National Collaborating Centres for Public Health Contribution Program

Program Overview

Background

When the federal government created the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004, it also established a funding program to establish and support six National Collaborating Centres for Public Health (NCCPH). These Centres are housed in host organizations located across Canada.

Designed to promote and support the use of knowledge and evidence by public health practitioners and decision makers across Canada, each Centre has a national mandate to focus on a specific area of critical public health importance. The Centres also collaborate to pursue priorities and initiatives of mutual interest.

These key areas are:

• Aboriginal health
• Environmental health
• Determinants of health
• Infectious diseases
• Healthy public policy
• Methods and tools

The NCCPH Contribution Program is supported by a dedicated Secretariat at the Public Health Agency of Canada. It is guided by a national Advisory Council of public health experts who provide advice to guide the Agency in the development of the Program.

Contribution Program Goals

1. Promote the use of evidence to support better decision-making across the major domains of public health in Canada
2. Make practice-relevant knowledge useful and accessible to researchers, policy makers and public health practitioners across Canada
3. Identify and fill gaps in knowledge and in applied research so as to improve public health policies, programs and practice
4. Build and strengthen regional, national and international public health knowledge networks to enhance Canada’s public health capacity.

Key Functions

• Synthesize knowledge to support public health practice at all levels
• Translate and disseminate knowledge to make it useful and accessible to public health policy makers, program managers and practitioners
• Identify critical knowledge gaps and stimulate work in priority areas
• Develop linkages between public health researchers and practitioners to strengthen practice-based knowledge networks

Guiding Principles

The work of the NCCs is…

Relevant: NCC initiatives reflect the needs of practitioners, and are aligned with Canada’s overall public health strategy, and the work of the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network

Interconnected: NCCs strengthen linkages between public health researchers and practitioners at regional, provincial, national and international levels

Coordinated: NCCs set priorities and operate as members of a network, and focus on national public health priorities.

Complementary: NCCs complement the work of PHAC and other federal partners, provincial governments, academic institutions, and other key stakeholders

Interdisciplinary: NCCs support and engage all major public health disciplines operating at the municipal, provincial, regional and national levels across Canada

Participatory: NCCs adopt a participatory approach involving all relevant stakeholders in planning and implementing initiatives

Our Partners

• Public health practitioners and policy makers
• Local, regional, provincial and national public health organizations
• Multi-levels of governments
• International stakeholders
• Researchers and academics
• Professional associations
• Non-governmental organizations