Greetings and happy new year!

After a long pause in my postings to this list, I am delighted to be back with a compilation of news stories, reports and highlights of articles from journals. It must be the education and training I am going through now for information professional / librarian - I want to organize news and views for health promotion.  Perhaps in time for CLICK4HP's 10th anniversary (coming in late April of this year!), we will be able to launch interactive news features on CLICK4HP's website, with RSS feeds and more.

Any ideas of how to keep the CLICK4HP listserv lively and new?

Alison Stirling, MHSc. 
Health Promotion Information Specialist
Health Promotion Affiliate, Canadian Health Network 
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Released today:

2005 Annual Report to the Legislature by the Chief Medical Officer of Health. 
"Building the Foundation of a Strong Public Health System for Ontarians" is the first report directly to the legislature by a Chief Medical Officer of Health. In the report, Dr. Sheela Basrur focuses on the status of system renewal after the SARS outbreak in 2003. 

The report includes a discussion about the creation of the Ministry of Health Promotion and the establishment of an Interministerial Committee on Healthy Living, whose mandate is to "improve the coordination and communication of health promotion initiatives across government and help ensure the government delivers on its health promotion commitments. Its [IMC] membership includes the leadership of virutually all of the ministries whose policy levers influence the social and economic determinants of health. " (p. 15).

 To view the report, see:
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ministry_reports/ph_ontario/ph_ontario.html. The press release is: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/media/news_releases/archives/nr_06/jan/nr_011706.html.

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Subject: TO Star Health Care & Diversity Article
There was a great article in the Toronto Star on Friday Jan 13, 2006 called "Hospitals adapt to city's changing face". See 
<http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1137149725215> 
or:
<http://tinyurl.com/a54k4>
It outlines a variety of issues faced by health care workers and organizations with respect to meeting the needs of a diverse population. 
Lisa Tolentino
[log in to unmask] 
www.healthycommunities.on.ca 

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From the Canadian Medical Association Journal - two full text short commentaries.

Most developed countries aim to ensure equitable access to health care. Researchers found that in 21 countries, the distribution of specialist care favoured the wealthy, particularly in the United States and Mexico. Van Doorslaer and colleagues  have produced a timely piece for Canadian health policy discussions regarding income, access to care and the role of private insurance. In a related commentary, Hurley and Grignon focus on the study's findings for Canada and their policy implications. 

Inequalities in access to medical care by income in developed countries 
	Eddy van Doorslaer, Cristina Masseria, Xander Koolman for the OECD Health Equity Research Group 
	CMAJ 2006;174 177-183
	<http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/174/2/177?etoc> 

Income and equity of access to physician services 
	Jeremiah Hurley and Michel Grignon 
	CMAJ 2006;174 187-188
	<http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/174/2/187?etoc> 

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Statistics Canada: Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Study: Community belonging and self-perceived health
Nearly two-thirds of Canadians aged 12 and over have a strong sense of belonging to their local community, according to a new report that examines the link between this sense of belonging and an individual's self-perceived physical and mental health. The report used data from the first six months of data collected by the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) to compare rates of community belonging at the level of both health regions and provinces. This study covered 119 health regions. Health regions in major urban centres tended to have the lowest rates of community belonging, while predominantly rural health regions had higher rates of belonging. This difference was found in most provinces. Read more at:
<http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051221/d051221c.htm>

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Mark your calendars for OPC's 20th Anniversary conference - Moving Upstream Together, Feb 21-22 2006, visit http://www.opc.on.ca

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