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Most recent Public Policy and Health Bulletin

A scan of recent new resources in healthy public policy

Distributed twice monthly, the Public Policy and Health bulletin presents new publications and noteworthy events relating to the development of healthy public policy and the health impact assessments of public policies. The bulletin is produced by the Public Policy Team at the INSPQ. The English translation of this tool has been made possible by the NCCHPP.

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The most recent bulletin:

June 17, 2010
June 17, 2010
June 17, 2010
International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) 11th World Congress on Environmental ...
This conference to be held in Vancouver, September 5-10, 2010 will provide a broad platform from which participants will explore universal challenges to environmental health in an era of increasing globalization. Attendees will be provided with up-to-date information on the latest innovations and strategies in health protection by focusing on core competencies in a number of thematic areas including: Promotion of active living & healthy communities, Sustainable communities & environments (Air quality, water quality, and climate change), Environmental health management, etc.
June 17, 2010
2010 Healthy Cities Conference
This conference will be held in Brisbane, Australia on July 12-13, 2010. It will be a platform for Government and Industry sector professionals to discuss causes, effects and solutions that relate to population health, sustainability, natural resource management, transport, climate change and urban design. The Conference will examine the prerequisites for a "Healthy City".
June 17, 2010
Livelihood and Health Impacts of the Climate Change: Community Adaptation Strategies
This event will be the First International Conference Workshop which tackles the impact of current and future climate change on community livelihood and health. The Faculty of Public Health at the Khon Kaen University volunteers to host this conference and invites international and regional experts/organizations to deliver and exchange their vision and expertise, research results and field experiences on current climate change, its assessment and adaptation strategies, tools and methods. The conference will take place in Khon Kaen, Thailand, August 24-25, 2010.
June 17, 2010
Community Leaders’ Perspectives on Building Healthier Neighbourhoods in Urban Settings
This article by the Centre for Active Living highlights research in Edmonton, Alberta that used key stakeholder perspectives to examine factors that promote or prevent the development of neighbourhoods in urban areas where walking, being active, and buying healthy, affordable food are easy.
June 17, 2010
American Public Health Association Launches New Website on Environmental Public Health
The American Public Health Association launched a new website that spotlights a range of issues related to health and the environment. From chemical exposure, food systems and the built environment to climate change and challenges currently facing the environmental public health workforce, along with emerging issues such as the Gulf Coast oil spill. Intended to educate public health professionals, policy-makers and others on a range of environmental public health topics, the new online resource provides access to reports, fact sheets and a climate change webinar series, along with additional APHA resources and related links from partner organizations.
June 17, 2010
HIA e-News, June 2010
This issue of the New Zealand HIA e-News proposes an article entitled « A Brief Guide to Overcoming Barriers in HIA plus "12 Guaranteed 'Good Idea Killers' ». It insists that there are two main issues in overcoming barriers to doing an HIA; one is timing and the other bureaucratic resistance.
June 17, 2010
La consommation d'alcool et la santé publique au Québec
This notice was produced by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec presents the mechanisms of alcohol consumption and its effects on health, a portrait of the burden of disease associated with alcohol, and an estimate of health, social and economic impacts of alcohol consumption in Quebec. It describes the evolution of alcohol consumption in Quebec and the different consumption patterns. It also proposes a review of preventive measures and their effectiveness as well as description of various public policies implemented in Quebec, Canada and elsewhere.
June 17, 2010
The Alcohol-use disorders: preventing the development of hazardous and harmful drinking guidance
This NICE’s guidance provides detailed recommendations in the prevention and early identification of alcohol-use disorders among adults and adolescents for government, industry and commerce, the NHS and all those whose actions affect the population’s attitude to – and use of – alcohol. This guidance makes the case that alcohol-related harm is a major public health problem. On the basis of the best available evidence, it also identifies the policy options that are most likely to be successful in combating such harm.
June 17, 2010
Towards a healthy, child-friendly living environment: an overview of Dutch
This report prepared for the for the account of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment summarizes the policy action taken in the Netherlands to improve children’s health and environment. It also outlines developments here in respect of relevant environment-related health indicators and compares the situation with that in other countries.
June 17, 2010
Setting the political agenda to tackle health inequity in Norway
This report presents the Norwegian experience in implementing strategies to reduce socially determined health inequity and highlights the key lessons learned from this process. The report describes the introduction of a comprehensive intersectoral policy to tackle the social gradient in health and provides a tool to review progress to date and options for the future. Other countries can use and adapt the critical areas of learning to advance their own national policies, strategies and capacity to reduce socially determined health inequity.
June 17, 2010
The economics of smoking bans
This paper by Charles A.M. de Bartolome, University of Colorado and Ian J. Irvine, Concordia University, Montreal, summarizes the literature on smoking bans and shows the effect of a smoking ban when cigarettes are untaxed. The authors also shows how the potential to buy untaxed but illegal cigarettes limits the government’s ability to reduce smoking using the tax instrument alone. They conclude that the smoking ban is always a useful instrument by which to control smoking, even when the tax can be set optimally.
June 17, 2010
Review of health impact assessment for the Institute of Public Health in Ireland
The Institute of Public Health (IPH) in Ireland decided to commission this external review in order to detail progress and achievements of HIA for the period 2001 to 2009, to assess current levels of awareness and activity and to provide suggestions for the direction of future work. In commissioning the exercise IPH acknowledged that, while it is relatively straightforward to quantify its HIA activities and outputs, the outcomes are more difficult to capture, but that it is important to gain an understanding of the effectiveness of previous work, and lessons for future development. It was also recognised that, while much of the work relating to HIA in Ireland is being taken forward through IPH, and although not a mandatory or legal requirement, other organisations and agencies are also involved in Health Impact Assessment.
June 17, 2010
Best practice in estimating the costs of alcohol – Recommendations for future studies
This report of WHO Europe aims to summarize best practice in estimating the attributable and avoidable costs of alcohol, and to make recommendations for making such estimates in future studies. It discusses the conceptual basis for such cost studies, and examines the conceptual and methodological challenges for each type of cost in turn. It proposes nine recommendations such as: changes in the terminology used, more robust attempts to quantify alcohol’s causal effect on harm and costs, a demonstration project using new methodologies, etc.
June 17, 2010
Monitoring the Impact of Air Pollution on Asthma in Australia, A Methods Paper
This paper by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare discusses the challenges associated with the monitoring of the quality and quantity of air pollution data over recent decades, outlines the work that has so far been done in Australia in this area and presents a method for estimating the contribution of air pollution to asthma hospitalisations. The method has been applied to a particular case study—Melbourne in 2006—to test its potential usefulness.

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