Monitoring health inequalities to inform action- the Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative

Abstract

Abstract Improving national health inequalities monitoring and reporting systems is critical for informing effective action to improve health equity. The Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative (HIRI) provides a foundation of data and evidence to support collaborative efforts to reduce health inequalities in Canada. HIRI is led by the Public Health Agency of Canada, in collaboration with the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network, Statistics Canada, First Nation Information Governance Centre and other partners. HIRI brings together inequity measures for more than 100 indicators of health outcomes, risk factors, and social determinants of health disaggregated across a range of socioeconomic and sociodemographic variables meaningful to health equity including: sex/gender; age; income; education; employment; occupation; immigrant status; Indigenous identity; race/ethnicity; urban/rural residence; material and social deprivation, functional health/participation and activity limitation and sexual orientation. HIRI aims to strengthen health inequalities measurement, monitoring, and reporting capacity in Canada. It informs policy and program decision making to more effectively reduce health inequalities, and enables the monitoring of progress in this area. This presentation will provide an overview of the HIRI along with the key health inequalities in Canada. It will elaborate on the importance of the engagement with multiple partners in creating a broad range of data and knowledge translation products, and discuss how making it accessible to others: Allows for a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the state of health inequalities in CanadaSupports focused action through increased access to health inequalities knowledgePromotes collaboration and accountability for the reduction of health inequalities in order to achieve SDGs