Interdisciplinary project highlights public engagement in Canadian healthcare with special Healthcare Policy journal issue

A special issue of the journal Healthcare Policy is highlighting the work of an interdisciplinary research project that explores the past, present and future of public engagement in Canadian healthcare policy.

The Public Engagement in Health Policy Project, which was funded in 2020 by the Future of Canada Project, includes the work of researchers at McMaster in the Faculties of Health Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, as well as collaborators from other institutions and the community.

Principal investigator Julia Abelson (Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact) is joined by co-investigators Katherine Boothe (Department of Political Science), Alpha Abebe (Faculty of Humanities) and Roma Dhamanaskar (PhD candidate, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact).

The project seeks to provide insights into purposeful and equitable public engagement for health policy makers across Canada at the federal and provincial/territorial levels.

The journal issue is the culmination of the project, and is structured around the history, current state and potential future for public engagement in Canadian healthcare policy.

“If the numerous and persisting inequities in health systems across Canada are going to be addressed, it is imperative that those designing, developing and implementing policies find ways to reflect the needs and preferences of the communities and populations most adversely affected by these inequities in these decisions,” write the authors in the journal issue’s introduction.

“Transformation takes time; this special issue offers some next steps toward more purposeful engagement in Canadian health policy.” To read the special issue, go to the Healthcare Policy journal’s website.