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Background: Public health services and systems research is under-developed in Canada and this is particularly the case with respect to research on local public health unit operational functioning and capacity. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that will collect retrospective information on the local public health response to COVID-19 throughout Canada between 2020 and 2021. Methods/Design: The goal of the study is to develop and implement a study framework that will collect retrospective information on the local public health system response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This study will involve administering a mixed-method survey to Medical Health Officers/Medical Officers of Health in every local and regional public health unit across the country, followed by a process of coding and grouping these responses in a consistent and comparable way. Coded responses will be assessed for patterns of divergent or convergent roles and approaches of local public health across the country with respect to interventions in their response to COVID-19. The Framework Method of thematic analysis will be applied to assess the qualitative answers to the open-ended questions that speak to public health policy features. Discussion: The strengths of the study protocol include the engagement of Medical Health Officers/Medical Officers of Health as research partners and a robust integrated knowledge translation approach to further public health services and systems research in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty reduction is a complex task. We investigate whether the position of single-parent families and single working-age adults has improved in a political context that has—at least rhetorically—prioritized poverty reduction across all higher-level jurisdictions in Canada. Both groups experience very high poverty rates. We analyze income poverty changes from 1999 to 2017 in a relative sense (compared to the typical Canadian) and an absolute sense (purchasing power). Controlling for demographic and regional characteristics, we find that the poverty disadvantage declined for both groups. Improvements for single-parent families were strong and widespread across provinces. Those for single adults of working age were smaller and more concentrated in provinces experiencing stronger economic growth. These results support the claim that governments prioritized the inclusion of families with dependent children while the inclusion of single working-age adults was largely left to the fortunes of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Improving our understanding of social inequalities may improve prevention and treatment efforts for diabetes mellitus. We examined the association between individual- and area-level socioeconomic measures and physician-diagnosed diabetes in Saskatchewan over time. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we linked health administrative data with individual-level socioeconomic data from the Canadian Community Health Survey and area-level data from the 2006 Canadian census. We used general linear mixed-models regression to analyze the effect of each factor, controlling for geographic and demographic measures. Results: Area-level deprivation was associated with medically diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus after adjustment for the individual-level factors of age, sex, household income and education. Individuals residing in areas ranked in the least deprived quintile had a lower likelihood of diabetes than those in the most deprived quintile (odds ratio 0.40, 95% confidence interval 0.18–0.88). However, this disparity existed only in urban areas. This result may reflect less pronounced health inequalities in rural areas, greater socioeconomic heterogeneity, larger geographic units or some combination of these factors. Interpretation: Individual- and area-level socioeconomic factors were associated with the likelihood of medically diagnosed diabetes; however, the strength of this association varied between urban and rural communities. Acknowledgement of area-level deprivation as a modifiable risk factor related to the prevalence of diabetes is important in the development of effective interventions for urban, but not rural, areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]