What are the biggest health problems in Niagara? Can we create a strategy that would address health challenges not only when they occur, but even before potential problems arise?

Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory (NCO) has teamed up with Niagara Region Public Health and Emergency Services to research and address these and other questions in their latest policy brief.

The brief, Future of Niagara’s Health: Using a Life-Course Approach to Improve Well-Being, contains statistics on the most common health conditions people experience and introduces how the ‘Life-Course approach’ to health and social care delivery could create transformative opportunities.

“The life-course perspective offers a new way of looking at health, not as disconnected stages unrelated to each other, but as an integrated continuum,” says Sinéad McElhone, Manager of Surveillance and Evaluation, Niagara Region Public Health and adjunct faculty at Brock University.

McElhone and Diane Vanecko, Director of Organizational and Foundational Standards at Niagara Region Public Health, will be presenting the brief during a webinar hosted by Niagara Connects on Wednesday, May 2 at 1 p.m.

The webinar will offer information on Niagara’s health conditions, examine multiple Niagara-specific data sources to reveal the key reasons why individuals interact with health services, and explore the concept of an “integrated continuum” that targets interventions at certain points during the lifespan.

“This policy brief is an attempt to advance new ways of understanding and approaching the design and implementation public health policy in Niagara,” says NCO Director Charles Conteh. “The discussion embraces a holistic life-course perspective and explores how health care delivery in Niagara can give greater consideration to the social, economic and environmental dimensions of individual and community human health and well-being.”

What: NCO webinar to present the policy brief The Future of Niagara’s Health: Using a Life-Course Approach to Improve Well-Being

Who: Sinéad McElhone, Manager of Surveillance and Evaluation, Niagara Region Public Health; and Diane Vanecko, Director of Organizational and Foundational Standards at Niagara Region Public Health

When: Wednesday, May 2, 1 to 2 p.m.

Where: Webinar available online here