Curing what ails us

Who will champion the CMA’s health policy recommendations?
The Canadian Medical Association, which has lately been taking a far more social determinants-focused approach to health, has come out swinging with a report clearly titled “Health Care in Canada: What Makes Us Sick?”, which identifies poverty as one of four fundamental factors external to the health care system that underlie ill health among Canadians.
The report includes some really interesting positions including calls for a health impact assessment to accompany Cabinet decision-making.
Of course, the CMA is not the first body to make poverty less a moral issue and more a question of evidence-based medicine, maintaining a sustainable health care system, and sound health policy (it should be noted that the report in question is not a medical study but is rather an expression of public views on the social determinants of health as collected in town hall sessions across the country). If MPPs and MPs get behind the CMA’s recommendations—a fabulous issue for the polls!—they don’t need to re-invent the wheel. The Wellesley Institute, for example, has promoted a social determinants of health approach to health policy for many years and has come out with some important publications on the topic that support the CMA’s report with more detailed research and recommendations.
In this paper published this May, the Wellesley Institute compare health equity-promoting strategies from different Canadian regional...

Source: Open Medicine Blog - - August 7, 2013 Category: Medical Publishers Authors: Carlyn Zwarenstein Source Type: blogs