Brief History of People Assessing Their Health (PATH)

The first People Assessing Their Health (PATH) Project was conceived in the mid-1990s during a time of health system restructuring in Nova Scotia, when a certain amount of planning and decision making related to health services was being devolved to the regional and community level. The goal of the project was to provide a means for people in selected communities within the Eastern Health Region to identify, define and assess all aspects of health in their communities so that they would become effective participants in a decentralized health system. The project was funded by the Health Promotion Contribution Fund of the Health Promotion and Social Development Office of Health Canada and was carried out from 1996 to 1997. The project partners were the Antigonish Women’s Association, the Extension Department of St. Francis Xavier University, and the Public Health Nursing Services of the Eastern Health Region.

The project was carried out in three Nova Scotia communities: two rural and one urban. Two parttime project coordinators provided support and training for local facilitators who used a variety of adult education and community development techniques to engage people in examining the many factors that affect health and well-being. Each community developed its own unique community health impact assessment tool (CHIAT) based on the factors that they identified. The CHIATs were tested on hypothetical projects and a regional workshop was held at the conclusion of the project to celebrate the work and launch a toolkit entitled PATHways to Building Healthy Communities in Northeastern Nova Scotia: The PATH Project Resource.