Collaborations

Strengthening public health structures and systems

Public health is society's collective effort to put in place structures and systems that protect everyone's health. Collaboration is at the heart of this effort: success in public health depends largely on our ability to work together across jurisdictions, disciplines and sectors.

A population health approach calls for shared responsibility and accountability for health outcomes not only with health organizations, but also with organizations in sectors not normally associated with health whose activities, nonetheless, can have an impact on health sectors such as urban planning, energy, food, education.

The Agency's Centre for Public Health Infrastructure supports a variety of initiatives aimed at improving mechanisms, structures and systems for collaboration, including:

• The National Collaborating Centres for Public Health
• A multilateral information sharing agreement for Canada
• Placements for field epidemiologists and public health officers
• Creation of a streamlined ethics review process for public health research

Global collaborations

PHAC is an integral part of the global network of public-health organizations, academics and institutions, such as the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization and many more. These global partnerships foster collaboration at the international level for information sharing, outbreak investigation and control, and building public health capacity through training.