the Enhanced Surveillance for Chronic Disease Program to seven organizations who will carry out projects that increase our ability to gather health-related data and collect missing data needed to expand our knowledge in the areas of substance related harms, including opioids, mental health and mental illness, and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 including post-COVID condition and chronic disease. This backgrounder supports the news release entitled "Government of Canada invests in initiatives to address public health evidence gaps".

August 2024

Through the Enhanced Surveillance for Chronic Disease Program (ESCDP), the Public Health Agency of Canada supports projects that address persistent public health evidence gaps and support the development of a robust evidence base on chronic diseases and conditions, injury, mental health, substance use and their risk factors.

The ESCDP explores new tools and approaches to collect, analyze, and disseminate timely information and builds new, non-traditional partnerships focused on risk and protective factors in order to prevent chronic diseases and injuries.

Launched in 2022, this ESCDP solicitation aims to expand our ability to gather health-related data and collect missing data needed to expand our knowledge in three priority areas:

1. Substance related harms, including opioids;
2. Mental health and mental illness; and
3. Longer term impacts of COVID-19 including post-COVID condition and chronic disease.

The Government of Canada is providing $6,621,475 to seven Canadian organizations that will carry out the following projects:

Lead organization: British Columbia Centre for Disease Control
Project name: Multi-provincial Surveillance Systems for Post-COVID-19 Condition and Outcomes (MSPCo)
Description: Post COVID-19 Condition (PCC), or Long COVID, is characterized by persistent symptoms lasting 30 days or more after the initial infection. This project aims to fill critical knowledge gaps by developing a system to monitor PCC, identify risk factors, and analyze long-term health outcomes in British Columbia.
Funding: $976,431

Lead organization: Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction
Project name: Using Artificial Intelligence and Internet Technologies to Enhance Real-time Surveillance of Substance-related Harms
Description: The primary objective is to develop a Canada-wide early warning system to address the drug poisoning crisis. The intended beneficiaries include harm reduction service providers, health promoters, first responders, healthcare practitioners, and policymakers, ultimately benefitting people who use drugs and communities often under-represented in public health data.
Funding: $975,822

Lead organization: First Nations Health Authority
Project name: Mental Health & Wellness Among First Nations in BC: A comprehensive review of indicators for mental health
Description: Existing health reporting is largely deficit-based, predicated on Western understandings of risk and disease, which is incongruent with the First Nations Perspective on Health and Wellness. Further, a gap in culturally appropriate, community-facing reporting exists on the mental health and wellness of BC First Nations. This project aims to produce a series of accessible knowledge translation tools to increase First Nations decision-making, control, and improve health services and outcomes of mental health and wellness in BC.
Funding: $976,827

Lead organization: Inner City Health Associates
Project name: Enhanced Community Assessment and Risk Evaluation Program (CARE 2.0)
Description: The main goals of CARE 2.0 are to enhance chronic disease data gathering from Toronto shelters; to conduct exploratory and community/population-based data analysis to increase understanding of health risk and impacts of social determinants of health among people experiencing homelessness; and to share knowledge through local, provincial and national networks.
Funding: $976,827

Lead organization: St. Paul’s Foundation of Vancouver
Project name: Creating a comprehensive surveillance system to optimize youth mental health and substance use outcomes
Description: Foundry is an integrated youth services initiative in British Columbia serving youth ages 12-24. Data at Foundry provide some understanding into youth needs, but additional insight could be gained by connecting these data to data held by the Government of BC. With a more complete picture, new policies and resources can be prioritized to improve youth health and health care. Audiences for the project are Foundry communities (including youth and families), service providers, researchers and policy makers.
Funding: $975,380

Lead organization: University of Toronto
Project name: Pan-Canadian Perinatal Opioid Use Surveillance System
Description: The goal of this project is to work alongside community members and organizations to develop a pan-Canadian public health data system to monitor perinatal opioid use and investigate its impact on maternal and child health over time. This major initiative will link existing prescription opioid records with hospital care, physician outpatient visits, and developmental records for mother-infant dyads across five provinces with full-population data (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan).
Funding: $973,792

Lead organization: University of Waterloo
Project name: Enhanced Mental Health Surveillance in Community Care and Long-Term Care Settings
Description: The project aims to improve the tracking of mental health conditions among persons in home care (HC) or long-term care (LTC) settings across Canada. The work will involve persons receiving HC or LTC in Ontario, Manitoba (Winnipeg) and Alberta. The researchers will see how often mental illness occurs in people in HC and LTC. They will look at whether healthcare use for mental illness changes when people move into HC or LTC settings. Also, they will look at how useful different types of information are for tracking mental illness and identifying those most at risk.
Funding: $766,396