The population health movement has gained prominence in Canada and elsewhere with policy makers, program planners and researchers taking note that health is strongly influenced by factors that lie largely beyond the health-care system. The development of population health in Canada was the focus of the National Conference on Shared Responsibility for Health & Social Impact Assessments: Advancin...

In 2005, the NSW Department of Health commissioned an external review of the NSW Public Health Bulletin. This article describes the methods and findings of the qualitative survey. Participants included people working in population health from within the Department of Health, area health services, the tertiary sector and non-government organisations. There were fifty interviews, two focus groups...

The Centre for Epidemiology and Research, NSW Department of Health, has been funded through the National Health Development Fund to enhance access to, and reporting of, population health information for NSW. To assist in developing and refining the work to be conducted under the Program for Enhanced Population Infostructure (PEPHI), we conducted a consultation process commencing in November 200...

In this review, a synthesis of studies employing community-based participatory research (CBPR) to address mental health problems of minorities, strengths and challenges of the CBPR approach with minority populations are highlighted. Despite the fact that minority community members voiced a need for innovative approaches to address culturally unique issues, findings revealed that most researcher...

Improving the U.S. health care system requires simultaneous pursuit of three aims: improving the experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing per capita costs of health care. Preconditions for this include the enrollment of an identified population, a commitment to universality for its members, and the existence of an organization (an "integrator") that accepts responsi...

BACKGROUND Low health literacy is associated with poorer health and higher mortality. Complex health materials are a barrier to health. AIM To assess the literacy and numeracy skills required to understand and use commonly used English health information materials, and to describe population skills in relation to these. DESIGN AND SETTING An English observational study comparing health mate...

Medicare policy making now deals mostly with price-setting issues. However, as Warren Buffet has noted: "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." Victor Fuchs's studies raise fundamental issues for a value-oriented Medicare program. Florida offers one of many regional patterns of Medicare mortality that are not yet adequately explained. Valued-oriented, evidence-based Medicare policies wo...

Eliminating health disparities in racial/ethnic minority and underserved populations requires a paradigm shift from biomedical approaches that are disease-focused to a health equity framework that aims to achieve optimal health for all by targeting social and structural determinants of health. We describe the concepts and parallel approaches that underpin an integrative population health equity...

BACKGROUND To explain the possible effects of exposure to weather conditions on population health outcomes, weather data need to be calculated at a level in space and time that is appropriate for the health data. There are various ways of estimating exposure values from raw data collected at weather stations but the rationale for using one technique rather than another; the significance of the ...

OBJECTIVE: Some research suggests that social, political, and cultural life in the U.S. and Canada are growing divergent. We use health lifestyle theories to extend prior research and compare the U.S. and Canada on population health indicators. METHODS: The population health indicators include health behaviors, fertility, and cause-specific mortality for each of the United States (and Washingto...