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Background: Attitudes and beliefs of policy influencers and the general public toward physical activity policymay support or impede population-level action, requiring improved understanding of aggregate preferences toward policies that promote physical activity. Methods: In 2016, the Chronic Disease Prevention Survey was administered to a census sample of policy influencers (n = 302) and a stratified random sample of the public (n = 2400) in Alberta and Québec. Using net favorable percentages and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics' intervention ladder framework to guide analysis, the authors examined support for evidence-based healthy public policies to increase physical activity levels. Results: Less intrusive policy options (ie, policies that are not always the most impactful) tended to have higher levels of support than policies that eliminated choice. However, there was support for certain types of policies affecting influential determinants of physical activity such as the built environment (ie, provided they enabled rather than restricted choice) and school settings (ie, focusing on children and youth). Overall, the general public indicated stronger levels of support for more physical activity policy options than policy influencers. Conclusions: The authors' findings may be useful for health advocates in identifying support for evidence-based healthy public policies affecting more influential determinants of physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess general public and policy influencer support for population-level tobacco control policies in two Canadian provinces. Methods: We implemented the Chronic Disease Prevention Survey in 2016 to a census sample of policy influencers (n = 302) and a random sample of members of the public (n = 2400) in Alberta and Quebec, Canada. Survey respondents ranked their support for tobacco control policy options using a Likert-style scale, with aggregate responses presented as net favourable percentages. Levels of support were further analyzed by coding each policy option using the Nuffield Council on Bioethics intervention ladder framework, to assess its level of intrusiveness on personal autonomy. Results: Policy influencers and the public considered the vast majority of tobacco control policy options as "extremely" or "very" favourable, although policy influencers in Alberta and Quebec differed on over half the policies, with stronger support in Quebec. Policy influencers and the public strongly supported more intrusive tobacco control policy options, despite anticipated effects on personal autonomy (i.e. for policies targeting children/youth and emerging tobacco products like electronic cigarettes). They indicated less support for fiscally based tobacco control policies (i.e. taxation), despite these policies being highly effective. Conclusion: Overall, policy influencers and the general public strongly supported more restrictive tobacco control policies. This study further highlights policies where support among both population groups was unanimous (potential "quick wins" for health advocates). It also highlights areas where additional advocacy work is required to communicate the population-health benefit of tobacco control policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health in all policies can address chronic disease morbidity and mortality by increasing population-level physical activity and healthy eating, and reducing tobacco and alcohol use. Both governmental and nongovernmental policy influencers are instrumental for health policy that modifies political, economic, and social environments. Policy influencers are informed and persuaded by coalitions that support or oppose changing the status quo. Empirical research examining policy influencers' contact with coalitions, as a social psychological exposure with health policy outcomes, can benefit from application of health communication theories. Accordingly, we analyzed responses to the 2014 Chronic Disease Prevention Survey for 184 Canadian policy influencers employed in provincial governments, municipalities, large workplaces, school boards, and the media. In addition to contact levels with coalitions, respondents' jurisdiction, organization, and ideology were analyzed as potential moderators. Calculating authority score centrality using network analysis, we determined health policy supporters to be more central in policy influencer networks, and theorized their potential to impact health policy public agenda setting via priming and framing processes. We discuss the implications of our results as presenting opportunities to more effectively promote health policy through priming and framing by coordinating coalitions across risk behaviors to advance a societal imperative for chronic disease prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess and compare the favourability of healthy public policy options to promote healthy eating from the perspective of members of the general public and policy influencers in two Canadian provinces.Design: The Chronic Disease Prevention Survey, administered in 2016, required participants to rank their level of support for different evidence-based policy options to promote healthy eating at the population level. Pearson's χ 2 significance testing was used to compare support between groups for each policy option and results were interpreted using the Nuffield Council on Bioethics' intervention ladder framework.Setting: Alberta and Québec, Canada.ParticipantsMembers of the general public (n 2400) and policy influencers (n 302) in Alberta and Québec.Results: General public and policy influencer survey respondents were more supportive of healthy eating policies if they were less intrusive on individual autonomy. However, in comparing levels of support between groups, we found policy influencers indicated significantly stronger support overall for healthy eating policy options. We also found that policy influencers in Québec tended to show more support for more restrictive policy options than their counterparts from Alberta.Conclusions: These results suggest that additional knowledge brokering may be required to increase support for more intrusive yet impactful evidence-based policy interventions; and that the overall lower levels of support among members of the public may impede policy influencers from taking action on policies to promote healthy eating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population ageing combined with physical inactivity has critical implications for the public health of communities in the twenty-first century. In the last decade, the World Health Organization launched the age-friendly cities agenda, aiming to address population ageing through whole-systems, rights-based, health equity-focused approaches. An important intervention for age-friendly communities is modifying built environments to support population-level physical activity. Physical activity can help mitigate impacts of chronic diseases and social isolation on older adults. Need for advocacy and action in this area raises questions of how to develop supportive environments for physical activity across age-friendly community types. In Canada, a substantial proportion of older adults live outside large urban municipalities, for which scant research exists on fostering age-friendly built environments. To this end, we conducted qualitative research involving semi-structured interviews with 21 municipal policy influencers in Alberta, Canada to gather perspectives on development and early implementation of an age-friendly policy framework in the small urban and rural context. Our findings are organised by three main themes providing key lessons for advocacy and action, namely pursuing comprehensive planning , promoting public engagement and prioritising the needs of older adults. This research informs advocacy and action priorities in promoting built environment modification for routine physical activity as part of an age-friendliness agenda for small urban and rural regions of Canada and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public engagement is essential to the procedural and substantive sustainability of environmental assessment. Public hearings present the lowest barrier to entry for public participation, but these forums face competing political pressures for conducting appropriate public engagement within an expeditious process. Repositories of public hearing testimony provide a source of primary data for examining these public engagement issues during environmental assessments. However, the time and resources required may be prohibitive for conducting the kind of in-depth qualitative analyses that are commonly used. Automated content analysis (ACA) techniques can provide a rapid, replicable, inductive, and systematic way to examine public hearing transcripts, consisting of the critical development and application of computer programming scripts that synthesize evidence from extensive document sets. This case illustration demonstrates the potential utility of ACA, based on the examination of two public hearings, Prairie Creek (EA0809-002; 2008–2011) and Nico (EA0809-004; 2009–2013) conducted in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada. Our interpretation of the findings provides an evaluation of ACA methods and situates its potential to inform environmental assessment research and practice across jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the logical framework analysis (LFA) to improve health communication for natural resource development in Canada's Northern Territories. Topics discussed includes work of Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) for the accomodation of northern aboriginal communities and use of LFA in designing and evaluating international development and global health interventions throughout the world.