Grant: Applied Public Health Chair - LOI

Family planning is a critical component of public health, and is among the top 10 public health achievements of the past century. However, Canada has fallen behind in public health family planning policies, equitable program delivery and measurement of appropriate population health indices. The United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and many European countries currently realize cost-savings and population health and health-equity gains through implementation of public health policies and programs not currently available in Canada. This program of applied public health research, capacity building and integrated knowledge translation, founded on both provincial and national gap-analyses, aims to improve equitable access to high quality family planning knowledge, methods and services so that all Canadian women and families may optimally time and space their pregnancies. Specifically, the research will address: cost-effectiveness evaluation for public health policy options, e.g., universal subsidy for contraception; scaling up of successful models of community based primary healthcare family planning programs, e.g., task-sharing for service delivery; and will initiate measurement of appropriate health indices, e.g., pregnancy intention, contraception uptake. The proposed Chair builds upon proven leadership of several large collaborative research initiatives, decades of clinical expertise and will benefit from strong institutional support and stimulating research environments within the University of British Columbia, the Michael Smith Foundation of Health Research, and BC Women's Hospital. With the committed engagement of an integrated team of decision maker collaborators led by Dr. Perry Kendall, Provincial Health Officer of BC, and engaging a network of investigators and trainees across the country, this Chair in Applied Public Health will achieve policy and population health interventions that will improve public health and health-equity throughout Canada