Multi-sectoral partnerships to promote healthy living and prevent chronic disease

The world has changed profoundly over the past few decades, and as a result, Canada faces a range of increasingly complex health challenges. Chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death and reduced quality of life.

The Government of Canada recognizes that through active engagement and partnerships with the private sector, charitable sector, organizations within and outside the health sector, and other levels of government, progress can be made to support and sustain behaviour change that will positively impact health. Early successes are showing that innovation and greater impact can be achieved by delivering on shared priorities with all sectors of society. This heightened form of collaboration leads to benefits that are of shared value to society as a whole.

Within this context, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is acting as a convenor, facilitating the creation of new partnerships, new ideas and interventions in addressing healthy living and chronic disease prevention.

The intent is to advance integrated efforts that promote healthy living and the prevention of the major chronic diseases (e.g., cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease) by addressing the common risk factors for these diseases including physical inactivity and/ or sedentary behaviour, unhealthy eating and smoking.

These partnerships and funding arrangements are aimed at:

• leveraging knowledge, expertise, reach and resources
• achieving demonstrable results
• producing better health outcomes for Canadians

The funded projects will support PHAC's contribution to:

• Curbing Childhood Obesity: An Overview of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Framework for Action to Promote Healthy Weights
• The Declaration on Prevention and Promotion from Canada's Ministers of Health and Health Promotion/Healthy Living, a vision for collaborative action in promoting health and preventing disease, disability and injury

Through this approach, PHAC invests approximately $20 million annually to test and/or scale up the most promising primary prevention interventions to enable and change behaviour that will positively impact health through physical activity, healthy eating, smoking cessation and/or the creation of supportive social and physical environments.

Approved projects must obtain additional funding from non-tax payer sources or private sector partners.

Funded projects must also demonstrate results. Successful projects will have pay-for-performance agreements where payments are tied to accomplishing outputs/ outcomes that are specified in advance, jointly negotiated and measureable.

The High Impact Investments at the Public Health Agency of Canada Infographic provides you with a brief overview of the approach, types of projects, and their impact.

Select projects will be required to undertake Social Return on Investment (SROI). SROI is an approach to understanding and communicating the value of the social, economic and environmental outcomes created by an activity or an organization. SROI measures the significant intended and unintended outcomes and applies a dollar value to those outcomes. From an impact perspective, a SROI analysis has demonstrated that for every $1 invested under this new approach, PHAC is yielding over $2.50 in return.

Consult the funding opportunities website for information and Qs&As.

• Funded Projects for 2012-2016