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Southwestern Public Health is working with the Association of Local Public Health Agencies on proposals for supportive living regulations & a comprehensive alcohol strategy
Southwestern Public Health is working closely with Ontario’s Association of Local Public Health Agencies (alPHa) on upstream health strategies that can be adopted in other health unit regions to reduce alcohol-related harms and improve supportive living regulations for vulnerable people.
The health unit representing Oxford County, Elgin County, and the City of St. Thomas presented the two resolutions at the June Annual General Meeting for alPHa – a member-based organization comprised of leaders from public health agencies across Ontario.
The first proposal involves a timely comprehensive alcohol strategy to enhance regulation, treatment, prevention and public education about alcohol-related harms – including delaying youth alcohol consumption. Southwestern Public Health also proposed the creation of regulations to include unregulated or quasi-regulated supportive living facilities that serve vulnerable individuals. The purpose is to ensure the human rights, safety, and well-being of those living there, often our most vulnerable, with provincially-mandated regulations that all such facilities must abide by.
Both resolutions were endorsed by alPHa’s membership as strategies that other health units could adopt to promote and protect well-being in their communities, and to call upon the province to implement these initiatives.
“Upstream work is where transformational health care reform begins,” says Peter Heywood, Program Director of Healthy Communities at Southwestern Public Health. “It informs municipalities and the health and social sectors about local health priorities, which results in a multitude of decisions at the community level – from regulations to education campaigns to bylaws – all with the goal of preventing negative health outcomes that burden our health and social systems.”
When alPHa members endorse proposals from local health units, they are then assigned to alPHa to operationalize. Member health units who attended the alPHa meeting gave full support for proceeding with strategies for both proposals. alPHa’s role moving forward is to create opportunities for policy change through communication and advocacy to the federal and provincial governments and other partners to advance the objectives outlined in the resolutions on behalf of local public health agencies across Ontario.
“This is where local public health matters: we are constantly learning from each other about what works in one region to help support health improvement in another region,” says Cynthia St. John, Chief Executive Officer at Southwestern Public Health. “While we are energized by the opportunity, we also recognize it will take many years to see positive health impacts from these strategies. We need whole communities to support and see value in these upstream strategies before we will see real change in population health.”
Southwestern Public Health will support alPHa in developing action plans related to these two resolutions. View the resolutions in detail at www.alphaweb.org/page/alPHa_Resolutions.
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