Impact

Highlights of how our work has had impact

Income Security Health Promotion

This novel service has been offered at the St. Michael’s Hospital Academic Family Health Team since late 2013, and is supported by the FHT’s Social Determinants of Health Committee. In its first year, the service supported almost 200 primary care patients with increasing their income, reducing expenses and improving financial literacy.

This work has been covered by various media and replicated in Manitoba.

Photo credit: Toronto Star.

Photo credit: St. Michael’s Hospital Communications.

From left to right: Emily Hill, Executive Director of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto), Rami Shoucri (Clinical Champion), Johanna Macdonald (first on-site Health Justice Initiative Lawyer), Jack Deklerk (Executive Director of Neighbourhood Legal Services), Kim Radford (Research Coordinator for Health Justice Initiative), Karen Weyman (Chief, SMH DFCM), Linda Jackson (Executive Director SMH AFHT), Sheleca Henry (Health Justice Initiative Program Assistant), Andrew Pinto (Principal Investigator, Health Justice Initiative Evaluation), Gary Bloch (Chair of SMH AFHT Social Determinants of Health Committee), Ryan Peck (Executive Director of HIV&AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario). Not pictured, Jennifer Stone, on-site Health Justice Initiative Lawyer.

Health Justice Initiative

A joint effort between St. Michael’s Hospital Academic Family Health Team, Legal Aid Ontario, and four community legal aid clinics, this medical-legal partnership helped patients deal with legal issues that affected their health, such as threats of eviction, problems accessing social benefits, and domestic violence.

The initiative not only provided patients with onsite legal assistance, but also promoted system change by educating clinical and legal staff about their roles to provide effective services and advocating for policy reform.

This program received the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario’s (AFHTO) Bright Lights Award for the category Strengthening Partnerships in 2017 (see video below).

In close collaboration with Workers’ Action Centre, Access Alliance and many other health sector partners, the Upstream Lab helped developed the Decent Work and Health Network (DWHN) as part of the $15 and Fairness movement. This network organizes and mobilizes health workers and other allies to advocate for decent work conditions to improve population health. The network has brought together evidence on the health effects of precarious work and engaged the public through rallies, leafleting, petitions, presentations, op-eds and social media campaigns. This initiative was supported by the Atkinson Foundation Decent Work Fund.

Equitable Implementation of Artificial Intelligence

The Future is Now: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Family Medicine Webinar Series

Check out the six-part webinar series around AI on our Resources page.

Health & AI Learning Resources

Check out the Upstream Lab’s web-based platform that houses many learning resources around health data science and AI.

The big Data to Enhance and Evolve Primary care (DEEP Network) brings together patients, health providers, system leaders and academics across Canada to help set the direction of AI in primary care, and to catalyze patient-oriented research in this area.

To join the network, email: deepnetwork@unityhealth.to

Addressing Social Determinants of Health (SDoH)

Framework for SDOH Interventions in Primary Care

New Models for Integrating Health and Social Care Webinar

Addressing the Social Determinants of COVID-19

Collecting Data on Race During the COVID-19 Pandemic to Identify Inequities

Collecting Data on SDoH during COVID

Profiles of Public Health Systems in Canada

Dr. Andrew Pinto, Dr. Sara Allin, and Dr. Laura Rosella, are co-leading the development of Platform to Monitor the Performance of Public Health Systems. As part of this project, a series of reports describing the profiles of public health systems in each of the 13 Canadian provinces and territories is currently being released. The series is a result of partnership between the NCCHPP, the North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, the Upstream Lab, the Population Health Analytics Lab, the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.