Summertime hot topics in public health

Who says that things slow down in the summer?  

Great new materials worth looking at.

The CMA released its report on Health Care in Canada – What makes us sick? The major focus of the document being the need to alleviate poverty and its manifestations as the main method of preventing illness and that true health care reform needs to take aim at the determinants of health.  For readers it is perhaps a very basic document.  For medical health officers and public health and preventive medicine specialist the comment that doctors have only been advocating on patient needs is clearly a slap in the face, those physicians have been advocating for decades.  The best way to institutionalize change is to have your target group believe they are the owners of the issue, clearly the CMA has taken this task to on.  CMA What makes us sick

Getting to tomorrow a Report on Canadian Drug Policy is a comprehensive look at current drug policy initiatives and well worth reading for its overview, background and insights.  Drug Policy in Canada  .  There is a bias towards changing current get tough on drugs policy, but consistent with a thematic in the health sector for the last few years.  The document will have the reader questioning the status quo as anything other than just plain useless.

 From HealthEvidence.ca some good reviews of important information

·         The minor benefit of food supplementation programs http://www.healthevidence.org/view-article.aspx?a=24439

·         The lack of benefit of general health checks http://www.healthevidence.org/view-article.aspx?a=24502, and,

·         The benefit in treatment but not prevention of education in childhood obesity http://www.healthevidence.org/view-article.aspx?a=24415

The final item to digest is a 2013 report on food insecurity in Canada.  The report details the challenges faced by the 1.6 Million Canadians with food insecurity issues.  The list of indicators in the document is itself is very helpful in measuring the continuum of insecurity challenges.  Year to year rates by province/territory are provided to show improving trends in some areas especially in Newfoundland and Labrador, and remaining flat in others. Some upward trending in Saskatchewan and Alberta are potential heralds of disconcerting changes.  Canadian Food Insecurity

Stay safe and comfortable over what has become one of the most dangerous weekends of the year.