Canada - World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

Health systems in transition Canada 101
In Canada, public health is generally identified with the following six
discrete functions: population health assessment, health promotion, disease and
injury control and prevention, health protection, surveillance and emergency
preparedness and epidemic response. The F/P/T governments (and their
delegated authorities including RHAs) perform some or all of these functions.
All governments appoint a chief public or medical health officer to lead their
public health efforts in their respective jurisdictions. These individuals are
generally physicians with specialized education and training in public health.
By virtue of their extensive responsibilities for health and health care,
provincial ministries of health all have public health branches (some even have
a separate public health agency or department) with responsibility for the six
discrete functions of public health. In addition, most ministries of health have
launched major population health initiatives in recent years. In some provinces,
RHAs have initiated their own public health promotion and illness prevention
programmes in areas of greatest need for their respective populations.
The federal government also provides a broad range of public health services
principally through PHAC, which coordinates, at least in part, the six public
health functions described above. PHAC is responsible for disease surveillance
including reporting back to the WHO and other relevant international bodies.
PHAC also administers a network of disease-control laboratory services
such as the National Microbiology Laboratory. Like Health Canada, PHAC
is responsible for funding and administering a number of public health
programmes, some of which emphasize the social determinants of health,
including the Aboriginal Head Start Program, the Canada Prenatal Nutrition
Program and the Healthy Living Strategy, and illness prevention programmes
for AIDS and tobacco reduction.
The CPHA is a voluntary organization dedicated to improving the state
of public health in Canada. In conjunction with its provincial and territorial
branches or associations, CPHA advocates for greater awareness of the impact
of public health interventions and encourages public health research and
education.
The provinces are mainly responsible for the funding and administration
of screening programmes for the early detection of cancer, and all provincial
and territorial ministries of health have implemented one or more of these
programmes. Although they vary considerably in approach, delivery and
comprehensiveness, provincial governments do adopt screening programmes
developed in other provinces once they have proven successful. For example,
British Columbia was the first province to initiate a population-based breast