Author: Samira Prasad

Following a review done last year by Dr. Linn Holness and team, Ontario is launching a new plan to track job-related illnesses. CBC highlights some of the report’s key recommendations.

MAP has welcomed several new scientists and investigators this year, read more about them below. You can browse all of our scientists here.

Dr. Mikaela D. Gabriel (Italian & Mi’kmaq of Ktaqmkuk; she/her) is a clinical and counselling psychologist (in supervision) and researcher exploring Indigenous health and wellbeing, urban cultural connection, and housing transitions for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Read her full bio here.

Dr. Benita Hosseini (she/her) is a researcher working on identifying effective and affordable treatments for COVID-19 so they can be more accessible and available in community settings. Read her full bio here.

Dr. Mohammad Karamouzian (he/him) is an infectious disease epidemiologist who is passionate about global equity in health and social justice. Read his full bio here.

Dr. Aaron Orkin (he/him), both a physician and researcher, explores the intersection between public health and clinical medicine. Read his full bio here.

Dr. Saadia Sediqzadah (she/her) is a practicing psychiatrist whose work is rooted in social justice and advocacy. Her research focuses on the intersection of health economics, decision science and severe and persistent mental illnesses. Read her full bio here.

MAP also welcomes Dr. Ambreen Sayani as an affiliate scientist, you can read her bio here.

Dr. Kamran Khan’s company BlueDot was featured in The Globe and Mail’s recent article about Canada’s top growing companies. BlueDot tracks and forecasts outbreaks of infectious disease using a combination of data analytics and human intelligence. It is a a subscription-based product with clients across the public and private sectors, from governments to airlines to pharmaceutical makers.

Dr. Aisha Lofters spoke to CBC about how at-home HPV testing could significantly boost early detection. This is one of the recommendations in a recent CMAJ guideline on equitable preventative care which she co-authored.

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Dr. Nav Persaud spoke to The Globe and Mail about the new set of recommendations published in CMAJ designed to improve health care for people who face barriers in accessing it; as well as the new online tool that individuals can use to find out if they should speak to health care providers about prioritized screening.

Publication de nouvelles lignes directrices exhaustives pour la promotion de l’équité en matière de santé au Canada

Le D^r Nav Persaud a accordé un entretien au Globe and Mail au sujet des nouvelles recommandations publiées dans le Journal de l’Association médicale canadienne (JAMC) et qui sont destinées à améliorer les soins de santé pour les personnes qui rencontrent des obstacles pour y accéder. Il a également parlé du nouvel outil en ligne permettant de savoir si une personne doit s’adresser à un prestataire de soins de santé pour obtenir un dépistage prioritaire.

From Unity Health Toronto, by Marlene Leung

A new comprehensive national guideline outlines 16 preventive care recommendations to promote health equity for people experiencing disadvantages due to racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.

The guideline, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, includes recommendations for increased screening for certain cancers and heart conditions, blood testing for tuberculosis (TB), and patient self-testing for diseases like HIV and HPV. These preventive care measures are intended to detect a medical condition or disease before it progresses to a more serious stage.

Some of the key recommendations in the study include:

• Prioritizing colorectal cancer screening for patients aged 45-74
• Offering HPV self-testing for people eligible for cervical cancer screening
• Screening for TB infection in people with other risk factors, including recent immigration to Canada from a country with high rates of TB
• Screening for depression and providing appropriate support to adolescents and adults
• Screening for risk factors for poverty in all families with children, and connecting families in need with resources and supports
• Connecting patients to primary care with automatic enrollment in a primary care practice
• Removing costs and barriers for medical tests, treatments and counselling

While preventive care is already part of our health system, many people experiencing marginalization face barriers accessing this care, says Dr. Navindra Persaud, study-co-lead and Unity Health Toronto family physician and Canada Research Chair in Health Justice.

“We’re hoping people will pay more attention to the actual specific actions that can be taken to promote health equity,” he said. “Even though inequities are rooted in systemic issues, there are things that healthcare institutions and healthcare providers can do on a day-to-day basis to achieve fairness when it comes to health outcomes.”

Persaud said while the recommendations are aimed at achieving fairness and equity in health outcomes, many of these recommendations will also improve efficiencies.

For example, the common method of screening for HPV and cervical cancer is via Pap tests that are conducted by a physician during a doctor’s appointment. During the appointment, the physician collects a sample from the patient and sends it to the lab. The results are sent back to the physician, who then communicates the results back to the patient.

By offering patients the option of self-testing and sending their sample to a lab, the process is made easier for patients who may not be able to come in to clinic. It can also address disparities in who gets cervical cancer screening, said Persaud.

“It’s an example that demonstrates that when we focus on health equity, we can actually improve the system in ways that benefit everyone,” he said.

Streamlining the process for TB testing via a single blood test, rather than a multi-step skin test, will also improve efficiencies, he added.

Persaud notes these preventive measures are already available to patients, it’s just a matter of redeploying resources and focusing on groups that have been underserved.

“The resources are already there, but there are people who are not receiving these life-saving interventions,” he said. “It’s really about using what we already have more appropriately and more fairly.”

From The Tyee

A panel of patients in British Columbia recommended more support for team-based care in community health centres and improved electronic medical records among ways to improve primary health care in the province.

“This is a unique opportunity we’ve had to hear from patients,” said Goldis Mitra, the B.C. lead for the OurCare project.

“I was heartened to see how thoughtful, passionate and brave all of these citizens were,” added Mitra, who is also a North Vancouver family physician, teaches at the University of British Columbia and is on the executive of the group BC Family Doctors that represents the profession. “As someone who does work in primary care policy I think it’s really helped me orient my focus to the key issues we really need to be tackling in the province.”

There were 31 randomly selected British Columbians, roughly matching the province’s demographics, who participated on the OurCare B.C. Priorities Panel. They spent some 30 hours together last spring hearing from speakers and discussing ways to make the system better.

The panel was part of a national process to engage Canadians on the future of primary care. Similar panels have been or will be convened in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. An earlier phase in the project surveyed some 9,000 people across the country.

Funders of the project, led by Toronto family physician and academic Tara Kiran, include Health Canada, the Max Bell Foundation and Even the Odds, a partnership between retailer Staples and the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions.

The B.C. panel’s 25 recommendations are included in a 75-page report released this week.

From the Vancouver Island Free Daily

A new report calling for primary care reform in B.C. is written by the exact group most impacted by the province’s health-care crisis: patients.

Last spring, a national initiative known as OurCare randomly selected 31 British Columbians from a pool of interested volunteers to share their experiences, spend 30 hours learning from experts and, ultimately, produce a set of 25 recommendations for change. Those calls to action were released on Tuesday (Sept. 19).

“It feels like there’s a massive failing within the government of just mismanagement in general,” one of the patient panelists, 30-year-old Malika Lim, told Black Press Media.

Canada’s biggest medical research competition, Angels Den, is back – returning in-person, at Meridian Hall, for its 9th year. On October 11, 2023, six teams of St. Michael’s Hospital’s top scientists will pitch their groundbreaking research projects to judges and jurors for a chance at $500,000 in funding.

Amongst the contestants are MAP scientists Dr. Sean Rourke, Dr. Aaron Orkin, and Dr. Carolyn Snider. Watch their videos below to learn about the projects that they will be pitching.

The Ontario Community Health Profiles Partnership (OCHPP) and Ontario Health, Central Region (OH) are very excited to announce the creation of 194 new local areas in Central Region!

Central is one of six new Ontario Health Regions established from the previous 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs). OH Central is comprised of four former LHINs: Central, Central West, Mississauga Halton and North Simcoe Muskoka.

Creating 194 Local Areas

The OCHPP team, located at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions under the leadership of Rick Glazier, PI, and OH team have been working hard over the last year to develop local areas for the vast area covered by OH Central Region. The new 194 local areas comprise over four million people who reside in the fast-growing and diverse communities from Mississauga to Huntsville and Orangeville to Markham. (As a note, some jurisdictions refer to small areas as neighbourhoods but OH refers to theirs as local areas.)

Why Local Areas?

Local-level data can tell you a lot about the characteristics of a community, what shapes health care utilization, and where the biggest opportunities exist for improving health. In most regions, health and social data are available at a national, provincial, and municipal level to inform planning. However, it’s easy for the needs of local communities to get ‘averaged out’ when planners do not have access to local-area data. Neighbouring communities can have drastically different pictures of health and well-being, despite their close physical proximity. These differences are only visible in the data when we are able to break down the information and look at each local area separately.

The Process

The OCHPP and OH teams used an array of spatial reference and census data when developing local areas. Geographical information system (GIS) tools and methods were used to process data and ultimately define the new areas. Specifically, standard Census geographies were used as the building blocks for the new areas. Using a standard approach often makes analyzing and reporting data more accessible and efficient. In several instances, the team tweaked boundaries in order to ensure equal distribution of populations. An understanding of local communities, the use of existing local areas along with natural and constructed boundaries also informed the process.  

The process also involved the testing and validation of populations within areas. We created our areas with population sizes that range from a minimum of 7,000 to a maximum of 30,000 people so that health outcomes would be reportable thus reducing the risk that cells with low counts would prohibit release of data due to privacy restrictions. Other factors included sufficient population size to allow for stratification by age group and sex as well as considering the stability of data over time and ability to account for changes in population dynamics within an area.

Important consideration was given to ensuring that areas identified as First Nations or Indigenous communities would not have their data reflected in the outcomes without their permission, owing to the lack of partnership agreements in place with these communities and to respect the principles of OCAP. These areas are identified in the local areas but no data will be reported.

Especially important is the northern reach of these local areas. Health system planning is crucially important to places that might historically and currently have difficulty accessing healthcare. By reporting health and socio-demographics at these small areas, planners will have additional tools to demonstrate gaps in care within their jurisdictions.

OCHPP: Partners and Public Website

Perhaps the best part of this collaboration is that all of the local area data (and any accompanying) maps will be available to anyone via the OCHPP website.

OCHPP partners include provincial and local governments, public health professionals, community health providers and researchers. We work together to build community capacity to use health information. One way we do this is by providing local area health and socio-demographic data in easy to use tables and maps on a freely-accessible website.

OCHPP partners contribute in many different ways but all share a common goal of using data to help inform and implement policies that reduce health inequities in Ontario.

We look forward to continuing to populate and add data for Ontario Health Central Region over the next year and beyond. See the Ontario Health Central Region page and local area data here: https://www.ontariohealthprofiles.ca

This project is one more step in the OCHPP goal of “mapping Ontario one small area at a time.” We are honoured to have worked closely with OH Central on this important and equity-based project.

For more information or to find out about methods used to create the new areas please contact: healthprofiles@smh.ca