Canada's cannabis legalization and police-reported cannabis-related criminal incidents among youth, 2015-2021.

Background: We previously reported that the 2018 Canadian Cannabis Act, allowing youth to possess up to 5 g dried cannabis or equivalent for personal use/sharing, was associated with short-term (76 days) post-legalization reduction in police-reported cannabis-related crimes among youth. To establish whether the change might be sustained, we now estimate this association during a much longer time period by including an additional three years of post-legalization data.

Methods: Using national daily police-reported criminal incident data from January 1, 2015-December 31, 2021 from the Canadian Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR-2), the study employed Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) time series models to assess the associations between legalization and youth (12-17 years) cannabis-related offenses (male, n = 34,508; female, n = 9529).

Navigating conflicting value systems: a grounded theory of the process of public health equity work in the context of mental health promotion and prevention of harms of substance use.

Background: Promoting health equity and reducing heath inequities is a foundational aim and ethical imperative in public health. There has been limited attention to and research on the ethical issues inherent in promoting health equity and reducing health inequities that public health practitioners experience in their work. The aim of the study was to explore how public health providers identified and navigated ethical issues and their management related to promoting health equity within services focused on mental health promotion and preventing harms of substance use.

Putting On and Taking Off the Capulana: A Grounded Theory of How Mozambican Women Manage Gender Oppression.

Gender-based oppression is a pervasive global challenge, but has taken a back seat to other issues in Mozambique. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore how Mozambican women manage multiple oppressions in their lives in the context of the AIDS epidemic. Using interviews, documents, and constant comparison, we constructed a theory, to explain how women are socialized into and push back against the prevailing societal misogyny.

"The health equity curse": ethical tensions in promoting health equity.

Background: Public health (PH) practitioners have a strong moral commitment to health equity and social justice. However, PH values often do not align with health systems values, making it challenging for PH practitioners to promote health equity. In spite of a growing range of PH ethics frameworks and theories, little is known about ethical concerns related to promotion of health equity in PH practice.

Values are not enough: qualitative study identifying critical elements for prioritization of health equity in health systems.

Background: Health system policies and programs that reduce health inequities and improve health outcomes are essential to address unjust social gradients in health. Prioritization of health equity is fundamental to addressing health inequities but challenging to enact in health systems. Strategies are needed to support effective prioritization of health equity.

Addressing quadruple aims through primary care and public health collaboration: ten Canadian case studies.

Background: Health systems in Canada and elsewhere are at a crossroads of reform in response to rising economic and societal pressures. The Quadruple Aim advocates for: improving patient experience, reducing cost, advancing population health and improving the provider experience. It is at the forefront of Canadian reform debates aimed to improve a complex and often-fragmented health care system.

What Is Missing from "Patient-Oriented Research?" A View from Public Health Systems and Services.

Patient-oriented research (POR) aims to increase patient engagement in health research to improve health research and health services. In Canada, the Strategies for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) framework provides guidance for conducting POR. We critically review the SPOR framework through the lens of public health systems and services research.

Health equity-oriented approaches to inform responses to opioid overdoses: a scoping review protocol.

The purpose of this scoping review is to systematically identify and describe literature that uses a health equity-oriented (HEO) approach for preventing and reducing the harms of stigma or overdose for people who use illicit drugs or misuse prescription opioids.The question of the review is: What is currently known about the use of an HEO approach for preventing the harms of stigma or overdose when people use illicit or street drugs, or use prescription opioids for other than their intended purposes?Specifically, the review objectives are.

Health Equity Talk: Understandings of Health Equity among Health Leaders.

Introduction: Reducing health inequities is a stated goal of health systems worldwide. There is widespread commitment to health equity among public health leaders and calls for reorientation of health systems towards health equity. As part of the Equity Lens in Public Health (ELPH) program of research, public health decision makers and researchers in British Columbia collaborated to study the application of a health equity lens in a time of health system renewal.

Organizational factors influencing successful primary care and public health collaboration.

Background: Public health and primary care are distinct sectors within western health care systems. Within each sector, work is carried out in the context of organizations, for example, public health units and primary care clinics. Building on a scoping literature review, our study aimed to identify the influencing factors within these organizations that affect the ability of these health care sectors to collaborate with one another in the Canadian context.

Critical considerations for the practical utility of health equity tools: a concept mapping study.

Background: Promoting health equity within health systems is a priority and challenge worldwide. Health equity tools have been identified as one strategy for integrating health equity considerations into health systems. Although there has been a proliferation of health equity tools, there has been limited attention to evaluating these tools for their practicality and thus their likelihood for uptake.

Strengthening primary health care through primary care and public health collaboration: the influence of intrapersonal and interpersonal factors.

Unlabelled: AimThe aim of this paper is to examine Canadian key informants' perceptions of intrapersonal (within an individual) and interpersonal (among individuals) factors that influence successful primary care and public health collaboration.

Background: Primary health care systems can be strengthened by building stronger collaborations between primary care and public health. Although there is literature that explores interpersonal factors that can influence successful inter-organizational collaborations, a few of them have specifically explored primary care and public health collaboration.

Xpey' Relational Environments: an analytic framework for conceptualizing Indigenous health equity.

Introduction: Both health equity research and Indigenous health research are driven by the goal of promoting equitable health outcomes among marginalized and underserved populations. However, the two fields often operate independently, without collaboration. As a result, Indigenous populations are underrepresented in health equity research relative to the disproportionate burden of health inequities they experience.

What systemic factors contribute to collaboration between primary care and public health sectors? An interpretive descriptive study.

Background: Purposefully building stronger collaborations between primary care (PC) and public health (PH) is one approach to strengthening primary health care. The purpose of this paper is to report: 1) what systemic factors influence collaborations between PC and PH; and 2) how systemic factors interact and could influence collaboration.

Methods: This interpretive descriptive study used purposive and snowball sampling to recruit and conduct interviews with PC and PH key informants in British Columbia (n = 20), Ontario (n = 19), and Nova Scotia (n = 21), Canada.

"Layers of translation" - evidence literacy in public health practice: a qualitative secondary analysis.

Background: Strengthening public health systems has been a concern in Canada in the wake of public health emergencies. In one Canadian province, British Columbia, a high priority has been placed on the role of evidence to guide decision making; however, there are numerous challenges to using evidence in practice. The National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools therefore developed the Evidence Informed Public Health Framework (EIPH), a seven step guide to assist public health practitioners to use evidence in practice.

Prevalence and correlates of electronic cigarette use among Canadian students: cross-sectional findings from the 2014/15 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey.

Background: Over the past decade, youth tobacco use has declined, and electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have entered the market. The aims of this study were to describe the prevalence of e-cigarette use among youth in Canada, by province, across sociodemographic variables and smoking-related correlates; and to examine associations among e-cigarette use, sociodemographic variables and smoking-related correlates, with adjustment for other factors.

Methods: The 2014/15 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, a biennial, school-based survey, was administered to students in grades 6-12 in all Canadian provinces.

Claims in vapour device (e-cigarette) regulation: A Narrative Policy Framework analysis.

Background: The electronic cigarette or e-cigarette (vapour device) is a consumer product undergoing rapid growth, and governments have been adopting regulations on the sale of the devices and their nicotine liquids. Competing claims about vapour devices have ignited a contentious debate in the public health community. What claims have been taken up in the state arena, and how have they possibly influenced regulatory outcomes?

Methods: This study utilized Narrative Policy Framework to analyze the claims made about vapour devices in legislation recommendation reports from Queensland Australia, Canada, and the European Union, and the 2016 deeming rule legislation from the United States, and examined the claims and the regulatory outcomes in these jurisdictions.

Moving towards a new vision: implementation of a public health policy intervention.

Background: Public health systems in Canada have undergone significant policy renewal over the last decade in response to threats to the public's health, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome. There is limited research on how public health policies have been implemented or what has influenced their implementation. This paper explores policy implementation in two exemplar public health programs -chronic disease prevention and sexually-transmitted infection prevention - in Ontario, Canada.

Supporting successful implementation of public health interventions: protocol for a realist synthesis.

Background: There is a growing emphasis in public health on the importance of evidence-based interventions to improve population health and reduce health inequities. Equally important is the need for knowledge about how to implement these interventions successfully. Yet, a gap remains between the development of evidence-based public health interventions and their successful implementation.

What Synthesis Methodology Should I Use? A Review and Analysis of Approaches to Research Synthesis.

Background: When we began this process, we were doctoral students and a faculty member in a research methods course. As students, we were facing a review of the literature for our dissertations. We encountered several different ways of conducting a review but were unable to locate any resources that synthesized all of the various synthesis methodologies.

Situational Analysis for Complex Systems: Methodological Development in Public Health Research.

Public health systems have suffered infrastructure losses worldwide. Strengthening public health systems requires not only good policies and programs, but also development of new research methodologies to support public health systems renewal. Our research team considers public health systems to be complex adaptive systems and as such new methods are necessary to generate knowledge about the process of implementing public health programs and services.

A multiple case study of intersectoral public health networks: experiences and benefits of using research.

Background: Network partnerships between public health and third sector organisations are being used to address the complexities of population level social determinants of health and health equity. An understanding of how these networks use research and knowledge is crucial to effective network design and outcome evaluation. There is, however, a gap in the literature regarding how public health networks use research and knowledge.

Outcomes associated with nurse practitioners in collaborative practice with general practitioners in rural settings in Canada: a mixed methods study.

Background: The formalized nurse practitioner (NP) role in British Columbia is relatively new with most roles implemented in primary care. The majority of primary care is delivered by physicians using the fee-for-service model. There is a shortage of general practitioners associated with the difficulties of recruitment and retention, particularly in rural and remote locations.