Canadian Best Practices Portal

for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention

April 22, 2008

Demetrios Angelis

Public Health Agency of Canada

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INTRODUCTIONS

Canadian Best Practices Initiative

Director of the Evidence and Risk Assessment Division, Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control

– Marie DesMeules

Development & Implementation Team (affectionately known as the DITs)– Nina Jetha (LEAD) – Demetrios Angelis, Nancy Dubois, Steve Kingston,

Kerry Robinson, Ian Szuto, Vincent Turgeon, Grace Wan, Tricia Wilkerson

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Overview of the Canadian Best Practices Initiative

• Organized around the Population

Health Approach framework• Three components

– The Portal– Knowledge Exchange elements– Monitoring of Uptake in Practice

• Funded through PHAC’s Centre for

Chronic Disease Prevention and Control

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Mission of the Canadian Best Practices Initiative

“The Canadian Best Practices Initiative enhances the quality of policy and program decision-making by enabling access to the best available evidence on chronic disease prevention and health promotion. We work on behalf of practitioners and policy-makers to achieve this mission through:– Capacity building to support the adaptation, adoption,

implementation and evaluation of best practices

– Strategic partnerships that enhance the work of all involved, and,

– Knowledge Exchange, achieved through connectivity and interactivity.”

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Priority “Users” of the Canadian Best Practices Initiative

“Decision-makers who influence chronic

disease prevention and health

promotion practice and policy through

its:– development– implementation– evaluation.”

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Our Approach to “Best Practices”

We do not CREATE best practices nor assess practices as to whether they are best. We DO assess the process & methodology used by others and identify those to which the Portal will link.

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Operational Definition for “Best Practices”• Population / community-based interventions spanning a

variety of approaches (i.e. policy, programs, media,

etc…) aimed at health promotion, disease prevention

and management related to chronic disease that have

been informed by and result in evidence of

effectiveness to inform decision-makers in practice,

policy and research within a variety of settings (i.e.

health, school, workplace, urban, rural, etc…) and

populations (i.e. male and female across the lifespan,

Aboriginal, families, etc…).

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What you will find on the Portal now -

• First “batch” of content released at Launch at

CDPAC conference in November, 2006• Primarily focused on physical activity, healthy

eating, obesity• Five types of content:

– Systematic Review sources– Collections of Interventions– Individual Interventions– Resources– Supporting information

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Criteria for Selecting SRs

• From Portal Homepage: http://cbpppcpe.phacaspc.gc.ca/index_e.cfm

1.  Criteria for screening systematic review sources  • Relevance to health promotion and chronic disease prevention • Relevance to population health • The level of intervention should be primary and/or secondary level

prevention rather than tertiary prevention. • Credibility and/or valid authority of source • Content on site is current • Free of commercial influences

2.  Criteria for assessing quality of the process used by the source

• Can be rated by the Oxman-Guyatt ten-question assessment (1 page, 7Kb, PDF) of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

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“Levels of Evidence”

• For Phase I, the focus has been on “best” practices”

• Heard from users they want more programs• Now investigating the next level for inclusion -

still based on evidence, but allows for less rigor in the evaluation design

• Proposed model to Advisory Committee– Guiding principle that the “best” evidence should

be used where available; move to less stringent criteria for evidence when “best” is not available.

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Knowledge Exchange Activities:

• E-learning tools• Knowledge Translation workshops for

practitioners & policy-makers to help move

evidence into practice• Partnerships/Collaboration for knowledge

exchange• Capacity building to build existing knowledge

exchange activities and partnerships

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Peak at things to come

• “Reveal” in November, 2008 at CDPAC

Conference– Inclusion of Promising Practices on Portal– New topics on Portal (Determinants of Health,

mental health promotion, mental illness prevention, school health, comprehensive interventions)

– Workshops across Canada– Rewriting the text in clearer language– Hyperlinked resources throughout to direct users

to examples and sources

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Cabin Guide Concept

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Links to School Health

• The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) through various initiatives is committed to improving the health of children in schools. For example,– the Alberta Regional PHAC office and the

National PHAC office are both involved with KSDE– PHAC’s Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention

and Control is increasing its Portal content on interventions that directly involve school settings, particularly in the areas of tobacco cessation, healthy eating and physical activity.

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Partnership is the key to the CBPI’s success

• PHAC will continue to maintain and build new partnerships across jurisdictions and sectors to ensure the success of the CBPI including the Portal component in Phases II and III– Early discussions have begun with:

• Cochrane• Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN)• Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada

(CDPAC) • Canadian Association for School Health (CASH) • Cancer Care Nova Scotia• National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools

(NCCMT) • Others

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Closing Remarks

• Encourage your involvement in spreading the word• Encourage submit nominations of new interventions• Consider the evaluation component of your work in

order to increase the number of Canadian interventions on the Portal

• Consider basing your current work on the evidence• For more information:

Nina Jetha 613.952.7608

nina_i_jetha@phac-aspc.gc.ca

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