Who are we?
The Healthy Communities team consists of three Leads, each of whom has a regional area in which they work (Northwest, Northeast, Northern Interior) and a Community Granting Coordinator.
We work with Northern BC communities, including local governments, community organizations, and others, to influence the conditions – like transportation, food systems, neighbourhood design, and housing - that promote well-being in social, natural, and built environments.
How we do this:
We facilitate. We are process experts. We know how to bring groups together to have meaningful conversations. Involving us means that community members can focus on generating ideas, building connections and creating action plans.
We connect. We build bridges between partners and stakeholders, connecting them with the knowledge, experience and relationships they need within Northern Health, and the northern region more broadly.
We fund. We support the funding of healthy community projects, and we connect stakeholders and partners to a wide range of other funding opportunities.
Healthy Public Policy (HPP)
Healthy Public Policy (HPP) is one of five pillars of the Healthy Communities Approach. This series of strategies builds on a community’s existing capacity to improve community health and well-being, focusing on ways communities can make it easier for people to make healthier choices.
Healthy Public Policy improves:
- Housing
- Living conditions (education, nutrition, child care, transportation)
- Livelihoods
- Social and health services
What is the role of local governments in HPP?
Local governments make important transportation, community and recreation decisions which promote and protect community health and well-being. Free access to public leisure centres, connecting trail networks and provision and/or expansion of public parks are great examples of local HPP.
How are HPP and equity connected?
The World Health Organization defines equity as “the absence of avoidable, unfair, or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically or by other means of stratification”. The Government of Canada refers to health inequalities as differences in the health status of individuals and groups.
Healthy Public Policy is explicitly concerned with health and equity in all areas of policy focusing on alleviating systemic inequities, therefore improving health outcomes for all.
- BC's guiding framework for public health (PDF) - Government of BC
- Build healthy public policy - World Health Organization (WHO)
- Bylaw development as a health promotion strategy (PDF) - Public Health Ontario
- Healthy public policy toolkit 2017 (PDF) - Winnipeg Regional Health Authority
- How to build healthy communities - PlanH
- National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP)
- Plan H action guide: Healthy community engagement (PDF) - PlanH
- PlanH action guide: How do local governments improve health and community well-being? (PDF) - PlanH
- Policy approaches to reducing health inequalities (PDF) - NCCHPP
- The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion 1986 - World Health Organization (WHO)
Contact us
Northern Interior
Jeff Kormos
Lead, Healthy Communities
390 Victoria Street,
Prince George, BC V2L 4X4
Jeff.Kormos@northernhealth.ca
Phone: 250-645-3134
Northeast
Erin Powers
Lead, Healthy Communities
10115 110 Avenue,
Fort St. John, BC V1J 6M9
Erin.Powers@northernhealth.ca
Phone: 250-219-5720
Northwest
Lana Pestaluky
Lead, Healthy Communities
3412 Kalum Street,
Terrace, BC V8G 4T2
Lana.Pestaluky@northernhealth.ca
Phone: 250-641-7045
Resources
The E-Brief is a monthly newsletter that delivers information on resources, learning events, funding opportunities, and other information specific to promoting healthy living and the prevention of chronic disease and injury.