Centre Initiatives
The Centre for Healthy Communities leads many innovative projects under the broad umbrella of healthy communities. Find out more about how we work. All Centre projects are developed by CHC Scientists with input from community partners.
Below is an overview of our Centre-initiated projects.
Project Timeline: 2020-2022
Funder: Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR)
Improving people’s financial circumstances has never been more critical. Disadvantaged population groups have experienced even higher levels of financial strain and poor financial wellbeing during the pandemic, which have negatively impacted their physical and mental health. To support efforts to build back better and fairer communities in the wake of COVID-19, the Centre for Healthy Communities led an international collaborative, participatory, multi-method project to develop resources to support action on financial strain and financial wellbeing. These resources were designed for practitioners and decision-makers working in organizations and governments in a wide variety of sectors and jurisdictions.
Project Timeline: 2022-2025
Funder: Alberta Health
The Centre for Healthy Communities (CHC) will be part of an interdisciplinary team working to develop a Community of Practice around water reuse in Alberta. This work is part of a larger water reuse project led by Dr. Norman Neumann (CHC Scientist) that will advance the management and treatment of Alberta’s water resources, with funding from Alberta Health. This Water Reuse Community of Practice will bring together a cross-sectoral group of stakeholders from across private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. This work is aligned with CHC’s Healthy Environments and Healthy Municipalities and Workplaces research thematic areas.
Centre for Healthy Communities Research Team:
Norman Neumann (Nominated Principal Investigator)
Candace Nykiforuk (Co-Principal Investigator)
Simon Otto (Co-Investigator)
Ana Paula Belon (Centre for Healthy Communities, Senior Research Associate)
Project Timeline: 2021 - Current
The Health Equity Research Thematic Area led by Dr. Roman Pabayo has developed a series of resources related to social and health equity.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity Resource List
The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) Resource List is a compilation of resources to support EDI implementation in research, institutions, workplaces, and classrooms. Resources (e.g., toolkits, reports, websites) and other supporting materials on how to implement and promote EDI in different environments can be found throughout the document.
Health Equity Datasets Inventory
An inventory of health equity datasets (compilation of health equity datasets, data resources, and interactive dashboards) and accompanying infographic (including how the inventory should be used, inventory contents, and why health equity data is important).
Social Cohesion Resource for Building Healthy Communities
This resource presents research-informed health benefits associated with socially cohesive communities as well as numerous strategies designed to help strengthen community social cohesion in Alberta. In the companion document more detailed information on each social cohesion strengthening strategy presented in the main resource is provided and real-world examples of actions taken by communities in Alberta that align with the proposed strategies are offered.
Project Timeline: 2017-2021
Funders: Centre for Healthy Communities and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
The Centre for Healthy Communities conducted a community-based participatory research project on measuring accessibility in urban environments. In collaboration with our partners, the City of Edmonton and the City of Edmonton Accessibility Advisory Committee, our aim was to better understand how accessibility can impact the health and well-being of residents living within an urban context.
Building on the above work, a subsequent planning grant from CIHR supported the completion of a policy scan to identify what other municipalities throughout Canada were doing to support universal accessibility through formal policies. A summary of this work is presented in a report and infographic.
Research Team:
Candace Nykiforuk (Nominated Principal Investigator)
Nicole Glenn (Co-Principal Investigator)
Danielle Peers (Co-Investigator)
Sammy Lowe (Graduate Research Assistant)
Darcy Reynard (Graduate Research Assistant)
Brittany Molner (Graduate Research Assistant)
Jared Candlish (Graduate Research Assistant)
Partners:
Heather Crowe, City of Edmonton
Ian Hosler, City of Edmonton
Robert Lipka, City of Edmonton
Project Timeline: 2018
Funder: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
The Centre for Healthy Communities hosted a collaborators forum to ideate the Healthy Edmonton Metropolitan Region Living Lab, a collaboration of researchers, municipalities and other regional and provincial partners. The collaboration proposed to systematically study how municipal initiatives impact health and health equity. The idea was among 15 selected nationally to be pitched to the CIHR Dragon’s Den Event competition in December 2018.
For more information about our Centre-initiated projects, please contact us at healthy.communities@ualberta.ca