Results at a Glance- Evaluation of Health Canada's Sex and Gender Action Plan

Program Context

Health Canada's Sex and Gender Action Plan was launched in May 2017 with the aim to systematically integrate sex and gender considerations into all Health Canada's research, legislation, policies, regulations, programs and services. The Action Plan is a Health Canada-wide initiative managed by the Gender and Health Unit (GHU) in the Strategic Policy Branch.

The budget of the Action Plan was $2.8 million over three years.

Evaluation Approach

This evaluation was conducted to provide guidance to the GHU to inform future priorities and planning for the Action Plan. The evaluation covered activities under the five elements of the Action Plan (from 2017-2018 to 2019-2020), asking questions about their impact, future opportunities and challenges for SGBA+ in Health Canada. It also examined Action Plan governance and performance measurement.

The following elements made up the evaluation approach:

• Document and file review
• Key informant interviews
• Literature scan
• Financial data review
• Data analysis

What the Evaluation Found

Overall, there are clear indications that understanding and application of SGBA+ across the Department has improved in those areas where staff are directly involved in Action Plan activities, as well as areas where application is part of a required corporate process.

There has also been some increased integration of SGBA+ into organizational processes thanks to tools and resources created or enhanced through the Action Plan.

The GHU was able to quickly pivot and provide SGBA+ expertise to support the COVID-19 response.

However, a broader cultural change leading to the systemic integration of sex, gender and diversity considerations into all of Health Canada's policies, programs, legislation, regulations, services, research and workplace initiatives has not yet occurred. Specifically:

• It is unclear who should be responsible for systematically integrating SGBA+ into key processes within each branch.
• To progress beyond 'demonstration projects', branches will now need to consider when and how they can further incorporate SGBA+ into their specific lines of work.
• There are wide variations in staff understanding of the SGBA+ concept (especially that of intersectionality) and its relevance across Health Canada's branches and functional areas.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Renew the governance structure for SGBA+ to oversee the integration of SGBA+ within each branch.

2. Response: Health Canada will establish branch head-level accountability with periodic reporting to the Executive Committee (EC) on SGBA+ progress and revitalize the SGBA+ Network with appointed branch and functional network (e.g., science, regulatory, policy) representatives who are accountable to their Branch Heads.

2. Support branch-led planning to integrate SGBA+ into their organizational processes.

3. Response: Health Canada will develop branch specific SGBA+ integration plans, deliver annual progress and performance report to EC based on branch SGBA+ integration plans, and strengthen SGBA+ integration into Performance Information Profiles (PIPS).

3. Address key knowledge gaps by clarifying SGBA+ concepts and supporting SGBA+ training specific to different branches and functional areas.

4. Response: Health Canada will update the Health Portfolio SGBA Policy to include the 'plus, develop a communications plan focused on increasing employee understanding of SGBA+ and associated concepts (e.g. diversity, intersectionality, inclusion) and how it can apply to their work, and develop an SGBA+ learning path that will build on existing training and resources to support the development and delivery of a suite of enhanced SGBA+ tools and learning products to enable Health Canada employees to increase their knowledge and skills in applying SGBA+ (intersectionality, diversity and inclusion) concepts to their work.