This blog post is a review of divergence between Ontario and British Columbia’s prioritization of determinants of health. I have compared my last blog post on Social Determinants of Health: Health Outcomes in Northern Ontario to some of the points made in my classmate Bailee’s recent post.
I believe that Ontario has a suitable strategy in place via the efforts put forth by Health Quality Ontario as well as various regional plans to try and improve health inequities throughout northern Ontario. BC and ON have similar challenges in regard to social determinants of health including inequity of health for aboriginal populations and problems with accessible health care due to a widespread geographical area. In my review of literature comparing divergence between BC and ON in terms of regional differences in prioritizing the determinants of health I learned that northern communities such as Sudbury, Ontario, (which happens to be the city I subside) have strong regional strategies in place that support health equity specific to the community. Additionally, the Public Health Unit in Sudbury released a video Let’s Start a Conversation About Health… and Not Talk About Health Care at All explaining the role of social determinants on individual and population health. As a result, this video has been adopted throughout other provinces and communities to try and create action around social determinants of health and health inequities experienced by Canadians.
Gore & Kothari (2012) study evaluated and compared different healthy living initiatives in BC and ON that focus on healthy eating and physical activity based on their approach to the social determinants of health and health inequities. Both provinces had similar takes on their approach to the determinants of health yet the authors concluded that there is a need for a focus to be put on political approach in order to reduce health inequities and better address social determinants of health.
Gore & Kothari (2012) study, as well as Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health: A Snapshot of Canadian Actions 2015 both mention Sudbury, Ontario's significant community efforts toward reducing health inequities. Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health: A Snapshot of Canadian Actions 2015 also outlines BC’s tremendous efforts in empowering aboriginals within the province to have control over their own health care and participate in the delivery of health care services through the Memorandum of Understanding: Tripartite Partnership to Improve Mental Health and Wellness Services and Achieve Progress on the Determinants of Health. Ontario does not currently have comparable initiatives set out to support the health and wellness of aboriginals in hopes of improving social determinants of health specifically. In Ontario there is the First Nation Action Plan created in 2016 where the province invested $222 million to be released between 2016-2019 to provide more culturally appropriate care (MOHLT, 2016). In addition to this funding there is annual funding of 104.5 million annually that targets specific social determinants of health to improve health outcomes. Despite the funding put in place to make such improvements there is a lack of focus on mental health and wellness for aboriginals. This is certainly an area where Ontario can improve on as aboriginals in Ontario are more likely to experience poor mental health resulting in poor health outcomes compared to non-aboriginals in ON (Shulman & Tahirali, 2016).
As Bailee mentions in her blog post she felt that there was a need for a more defined framework for health professionals in regard to addressing determinants of health, I too agree that Ontario requires this. I believe that Ontario needs to draw upon regional strategies and resources that are being used and enforce these throughout the province to help reduce health inequities as well as promote more awareness surrounding the impact of health determinants on an individuals well-being.
In conclusion, I believe both ON and BC have various commendable action plans in place to address social determinants of health and health inequities across the province. I do believe that Northern Ontario has prioritized raising awareness of the social determinants of health, shared resources to educate and has strong action plans in place to help improve community. However, seeing as ON is almost double in size as BC I find ON could make improvements in strengthening the provincial prioritization of the social determinants of health as a whole by utilizing regional successes in regard to reducing the gap of health care services provided throughout the province.
References
Gore, D., & Kothari, A. (2012). Social determinants of health in Canada: Are healthy living initiatives there yet? A policy analysis. International Journal for Equity in Health, 11(1), 41. doi:10.1186/1475-9276-11-41
Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.Ontario Launches $222 Million First Nations Health Action Plan. (2016, May 25). Retrieved from https://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2016/05/ontario-launches-222-million-first-nations-health-action-plan.html
Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health: A Snapshot of Canadian Actions 2015. Public Health Agency of Canada. (2015).
Shulman, M., & Tahirali, J. (2016, April 12). Suicide among Canada's First Nations: Key numbers. Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/suicide-among-canada-s-first-nations-key-numbers-1.2854899
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