Our publications

This glossary was developed in conjunction with the document “Urban Traffic Calming and Health: A Literature Review” for the purpose of describing and illustrating the various trafficcalming measures referred to in the review.

This summary is the first in a series of five short documents based on a literature review published in 2011. In what follows, we first present the mechanisms of action underlying traffic-calming strategies, as these mechanisms help to explain and predict the effects of calming interventions on the number and severity of collisions. Next, we summarize the results of studies having evaluated two approaches to traffic calming. Lastly, we consider the implications of such results for public…

Health professionals act on non-biomedical health determinants in various ways (Frankish et al., 2007). One course of action is working with not-for-profit organizations (NFP) to influence public policy. These partnerships are established mainly because the NFPs and the health professionals in question share common concerns in terms of determinants of health. Moreover, they have complementary resources (expertise, community networks, etc.) that can be put to use on both sides.

Food policy councils are voluntary bodies made up of stakeholders from across the food system collaborating to find practical solutions to the challenges presented by the food systems on a local and national level. The National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy published this briefing note conceived by Wendy Mendes to familiarize public health actors with the food system concerns and the contribution of the food policy councils in the formulation of healthy food policies.

Health impact assessment (HIA) figures among the practices that encourage the adoption of healthy public policies. The HIA approach is a structured series of steps designed to determine the potential effects, both negative and positive, of a project or policy on a population’s health and well-being. HIAs are generally prospective in nature, meaning that they attempt to estimate the future impacts of a policy in order to inform decision makers before decisions are made and policies…

In 2005, the Population Health and Health Services team, a joint team from Direction de santé publique de l'Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal and Institut national de santé publique du Québec, conducted a study in the two most populated regions of Québec (Montréal and Montérégie) to evaluate the association between primary care organizational models existing at that time and the population's care experiences.

As we use it, the concept of traffic calming refers to engineering measures (speed humps, curb extensions, etc.) and implementation strategies (30-km/h zones, meeting zones, etc.) that reduce speeds and/or motorized traffic volumes on existing public roadways. The many intervention strategies used by public authorities can be classified into two categories. One can be designated the black-spots approach, and the other the area-wide approach.

The work on traffic calming that we are publishing includes two series of documents and an evolving index of traffic-calming measures and strategies, also to be posted on a section of our website. The first series of documents allows us to present the results of our review of the literature on the effects of traffic calming on certain population health determinants. The second series is intended to provide some conceptual background and policy references.

The usage of the concepts designating the different types of initiatives we have termed “integrated governance” is remarkably variable in the academic and grey literatures that concern them. To provide some situational clarity and to establish more consistency in usage, this glossary strives to define the terms pertaining to this family of concepts.

The following summary report details policies and programs in Canada that have had some measure of success in reducing health inequalities.

The National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy asked researchers at a research centre on health inequalities, Centre Léa-Roback, to report on programs and policies in Canada whose results have been evaluated using current medical evidence-based standards, including an evaluation of the quality of published evidence used in clinical…