At a glance: Departmental Evaluation Plan for the Public Health Agency of Canada, 2023-24 to 2027-28

The OAE Departmental Evaluation Plan for Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) describes the Program Evaluation Division's scheduled work for the five-year period from 2023-24 to 2027-28. The Plan was developed to meet PHAC's commitments under the Policy on Results (2016), which requires that each department prepare a five-year plan, updated annually.

The projects included in this Evaluation Plan were selected to ensure full coverage of all Grants and Contributions spending over $5 million annually over a five-year period, and that prior commitments in Treasury Board (TB) submissions were met, as well as addressing the information needs of program management, coverage of program risks, and optimal use of resources. The Departmental Results Framework (DRF), program inventory, and performance information profiles developed by PHAC have formed the basis for this plan.

With COVID-19 no longer considered a global health emergency, PHAC's work has shifted focus to its ongoing program activities. As such, the present Departmental Evaluation Plan (DEP) ensures that the Office of Audit and Evaluation (OAE) continues to meet its reporting commitments under the Financial Administration Act (FAA) and any Treasury Board (TB) submission commitments, while also addressing key risks and senior management and program management information needs. Given the importance of the COVID-19 response, the impact of the pandemic on PHAC activities will continue to be assessed in most evaluations in the DEP, notably in the area of data modernization, border and travel health, and emergency preparedness and response.

Planning for evaluation

Over the next five years, OAE plans to conduct 35 evaluations that involve PHAC: 25 will focus exclusively on PHAC activities, and one evaluation will examine the activities of both PHAC and Health Canada. The remaining nine projects are horizontal evaluations led by other government departments or agencies. A yearly breakdown is provided in Table 1. Table 2 outlines the direct program spending (DPS) by core responsibility for all scheduled evaluations for the next five years.

Table 1 – Number of evaluations per fiscal year

Lead	2023-24	2024-25	2025-26	2026-27	2027-28	Total
PHAC	4	5	6	6	4	25
PHAC and HC	0	0	1	0	0	1
Horizontal (OGD-led)	1	1	1	1	5	9
Total	5	6	8	7	9	35

Table 2 – Coverage of direct program spending (DPS)

Table 2 – Coverage of direct program spending (DPS)

Program	Evaluations planned in the next five years	Fiscal year of approval	2023-24 spending covered by evaluation ($)Footnote 1	Rationale for not evaluating program or spending
Core Responsibility	Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention ($406,889,035)
Health Promotion ($301,225,679)	Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Initiative	2023-24	$29,511,259	N/A
	Aging, Seniors and Dementia	2023-24	$16,247,549	N/A
	Nutrition North Canada	2024-25	$335,000	N/A
	Preventing Gender-Based Violence: the Health Perspective (formerly Supporting the Health of Survivors of Family Violence)	2024-25	$6,250,000	N/A
	PHAC's Mental Health Activities	2025-26	$89,567,043	N/A
	Maternal and Child Health Programs	2025-26	$98,811,943	N/A
	Aboriginal Head Start in Urban and Northern Communities	2027-28	$33,347,831	N/A
	Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Initiatives	2027-28	$776,780	N/A
	Action Plan for Official Languages	2027-28	$2,088,475	N/A
	Horizontal Evaluation of the Legalization and Regulation of Cannabis	2027-28	$651,337	N/A
	Impact Assessment and Regulatory Processes (IARP) Horizontal Initiative	2027-28	$400,000	N/A
	National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence	2027-28	$12,238,462	N/A
	Contribution Funding for the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CABHI)	N/A	$11,000,000	The timing for the evaluation will be determined during the development of a future Departmental Evaluation Plan. It was recently evaluated in 2019-20.
Chronic Disease Prevention ($34,693,013)	Public Health Agency of Canada's (PHAC) Funding of ParticipACTION's Let's Get Moving Initiative	2023-24	$0	N/A
	Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund	2025-26	$27,784,076	N/A
	Health Portfolio's Tobacco and Vaping Activities	2025-26	$205,000	N/A
	Office of International Affairs	2025-26	$0	N/A
	Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Challenge	N/A	$4,935,000	This is a time limited contribution (Start Date: 2021-22 – End Date: 2023-24) with low materiality
	Development of a National Diabetes Framework	N/A	$1,768,937	This is a time limited contribution (Start Date: 2021-22 - End Date: 2025-26) with low materiality.
Evidence for Health Promotion, and Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention ($70,970,343)	Aging, Seniors and Dementia	2023-24	$1,986,564	N/A
	National Collaborating Centres	2023-24	$2,921,002	N/A
	Nutrition North Canada	2024-25	$50,000	N/A
	PHAC's Mental Health Activities	2025-26	$1,734,219	N/A
	Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund	2025-26	$1,333,000	N/A
	Evidence for Health Promotion Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention	2026-27	$38,291,072	N/A
	Office of the Chief Dental Officer	2026-27	$567,827	N/A
	Horizontal Evaluation of the Canadian Drug and Substance Strategy (Including the overdose crisis in Canada)	2027-28	$1,545,658	N/A
	Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Initiatives	2027-28	$1,499,000	N/A
	National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence	2027-28	$241,543	N/A
	Pan-Canadian Joint Consortium for School Health	N/A	$250,000	This funding doesn't fit with other children's programs and has very low materiality.
	Post COVID-19 Condition	N/A	$20,550,458	The timing for the evaluation will be determined during the development of a future Departmental Evaluation Plan.
Core Responsibility	Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control ($3,356,032,806)
Laboratory Science Leadership and Services ($175,242,596)	Sexually Transmitted and Blood-Borne Infections	2023-24	$6,225,772	N/A
	Emergency Preparedness and Response	2024-25	$74,016,531	N/A
	Data Modernization	2024-25	$44,110,560	N/A
	Genomics Research and Development Initiative (GRDI)	2025-26	$2,304,596	N/A
	Infectious Disease and Climate Change	2025-26	$1,116,689	N/A
	Adapting to Impacts of Climate Change (Roll-up of Departmental Evaluation)	2026-27	$0	N/A
	Medical Countermeasures Capacity	2026-27	$45,086,880	N/A
	Food-borne and Water-borne Enteric Diseases	2027-28	$1,921,568	N/A
	Public Health Scholarship and Capacity Building Initiative (PHSCBI)	N/A	$460,000	The timing for the evaluation will be determined during the development of a future Departmental Evaluation Plan.
Communicable Diseases and Infection Control ($90,243,807)	Sexually Transmitted and Blood-Borne Infections	2023-24	$34,244,000	N/A
	National Collaborating Centres	2023-24	$973,666	N/A
	Emergency Preparedness and Response	2024-25	$43,157,944	N/A
	Health Care-Associated Infections	2026-27	$2,678,197	N/A
	Tuberculosis	2026-27	$0	N/A
	Horizontal Evaluation of the Canadian Drug and Substance Strategy (Including the overdose crisis in Canada)	2027-28	$7,000,000	N/A
	PHAC Blood Safety Program	2027-28	$2,190,000	N/A
Immunization and Vaccine Preventable Disease ($3,071,452,799)	Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases	2024-25	$3,005,702,799	N/A
	Sero-Surveillance Consortium	2024-25	$65,500,000	N/A
	COVID-19 Individual Risk Assessment Tool	N/A	$250,000	This is a time limited contribution (Start Date: June 25, 2021- End Date: March 31, 2023) with low materiality.
Foodborne and Zoonotic Disease ($19,093,604)	National Collaborating Centres	2023-24	$973,666	N/A
	Emergency Preparedness and Response	2024-25	$7,637,668	N/A
	Office of International Affairs	2025-26	$0	N/A
	Infectious Disease and Climate Change	2025-26	$5,385,652	N/A
	Genomics Research and Development Initiative (GRDI)	2025-26	$1,470,317	N/A
	Adapting to Impacts of Climate Change (Roll-up of Departmental Evaluation)	2026-27	$0	N/A
	Food-borne and Water-borne Enteric Diseases	2027-28	$3,626,301	N/A
Core Responsibility	Health Security ($299,710,417)
Emergency Preparedness and Response ($284,127,084)	National Collaborating Centres	2023-24	$973,666	N/A
	Emergency Preparedness and Response	2024-25	$282,746,624	N/A
	Biosecurity Program	2025-26	$319,623	N/A
	Food-borne and Water-borne Enteric Diseases	2027-28	$87,171	N/A
Biosecurity ($8,723,072)	Biosecurity Program	2025-26	$8,723,072	N/A
Border Health Security ($6,860,261)	Biosecurity Program	2025-26	$90,539	N/A
	Border and Travel Health Program	2026-27	$6,769,722	N/A