Information Exchange and Coordination in Canada
EHI-Canada is now a proud partner in both the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and the Environment and the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, and has informal links to many other professional associations, academic departments, governments, non-governmental organizations and patient support groups.
Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care (CCGHC)
The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care (www.greenhealthcare.ca) traces its roots back to October 21, 2000 when 27 representatives from some of Canada's largest health care associations and environmental groups met in Ottawa at an environmental educational day organized by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
Since then, the Coalition and its member groups have had a significant impact upon the greening of the Canadian health care landscape and have been involved in a very wide variety of local and national initiatives: educational workshops for hospital staff, mercury thermometer exchange events, the facilitation of an Environmental Management System project with the Canadian Centre for Pollution Prevention, publications such as "Doing Less Harm: Assessing and Reducing the Environmental and Health Impact of Canada's Health Care System", "Coalition Notes" Newsletters, the "Building Green Hospitals Checklist," and the Coalition LISTSERV.
The Coalition is very proud of its longstanding affiliation with the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society (www.CHES.org) and the seven year association it has forged with the Ontario Hospital Association (www.OHA.com) that has resulted in the development and launch of the Green Health Care Awards, the Green Education Sessions held at the OHA's annual Health Achieve conference, and Canada's first health care trade show Green Lane.
To expand its capacity, the CCGHC was in need of consolidation with an agreed governance model, and a strategic plan. EHI-Canada provided funding towards a facilitated session to accomplish these aims, held in Toronto on November 2, 2008.
Detailed plans are emerging from this session regarding CCGHC’s governance model, and projects that build upon members’ successes in greening health care. To facilitate spreading of information about successes, EHI-Canada is co-sponsoring the updating of the Coalition website.
Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and the Environment (CPCHE)
The Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE) is a multi-sector collaboration of eleven organizations with expertise in issues related to children, health, public health and the environment. CPCHE partners have been working together since 2001 to protect children’s health from environmental pollutants and toxic chemicals by moving children’s environmental health issues into the minds of decision-makers, service-provider organizations, individual practitioners, parents and the public.
The partners collaborate with an extended network in various constellations that work on specific projects.
The eleven partner organizations in CPCHE are:
- Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
- Canadian Child Care Federation
- Canadian Environmental Law Association
- Environmental Health clinic, Women’s College Hospital
- Environmental Health Institute of Canada
- Learning Disabilities Association of Canada
- Ontario College of Family Physicians
- Ontario Public Health Association
- Pollution Probe
- South Riverdale Community Health Centre
- Toronto Public Health
www.healthyenvironmentforkids.ca
Vision and Strategy for Children’s Health and Environment
In 2008, CPCHE partners have developed this Vision and Strategy based on the ideas generated by a national dialogue with multi-stakeholders, generated in six National Policy Consultation Workshops across Canada in 2007. The report First Steps in Lifelong Health- A Vision and Strategy for Children’s Health and Environment in Canada will be released with a press conference and evening information forum December 16, 2008. EHI-Canada will continue to work with CPCHE towards accomplishment of the strategies set out in this report.
Early Environmental Exposures and Chronic Disease Prevention
In 2008, CPCHE and the Ontario Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance (OCDPA), comprised of eleven core partners and over twenty member organizations, were the recipients of a three-year project grant from the Trillium Foundation’s Future Fund for a joint project Early Environmental Exposures and Chronic Disease Prevention in Ontario. As a member of CPCHE, EHI-Canada will continue to work on this project.
The eleven core partner organizations in OCDPA are:
- Alzheimer Society of Ontario
- Association of Local Public Health Agencies
- Canadian Cancer Society (Ontario Division)
- Canadian Diabetes Association
- Cancer Care Ontario
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
- Health Nexus
- Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario
- The Kidney Foundation of Canada
- Ontario Public Health Association
- Osteoporosis Canada
National ME /FM Action Network
The National ME/FM Action Network is a Canadian registered charity established in 1993 and dedicated to helping people who suffer from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and/or Fibromyalgia through support, advocacy, education and research. The Network works closely with organizations representing Canadians with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.
Read the report: Profile and Impact of 23 Chronic Conditions in the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey as a pdf here.