Making sense of what exactly public health does: a typology of public health interventions

Litvak, Eric; Dufour, Renée; LeBlanc, Emilie; Kaiser, David; Mercure, Sarah-Amélie; Nguyen, Cat Tuong; Thibeault, Lynda

doi:10.17269/s41997-019-00268-3

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The second interviewer had the same background in behavioural sciences and communication but had minimal knowledge in public health and a vast experience in conducting qualitative interviews. To ensure data quality, the master’s level interviewer was informed of the different professional tasks that public health practitioners could perform (i.e., advocating, developing and maintaining partnerships, planning and implementing interventions or supporting local organizations to do so)[ 37 ], as well as the vocabulary frequently used in this field regarding the topic of the study (e.g., using behaviour change rather than behavioural sciences). She also received brief training from the principal investigator regarding the basic principles of qualitative research (e.g., reflexivity, subjectivity, openness, etc.).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining public health practitioners’ perceptions and use of behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions

Bélanger-Gravel

Janezic

Desroches

et al. 2023

BMC Health Serv Res

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Background Behavioural sciences have been shown to support the development of more effective interventions aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles. However, the operationalization of this knowledge seems to be sub-optimal in public health. Effective knowledge transfer strategies are thus needed to optimize the use of knowledge from behavioural sciences in this field. To this end, the present study examined public health practitioners’ perceptions and use of theories and frameworks from behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions. Methods This study adopted an exploratory qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 27 public health practitioners from across Canada to explore current intervention development processes, the extent to which they integrate theory and framework from behavioural sciences, and their perceptions regarding the use of this knowledge to inform intervention design. Practitioners from the public sector or non-profit/private organizations who were involved in the development of interventions aimed at promoting physical activity, healthy eating, or other healthy lifestyle habits (e.g., not smoking) were eligible to participate. Results Public health practitioners generally agreed that behaviour change is an important goal of public health interventions. On the other hand, behavioural science theories and frameworks did not appear to be fully integrated in the design of public health interventions. The main reasons were (1) a perceived lack of fit with current professional roles and tasks; (2) a greater reliance on experiential-produced knowledge rather than academic knowledge (mainly for tailoring interventions to local setting characteristics); (3) the presence of a fragmented knowledge base; (4) the belief that theories and frameworks require too much time and resources to be operationalized; and 4) the belief that using behavioural sciences might undermine partnership building. Conclusions This study provided valuable insights that may inform knowledge transfer strategies that could be optimally designed to support the integration of behavioural sciences theories and frameworks into public health practices.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining public health practitioners’ perceptions and use of behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions

Bélanger-Gravel

Janezic

Desroches

et al. 2023

BMC Health Serv Res

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“…Broadly speaking, the sections designed to capture areas of concern 2-5 listed above can be said to focus on capturing different aspects of the capacity of local public health to respond to the pandemic. There are no agreed upon frameworks to study LPHU capacity, however, there are several frameworks that were found to be useful to articulate important domains, attributes or system elements [17,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. For the purposes of this study, the following system attributes…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Surveying the local public health response to COVID-19 in Canada: Study protocol

et al. 2021

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Background Public health services and systems research is under-developed in Canada and this is particularly the case with respect to research on local public health unit operational functioning and capacity. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that will collect retrospective information on the local public health response to COVID-19 throughout Canada between 2020 and 2021. Methods/Design The goal of the study is to develop and implement a study framework that will collect retrospective information on the local public health system response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This study will involve administering a mixed-method survey to Medical Health Officers/Medical Officers of Health in every local and regional public health unit across the country, followed by a process of coding and grouping these responses in a consistent and comparable way. Coded responses will be assessed for patterns of divergent or convergent roles and approaches of local public health across the country with respect to interventions in their response to COVID-19. The Framework Method of thematic analysis will be applied to assess the qualitative answers to the open-ended questions that speak to public health policy features. Discussion The strengths of the study protocol include the engagement of Medical Health Officers/Medical Officers of Health as research partners and a robust integrated knowledge translation approach to further public health services and systems research in Canada.

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“…The MHSS dataset provides PH budgets for provincially funded PH services delivered by regional PH units and local health centres. This funding covers PH interventions such as health surveillance, health promotion, and clinical preventive measures (e.g., immunization, early childhood development services, prevention of sexually transmitted infections), and health protection interventions (Litvak et al 2019). The MHSS dataset excludes governmental funding of the following: the office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health; the provincial PH institute Institut National de Santé Publique (INSPQ); PH professionals remunerated by the provincial insurer Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec (RAMQ); occupational health interventions funded by the provincial workers compensation board; and major portions of the budgets of nongovernmental organizations providing PH services.…”

Section: Ph Funding In Quebec: Disproportionately Low Investments Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public health investments: neglect or wilful omission? Historical trends in Quebec and implications for Canada

Fiset-Laniel

Guyon

Perreault

et al. 2020

Can J Public Health

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This commentary explores public health (PH) investments in Quebec and underlines the challenge of tracking PH resources across Canada. We analyzed governmental data to compare investments across all health and social programs in Quebec from 2004-2005 to 2017-2018. The province's PH budgets suffered from disproportionately low investments and abrupt cuts. These cuts were the largest among all health programs in 2015-2016 (− 7.1%). PH budgets did not keep up with inflation and, in constant dollars, have declined over the last decade. Furthermore, their evolution over the span of 14 years significantly differed from other health programs. On average, programs providing direct services experienced overall budget increases of 81%, whereas PH budgets had the lowest increase of all such programs at only 46%. PH suffers from serious erosion of its capacity. Unfortunately, there is a dire lack of comparable data for provincial, national, and international PH budgets, which further complicates the monitoring of PH erosion. We contend that systematic tracking of PH budgets remains profoundly inadequate across Canada. We recommend (1) regular, comprehensive, and publicly reported analyses of PH budgets; (2) in-depth comparisons of PH investments across Canadian jurisdictions; and (3) a strong PH systems and services research agenda for Canada. Résumé Cet article explore les investissements en santé publique (SP) au Québec et souligne les défis inhérents au monitorage des ressources de SP au Canada. Nous avons analysé les données gouvernementales afin de comparer les investissements dans l'ensemble des programmes de santé et de services sociaux au Québec, de 2004-2005 à 2017-2018. Les budgets de SP au Québec ont souffert de façon disproportionnée d'investissements faibles et de coupes budgétaires abruptes. En 2015-2016, ces coupes ont été les plus importantes parmi celles imposées aux programmes de santé (− 7,1 %). Les budgets de SP n'ont pas suivi l'inflation et, en dollars constants, ont décliné depuis environ dix ans. De plus, leur évolution durant les 14 dernières années diffère significativement de celle des autres programmes de santé. En moyenne, le budget des programmes qui fournissent des services directs a augmenté de 81 %, alors que l'augmentation des budgets de SP a été la plus faible parmi ces programmes, à 46 %. Pendant ce temps, la SP subit une érosion sévère de sa capacité. Malheureusement, il y a un manque criant de données comparables entre juridictions provinciales, nationales et internationales. Cette lacune vient compliquer toute tentative de documenter une telle érosion. Nous considérons que le suivi systématique des budgets de santé publique demeure profondément inadéquat au Canada. Nous recommandons (1) des analyses régulières, détaillées et publiques des budgets de SP; (2) des comparaisons en profondeur des investissements en SP au Canada; et (3) un programme de recherche canadien vigoureux en études des systèmes et services de SP.

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Making sense of what exactly public health does: a typology of public health interventions

Cited by 11 publications

References 4 publications

Examining public health practitioners’ perceptions and use of behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions

Examining public health practitioners’ perceptions and use of behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions

Surveying the local public health response to COVID-19 in Canada: Study protocol

Public health investments: neglect or wilful omission? Historical trends in Quebec and implications for Canada

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