Though it may feel different, as we are learning to live with SARS-CoV-2 as a circulating respiratory virus, we must understand that there remains a global health emergency of which we cannot become complacent. We must still protect those who have been made more vulnerable due to the pandemic, and we must also focus, for example, on long-term data collection for vaccine effectiveness, advancing vaccine equity, and applying lessons from the current pandemic to future threat responses.

Our work, therefore, continues.

The SPEAK Surveys data are critically important to help us understand where to focus our efforts. To date, data show negative impacts on mental health and stress and that societal impacts are inequitably distributed, with families with children, young adults, and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds most impacted. Taking this into consideration, much of the work of public health is shifting from acute, and often real-time, response, to strategic, proactive recovery and addressing the societal consequences of the pandemic and pandemic-related measures, as well as applying lessons to help us prepare for the future. These efforts will take years.

What does this mean for us?

It means we’re actively listening, learning, engaging, and convening work to advance equity, community resiliency, the social determinants of health, and a stronger, innovative public health sector. Here’s a snapshot of some of our current solutions-focused projects and priorities, as we shift towards the future.

• As BC shifts towards pandemic recovery, there is a limited window of opportunity to learn from the experiences of those engaged in the pandemic response and identify areas for improvement to prepare for emerging pathogens and future pandemics. It is critical to learn from the public health experience of the pandemic in order to prepare for the future. We’re funding a project that aims to articulate learnings to inform a provincial pandemic preparedness and response guidance framework, which will ensure BC is ready for future threats.
• Working with Michael Smith Health Research BC, the Simon Fraser University Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, we convened a dialogue event to distill key lessons, strengthen partnerships among public health and research stakeholders, and identify structures and mechanisms to support evidence-based practice, policy, and decision-making, as well as community-relevant public health messaging and tools.

• We continue to fund key areas of immunization research and service, with a specific focus on advancing equity for Indigenous communities. This includes vaccine monitoring, reporting, access, and stewardship in the North to strengthen these areas to ensure that Indigenous communities receive the same access to, and supports for, vaccination.
• Evidence of Indigenous-specific racism in the health system surfaced in powerful ways during the pandemic. We’re supporting a project that will systematically look at the ways in which Indigenous-specific racism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism showed up within the public health response.

• Addressing the societal, or unintended, consequences of the pandemic and pandemic-related measures is critical to rebuilding, recovery, and resiliency. Working with the Ministry of Health and the BC Centre for Disease Control, we’re providing grants across the province focusing on equity in regional health authorities and local communities.
• One fundamental consequence of the pandemic is that youth mental health and wellbeing has been negatively impacted—data from the SPEAK surveys have demonstrated that this must be a core area of work for public health. We’re supporting provincial research to understand the needs and gaps, and build and strengthen interventions for youth.

We look forward to sharing outcomes of these and other projects in future stories and as we advance our new strategic plan to help shape public health over the coming years by focusing on equity, partnerships, innovation, and social justice, anti-racism, and truth and reconciliation. 

Together… a constant theme

In early 2020, our Executive Director wrote her first reflections blog, followed by a second reflections piece in early 2022—the theme of both was ‘together.’

In 2023, ‘together’ remains a core theme.

Much of what we are learning and hearing is that public health needs to do a better job of incorporating your voices. The SPEAK Surveys are a vital tool, and one example. Public engagement is important to us, as it brings us together and ensures public health is working for you.

Our work has been, and will continue to be, accomplished together through collaboration and partnerships. This also means our donor community and we’re continuing to advance efforts through Your Health, Our Commitment — a way for you to get involved and help too—gifts to Your Health, Our Commitment will advance the projects above and other critical initiatives.

National COVID-19 Awareness Day was March 11th, to commemorate the day the WHO declared a global pandemic in 2020, offering a day to both remember and to look ahead, and bring people and communities together. As we focus on learning from the pandemic, supporting recovery efforts, and addressing the societal consequences, let’s not forget we still have work to do, together. 

The post New Pandemic Recovery Projects Helping BC Advance Equity and Community Resiliency appeared first on Pacific Public Health Foundation.

Over 50 BC businesses supported these efforts as well, some finding innovative ways to raise money for the cause.

Meanwhile, as donations to our Emergency Response Fund began to come in, through our existing resources we were able to rapidly fund a study led by microbiology researchers at the BC Centre for Disease Control that tested for COVID-19 in BC’s wastewater to help track the spread of the virus in our communities. Stay tuned for updates on this project.

We’re also proud to have funded the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey: Your Story, Our Future which helped researchers learn about the experiences, knowledge, and actions of the people living in our province. Completed by nearly 400,000 British Columbians, the first BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey was the largest population health survey ever conducted in Canada at that time.

Following the survey, we funded the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey Dashboard, an interactive platform showcasing the results of the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey, putting the data in the hands of the public, allowing them to see what was happening in their specific communities, as well as helping them to understand the experiences of British Columbians as a whole.

One of the key findings of the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey showed that young adults were among the hardest hit by the pandemic and related response measures, resulting in “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults in British Columbia,” a report that will be used to support the health and well-being of young adults and their communities across BC.

Researchers at the BC Centre for Disease Control were also interested in understanding the experiences of British Columbians one year into the pandemic, resulting in us funding the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey Round 2! (And stay tuned, because we’re currently working on knowledge translation work with the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Survey team that we’re excited to share with you soon!)

But raising money isn’t all we do; as a public health organization, and especially in the midst of a public health crisis, we also have a responsibility to educate and inform.

Words like “pandemic,” “cluster,” “case,” and “incubation period,” for instance, were new terms some were hearing for the first time, prompting us to create the two-part series, “Pandemics & How to Flatten the Curve” and “Pandemics: The Terminology,” in order for individuals to understand why public health leaders were urging them to take precautions like washing their hands, wearing a mask, and social distancing, for example.

We also created graphics to help illustrate how to wear a mask, how far apart two metres is, how kids could stay safe at school, and more. In particular, our role in distilling complicated information for our readers has been important.

With all the information we were creating and sharing, we wanted to ensure easy access, so we created a COVID-19 resources page.

In general, COVID-19 caused the spread of much information, and rightly so. Yet unfortunately, where there is information, there is also mis- and disinformation. As a result, we took it upon ourselves to write about mis/disinformation, more specifically, how to stop the spread of it, “Addressing the Infodemic: Everyone Must Play a Role in Stopping Mis- and Disinformation.” We also interviewed the Principal Investigators for a BCCDC study around misinformation.

With the inception of a novel COVID-19 vaccine, there also rose much misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines causing some to be hesitant in receiving it, prompting us to write “Vaccine Hesitancy: Foe of Healthy Communities.”

Understanding we can’t tackle everything alone, we knew that collaboration would be, and continues to be, key.

In June 2020, we joined forces with UBC, VGH + UBC Hospital Foundation, and BC Cancer Foundation to form the BC COVID-19 Combat Collective to support experts carrying out critical research needed to prevent, test, and treat COVID-19.

In early 2021, we then partnered with Genome BC and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research to launch the “Rapid SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Research Initiative in BC” and collectively funded 9 vaccine-related research studies to address questions around the long-term effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, equitable distribution, countering misinformation, and more.

And now, approximately 19 months into the pandemic, we’re proud to look back on all the work we’ve done, the new partnerships we’ve formed, and the education we’ve provided to help keep the people of British Columbia well-informed and researchers well-funded.

Yet, our work, and that of our COVID-19 researchers, our leaders, and the health and safety of those living in British Columbia, continues.

Whether you’ve donated to our Emergency Response Fund, are following us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, subscribed to our monthly newsletter, or share our content with your community, thank you. We can’t do any of this work without the help of our donors and supporters—know that you’ve been a vital part of our provinces’ success so far.

We can’t forget to thank all of the British Columbians who have been doing, and continue to do, their part—those who have gotten both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and encouraged others to do so, kept their distance, wore their masks, stayed home when feeling unwell, and every other protective measure in between.

“We’re proud of the work you’ve done, and continue to do, to keep yourself and your community safe. At the same time, we recognize that our work is far from over and we have both a privilege and a responsibility to the people of BC to continue to protect and promote health, prevent harm, and prepare for threats. We’re a small organization with a big mission, and while we’re tired like many, we’re also energized as more and more British Columbians get vaccinated every day.“

–Kristy Kerr, Executive Director, BCCDC Foundation for Public Health

As we continue to support COVID-19 response efforts, we must also turn our minds to recovery. You can help our communities see brighter days ahead by donating to our Emergency Response Fund, and help us shape the story of BC’s success in the coming months, and beyond.

The post Our Role in Helping to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Pacific Public Health Foundation.

Our team spoke with Dr Réka Gustafson, Vice President, Public Health and Wellness, PHSA & Deputy Provincial Health Officer (who oversees the BC Centre for Disease Control), to find out exactly what public health professionals need to address the pandemic. Dr Gustafson identified two key areas where our public health professionals need support urgently:

Rapid Guideline Development
The situation is rapidly changing, and we need to have additional experts on the ground investigating new information and evidence as it arises, and turning that evidence into guidelines for healthcare professionals and the public. The healthcare system and individual practitioners rely on official guidelines developed by public health officials to instruct them on best practice, and the public relies on accurate and timely information on prevention and protection measures. Right now, we need more humans to investigate, evaluate, and develop those guidelines in real time.

Research in Real Time
During a pandemic, situations are constantly changing and evolving. Public health professionals must react immediately. What often isn’t able to happen during an outbreak is for research to be undertaken simultaneously in real time, to observe, describe, gather evidence and inform our experts on what’s working, what’s not, and what’s needed. Having infectious disease and outbreak experts dedicated to observing and describing what’s happening as it happens is critical to understanding a shifting landscape and to learning from it. We need to learn now, as this unfolds, so we can both react and respond quickly, and be prepared for future emergencies. This is imperative to allow public health to be prepared for the future and take steps faster. We have an opportunity to support this work like never before. 

Projects like these are what the Emergency Response Fund will support. We need to raise $325,000 right now to be able to make this work happen. More needs will be identified and updated as the situation progresses.

We’re calling on all British Columbians, businesses, and funding organizations to contribute towards these measures that will keep you, your family, and our population safe right now. We need to band together as British Columbians today to take action to protect our population.

You can donate online through our website here.

Cheques, cash donations, and donations over the phone can be made using the information at the end of this post.

Charitable tax receipts will be issued for all donations of $20 or more.

Please share this information widely. This affects all of us. We need everybody’s help right now. Help us by making a donation and sharing this information on social media, and via email with your friends, family, and colleagues.

For up to date information on the situation and how to protect yourself and others visit the BCCDC website and Health Canada.

The post Calling on British Columbians: Help Rapid-Response Efforts appeared first on Pacific Public Health Foundation.

Declaring a pandemic means that there’s a new organism that’s infectious, like a virus, that is being spread over a large region or around the world, and is affecting a large percentage of the population. The word doesn’t tell us about the severity of the disease that’s caused by the virus. Symptoms may be mild or severe, meaning calling something a pandemic has no bearing on how an individual experiences the illness associated with it. The virus, age, and other medical conditions, dictate that.

Declaring a pandemic is not a call to warn people that it’s time to panic. It’s a call to encourage and enable governments and health officials to take stronger actions and to enlist emergency plans to protect the public

A few terms you’re probably hearing are “travel-related” or “imported” cases; these mean that cases arrive in a country or area because somebody traveled to a country where there is an outbreak, and brought it with them to a new area. Another term is “community transmission”. This means that there is spread of an illness with no known link to travel or contact with previously confirmed travel-related cases. The shift from travel-related transmission to community transmission impacts the decision to name it a pandemic. Not to be taken lightly, the WHO decides to characterize something as a pandemic when there are community outbreaks across large regions, e.g. several continents.

Declaring a pandemic is not a call to warn people that it’s time to panic. It’s a call to encourage and enable governments and health officials to take stronger actions and to enlist emergency plans to protect the public, like travel bans. All of this is done to protect the health of the global population and to slow the spread of the disease. By naming a disease a pandemic, countries are encouraged to take more aggressive actions. This is why the WHO named COVID-19 a pandemic.

We’re seeing some of those aggressive actions play out now as individuals are being asked to undertake measures for the greater good. Social distancing, self-isolation, self-monitoring for symptoms, working remotely when possible, avoiding travel and large crowds—these are a few of the measures we all must take.

All of this will lead to flattening the curve.

Flattening the curve means transmission is slowing, we are delaying spread, and there are fewer numbers of cases. The goal is to keep the number of new cases from rising too fast. A flattened curve is about keeping the number of cases low, to a number that our healthcare systems can effectively manage. Every person has a job to do to delay the spread of COVID-19. If we all play our role, the curve will flatten.

If we flatten the curve, we won’t run the risk of exhausting resources, and everybody who needs to receive care will be able to receive it.

What you can do is simple:

• Wash your hands regularly for 20 seconds
• If a sink isn’t available and if your hands are not visibly soiled, us alcohol based hand rubs
• Do not touch your face, eyes, nose, or mouth with unclean hands
• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or the crook of your elbow when you sneeze or cough
• Frequently clean and disinfect commonly-touched surfaces like your phone, computer/keyboard, desk, door handles, light switches, remotes, toilets, sinks, and hard-backed chairs
• Don’t share food, drinks, or utensils
• Practice social distancing
• Stay home when you’re unwell

The situation is serious, but we can move the dial on how serious it can be. Take precautions, listen to public health experts, and take action to protect yourself and your community. And remember that you’re not alone—the world is fighting this together. Let’s have each other’s backs.

Read part two of this series, about some of the terminology associated with pandemics and public health, here.

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