Institute of Health Promotion Research: Strengthening Health Disparities Research in BC

2003 Research Unit Award

Many people suffer from negative health behaviours, reduced health status and inappropriate access to and/or use of health services associated with being part of a vulnerable population. Focusing on five settings – community, workplace, clinical-community interface, school and international – this multidisciplinary unit will undertake research aimed at developing health promotion strategies to help reduce these disparities. The unit’s emphasis will be on development of better tools, methods and resources for conducting research with vulnerable populations, and improvements in knowledge translation and dissemination of research findings.

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. Disparities in health status, health behaviours and use of health/social services are poorly documented in BC and some, even when documented, have not been addressed effectively. Furthermore, BC’s multicultural nature highlights the need to integrate local and international efforts to reduce health disparities. This unit aims to reduce health disparities among vulnerable populations, with a focus on developing better tools, methods and resources for conducting research with vulnerable populations, and for translating research findings into policy and more effective health promotion strategies in community, workplace, school, clinical and international settings.

Conditions that lead to or result from health inequalities are detrimental to all, eroding social cohesion and impeding productivity and growth. This unit will conduct research, program and policy evaluation and collaborative research training to foster and support evidence-based decision-making on the part of health practitioners, policy makers, the lay public and academics. The unit’s program will be directed at developing and employing effective health promotion strategies to address health disparities in five settings:

• Community – The initial focus will be on nutrition and poverty, homelessness and health literacy.
• Workplace – Addressing health determinants in the workplace with a focus on mental health and preventing workplace injury, illness and disability – especially in the healthcare workforce.
• Clinical (including hospitals and community health centres) – Focusing on the interface between the clinical setting and the community in studies assessing: (a) health needs and access to healthcare services by vulnerable populations such as people with chronic diseases and the elderly; (b) health professionals’ attitudes and practices in the area of obesity management; and (c) the relationship between health care workers’ well-being (including staffing levels and other health determinants) and patient outcomes.
• School – Conducting an environmental scan and needs assessment to develop a framework and priorities for research on schools as a setting for health promotion in areas such as nutrition and smoking and cancer prevention. This will include creating a database of current Canadian activities and expertise as the basis for networking researchers, policy makers and practitioners to undertake research.
• International – Recognizing the interconnections between health issues across the world, researchers will expand international studies in Latin America, the Persian Gulf and Africa, focusing on areas such as housing and health gender inequalities, conflict and other determinants of health as well as health needs of aboriginal communities and implementing community-based measures to control infectious diseases as well as community-based disaster planning.

Completed award term September 2009.

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