Intersectoral Action Fund: Funded projects

The "Health Doesn't Start with Health Care" knowledge mobilization project

Lead or recipient: Association for Generational Equity and Generation Squeeze
Location: Pitt Meadows, British Columbia
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project aims to increase awareness of the importance of social spending for positive health outcomes, and champion the development, use, and monitoring of data on the relationship between social and medical care spending to inform policy decisions. This project works within and across four key sectors – public health, childcare, housing, and poverty reduction – to promote well-being in Canada from the early years onwards. Coalition building efforts of this project includes outreach and engagement with sector leaders, translating existing evidence into accessible and appropriate knowledge translation tools, and developing concrete policy recommendations informed by evidence about the balance between social and medical care spending. Results include:

• shared messaging on why social investments advance health
• a foundation for collective action on a single metric that can be used and tracked by diverse sectors to inform their policy proposals
• progress towards building intersectoral constituency needed to advance action on social determinants of health and health equity

Mobilizing intersectoral policy for upstream investment in infant, child and youth mental health in Atlantic Canada

Lead or recipient: Atlantic Summer Institute on Healthy and Safe Communities, Inc.
Location: Atlantic Canada
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project aims to build on previous work conducted by the Atlantic Summer Institute to develop a children and youth mental health policy brief through knowledge translation and mobilization. The goal is to advance upstream investment in policies that promote infant, child and youth mental health across sectors in the region. The expected outcome of this project is the development of mental health-in-all policies across Atlantic Canada, with the long-term aim of improving the mental health of infants, children, and youth. This will enhance societal well-being in Atlantic Canada by reshaping how health policy is developed and increasing capacity for intersectoral action amongst governments, the private sector, and civil society through evidence-based knowledge mobilization.

Measuring what matters: Developing capacity to collect, analyze, interpret and translate data on the health of children in Canada

Lead or recipient: Children First Canada
Location: National
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project aims to enhance the organizational capacity of Children First Canada to mobilize a diverse group of intersectoral stakeholders to develop a national strategy to collect, analyze, report, and translate data to improve the health and well-being of children in Canada. Key activities involve:

• establishing formalized structures for engaging experts and stakeholders
• policy mapping to identify the 10 leading threats to child health
• harnessing disaggregated provincial and federal level data to report on children's health (for example, the Raising Canada report on health data and the Children's Budget report will explore expenditures on children's health and well-being in Canada)
• raise public awareness on the need for action to measurably improve children's health

Transportation ACES (Access, Climate and Economic Security)

Lead or recipient: Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria
Location: Victoria, British Columbia
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: The Community Social Planning Council (CSPC) leads the Transportation Access, Climate, and Economic Security (TACES) program, an innovative and inclusive initiative dedicated to promoting climate equity. TACES unites local governments, non-profit organizations, and climate action groups, addressing the intricate connections between climate change, poverty, and social inequality. By emphasizing comprehensive equity measures, TACES guides transportation decision-making toward sustainable, accessible, and affordable solutions that improve health and well-being. Characterized by its collaborative partnerships, the TACES program fosters synergistic relationships among stakeholders from various sectors to effectively tackle climate and social challenges. With a strong focus on climate equity, the program prioritizes marginalized and underrepresented communities, incorporating their unique needs and challenges into policy and program development. TACES actively engages diverse communities, particularly individuals experiencing low-income and underrepresented groups, in identifying and overcoming barriers to climate action participation, demonstrating a commitment to inclusive community engagement. The program highlights impactful pilot projects, such as the Low-income Household E-bike Subsidies and Closing the Gender Gap on Regional Trails. These projects foster inclusivity, safety, and equity while addressing the specific needs of those experiencing marginalization in sustainable transportation. By centering on collaborative partnerships, climate equity, and targeted pilot projects, the TACES program effectively confronts the unique challenges faced by communities in vulnerable situations, generating lasting, positive impacts on both climate and social well-being.

Action through connection: Promoting LBQ health in Canada

Lead or recipient: Egale Canada
Location: National
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: What priorities for health and healthcare access do women, trans, and nonbinary people who are lesbian, bi+, or queer (LBQ) in Canada have? What actions can be taken across various sectors to address these priorities? This project aims to address some of the ways that women, trans, and nonbinary people who are LBQ experience health, taking into consideration the long-standing barriers these communities have faced. Research and community building are needed to better understand the health, wellness, and healthcare access challenges that women, trans, and nonbinary people who are LBQ face so that meaningful action can be undertaken to improve health equity and outcomes. Egale will facilitate a process of community visioning through an intersectoral community of practice, an advisory committee of people with lived experience, and focus groups with women, trans, and nonbinary people who are LBQ from across Canada. The project aims to create:

• a broad community action plan to promote LBQ health and healthcare access in Canada based on identified priority areas
• preliminary research and a piloted national survey created by, with, and for women, trans, and nonbinary people who are LBQ in Canada.

This work will build foundational intersectoral strategies for community, social service, healthcare, government and other groups across the country to take meaningful action on LBQ health and healthcare access and will have impacts far beyond the funding period.

Intersectoral action evaluation: The EffICAS project (Impact of Establishing a Food and Health Co-op)

Lead or récipient : Institut national de santé publique du Québec
Location: Québec
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: The project studies the implementation of intersectoral action on food cooperatives in rural communities. In addition, the project assesses the effect food cooperatives are having on food quality, the health of individuals, food security, and community vitality and well-being. The assessment has been done by selecting three communities that are running co-op projects and that are geographically isolated in the Côte-Nord region, in Quebec. Data on the socioeconomic circumstances of the communities, their residents and key informants have been collected. To run this project, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) team surrounded itself with partners from a number of organizations in public health, partners from co-ops and sustainable communities, and people with real-world experience. The Intersectoral Action Fund (ISAF) is being used to create a guide and tools on the theme of food co-ops. The guide describes the intersectoral engagement process and the steps required to establish a food co-op. It also includes concepts for scoping the situation and developing an approach and tools for assessing the engagement process and the impact that the co-op is having. A web forum for partners in the field, those who are involved in public health, co-ops or the social economy, and anyone else interested in this subject is being planned to take ownership of the guide and tools.

How we get there: A transportation needs assessment for individuals living with chronic illnesses

Lead or recipient: Manitoba Métis Federation Inc.
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: One of the key determinants of health and well-being in the Red River Métis community is access to health services, particularly transportation. Understanding the transportation barriers of Red River Métis citizens living with chronic illnesses and the gaps between sectors provides crucial information to influence policy and practice change. The project team conducts a needs assessment to identify and measure transportation barriers faced by Red River Métis living with chronic illnesses. Given the impact of COVID-19 on health systems, gaps may have changed and need to be reassessed to understand their new context. The needs assessment occurs through intersectoral consultation with the Metis Community Liaison Department (MCLD), Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) regions, the transportation sector, and Red River Métis citizens with chronic illness using a needs assessment survey instrument, interviews, and focus groups. Based on the needs assessment, the project develops a Transportation Policy for the MMF, which will be communicated to Red River Métis, and to the MMF President and Cabinet.

Decent work as a matter of health equity: Building capacity and connections across health and labour to address precarious work in Ontario

Lead or recipient: Ontario Employment Education and Research Centre
Location: Greater Toronto Area
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project aims to build capacity for intersectoral action between the labour and health sectors to address precarious work as a social determinant of health in Ontario. This goal will be achieved through strengthening partnerships between workers in low-wage precarious jobs and health providers while building the capacity of health providers to contribute to community-led efforts to address precarious work. Working conditions such as wages, access to paid sick days, and job stability unequally and unfairly impact the health of immigrants, migrants, women, and racialized communities. With that in mind, a roundtable will be convened to bring together workers, public health professionals, and health providers to meet, reflect, and advance shared priorities throughout the project. A resource will be developed for health providers to use in direct patient care to assess the impact of precarious work on their patients' health and connect patients with available supports, information, and resources on employment rights. The project hosts a series of workshops for health providers to build knowledge and skills among health providers and build the foundation for their ongoing engagement in intersectoral action to address precarious work.

Building capacity in Red Deer's Indigenous communities to improve their health outcomes and overall well-being

Lead or recipient: Red Deer Urban Aboriginal Voices Society
Location: Red Deer, Alberta
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: The Red Deer Urban Aboriginal Voices Society (UAVS) will partner with the Circle of Abundance Program from the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University to create an Indigenous program and policy assessment tool based on Indigenous social determinants of health. The tool aims to inform future community development projects led by the UAVS and partner agencies seeking to develop more effective programs and services for Indigenous Peoples. The Indigenous assessment tool will be developed by community members and will apply an asset-based and community-driven development approach that is resiliency oriented. Training is provided to UAVS members to facilitate future assessments of projects, programs, and policies for longer-term sustainability. The project integrates Indigenous worldviews and cultural practices to build capacity within community members and among those with lived experience to lead change within the partnering agencies. This social justice work generates strong community ties and builds community capacity in relation to accessing cultural resources, healing practices, and addressing Indigenous protective factors.

Achieving Black health equity in Alberta: A constellation model approach

Lead or recipient: Ribbon Rouge Foundation
Location: Alberta
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project seeks to improve health equity upstream for African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) people in Alberta by establishing a coalition of partners from community, industry, government, university, and health on the social determinants of health for the ACB population in Alberta. The project aims to bring together key cross-sector actors, organizations, decision makers, and ACBs with lived experience of health inequity to develop groups recommending ACB health equity action plans (that is, "constellations"). The constellation topics will emerge through grassroots engagement within ACB communities and space to increase data capacity to support health equity for ACB communities in Alberta.

Fostering transformative partnerships: A capacity building approach to addressing the intersection between racism and poverty in Saskatchewan

Lead or recipient: Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership (via the Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre)
Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project aims to address how poverty and racism are interconnected and ultimately affect the health of various communities in Saskatchewan. However, policy practices to tackle poverty – a critical social determinant of health – lack the fundamental anti-racist and anti-oppressive methodologies required to ensure that efforts do not further discriminate, alienate, and oppress. To overcome this, the Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership will engage with community partners and representatives, including individuals with lived and living experience about how racism can be the root cause of poverty. By strengthening relationships and building capacity with other partners, such as the Saskatoon Anti-Racism Network, this project will aim to improve the core competencies regarding equity for government and system policy makers, sector practitioners, and community members both in Saskatoon and across Saskatchewan. Creating deep and meaningful understandings about how systems are inherently biased, drive cycles of inequity and discrimination, and purposefully exclude community members based on race, gender, culture, experience, age, language will increase community capacity to address poverty, and ultimately improve the community's health and well-being.

Shaping space: Planning for culturally responsive public spaces

Lead or recipient: Sustainable Thinking and Expression on Public Space (STEPS) Public Art
Location: National
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: STEPS Public Art formalizes strategic, intersectoral partnerships that enable collective action to cultivate safe and culturally responsive public spaces across Canada, particularly for equity-seeking communities. Project activities include stakeholder roundtables and public conversations to understand how Canadian municipalities are programming urban public spaces related to the social determinants of health, and identify the barriers that may exist for equity-seeking communities in accessing them. The project enables STEPS and its intersectoral stakeholders to form a supportive network through which they can develop nuanced strategies to improve the design and programming to increase access to public spaces for equity-seeking Canadians. To do this, the project creates learning opportunities by bringing together community members and partners from different parts of society. The end result will be to promote safe and culturally responsive public spaces across Canada.

Growing Healthy Towers: Transformative partnerships for a healthy built environment

Lead or recipient: Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA)
Location: Greater Toronto Area
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: The Growing Healthy Towers project seeks to improve the social determinants of health and well-being in two low-income tower communities in the Greater Toronto Area. The goal of the Growing Healthy Towers project is to collectively address built environments in low-income tower communities, where community health and built environment issues intersect. This goal will be achieved through brokering cross-sectoral partnerships, resident engagement, and co-designing projects to pursue outdoor greening, urban agriculture, and healthy living initiatives within the towers and with the rest of the neighbourhood. Specifically, the project increases equitable access to built and natural environments, food security, healthy behaviours, social inclusion, and employment. Interventions – which will be determined with residents and multi-sectoral stakeholders – will include new infrastructure (built and natural), community programming, and upstream solutions that address the root causes of health and well-being. The project will carry out activities in alignment with local community planning initiatives (that is, TRCA's Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program (SNAP) framework and action plans) to ensure resident involvement and ownership. At the end of the project, the applicants will have solidified partnerships to set the stage for the ongoing work needed to continue impactful action on complex intersectoral issues.

Gender transformative intersectoral partnerships supporting economic empowerment for women living with intimate partner violence in the city of Hamilton

Lead or recipient: Unity Health Toronto
Location: Ontario
Start date: March 2022
Duration: 12 months
In brief: This project seeks to create new approaches for women and gender diverse peoples to increase their economic security and independence, with a particular focus on women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). Gender transformative approaches, which address gender gaps by challenging and restructuring the systems and power that shape them (such as parental leave), require deep partnerships and commitment from diverse sectors to reorient their services and restructure how they work. This project expands membership in the Safe at Home Hamilton Working Group to increase the number of sectors taking on gender transformative approaches and also increase the number of economic stabilizing services provided to IPV survivors. This project includes partners from the violence against women sector and builds capacity with other sectors that support women fleeing violence, such as housing, children's services, settlement, justice, and labour sectors. Relationships from the working group are leveraged to create space for peer-to-peer coaching and collaborative problem solving across multiple sectors as they design, implement, and monitor gender transformative approaches to programming within their respective sectors.