Canada Public Health

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Prior to SARS, the delivery of public health was highly decentralized with limited inter governance collaboration, provinces and territories were responsible for administering medicare and the planning of health services (Government of Canada,2004). The major challenge as to how public health was managed provincially vs. federally was that there was “no comprehensive document that assigned specific roles and responsibilities to federal, provincial and territorial governments” (Government of Canada,2004). The lack of formal terms of cooperation impeded the rapid responses to emergency situations, as seen with the SARS outbreak. Formal documents are necessary to deal with issues such as data sharing, data ownership, privacy, permitted distribution of data, and the consequences of governmental non-compliance with these terms (Government of Canada,2004). Currently, all jurisdictions in the matter of health and public health functions, have roles and responsibilities for public health (Government of Canada,2004).
The provincial government is …show more content…

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, there mission is to “promote and protect the health of Canadians through leadership, partnership, innovation, and action in public health” (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2012). Since the agency’ inception they have worked continually to strengthen Canada’s public health capacity by being involved in the “design and development of electronic information systems to support the investigation, monitoring and reporting of public health events across” Canada, further developing the Skills Online program and establishing the Canadian Public Health Service, “which places qualified public health officers where they are most needed” (Public Health Agency of Canada,

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