Anticipating tomorrow’s challenges: orientations and priorities for scientific development

The Institut national de santé publique du Québec’s 2024–2029 Scientific Program is the result of a collective process of reflection. It identifies the main emerging or growing public health issues and pinpoints the areas where our knowledge and capacity for action need to progress. 

This view of the future is crucial for decision-makers and public health authorities, as well as for the general public and civil society. 

To structure its thinking and the development of its scientific program, the INSPQ has identified seven major contemporary trends that are likely to have a significant impact on public health in the near future. It is further grounded in a model that organizes the main determinants of health around fifteen themes and distinguishes five essential scientific activities at the crossroads of knowledge and practice. 

The scientific program includes: 

• Fifteen (15) orientations, indicating the general direction the INSPQ intends to follow to adapt to major trends that may affect public health and to modernize its essential scientific activities. 
• Forty-one (41) priorities in scientific development, specifying avenues for better monitoring, better understanding, and better preparation for action on emerging issues related to themes of interest in public health. 

In order to give concrete expression to these orientations and priorities for scientific development, certain conditions for success are required. These include the importance of scientific leadership, interdisciplinarity, and collaborations and partnerships. 

This scientific program will be a key tool in guiding the INSPQ’s work over the coming years. These orientations and development priorities will need to be embodied in future scientific outputs and annual programming. Monitoring mechanisms will assess progress and enable the program to be adjusted periodically as the context demands.