Grant: Applied Public Health Chair - LOI

We live in economically uncertain times. Large numbers of people in Canada and in countries to which Canada is strongly tied face employment insecurity, experiencing either unemployment, underemployment, or unstable employment. Many of those insecurely attached to jobs also fall into otherwise economically vulnerable groups, those with low levels of education, immigrants, and visible minorities, while other groups at higher risk for job insecurity have also begun to be identified, such as young adults, especially young and visible minority men, for whom unemployment is now a major stated problem. High levels of such employment insecurity create a major source of health inequities in Canada and its peer nations. At the same time that employment insecurity has been rising, policies to buffer its adverse economic and social consequences, which are the main reasons for its health equity consequences, have been changing. What unemployment policy interventions of federal and provincial governments reduce the level of employment-based inequities in health? Are the effects of unemployment policy interventions on employment-based health inequities different for various subgroups? At the same time that more evidence is needed on the effects of unemployment policies on population level health inequities, local public health institutions, who are closer to the on-the-ground, everyday lived experiences of citizens are working in various ways to develop their own real-time strategies for achieving health equity. How have local public health institutions experienced and developed responses for health equity in the context of unemployment policies enacted at broader levels of society? The overall objective of the proposed program of research is to engage and work with major policy-oriented decision makers to produce evidence on how employment benefit policies affect health equity and how localities respond to these challenges.