Transforming Public Health
IPPH Strategic Plan, 2022-2026

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the field of population and public health in many ways: it has exposed the fragility of our health systems, the need for better integration of public health into health care, the lack of emergency response capabilities, and the unacceptable inequities within and across societies. These long-standing challenges are not new but point to the need for urgent systemic change.

Difficult times call for a period of reflection and growth. Public health – whose success is often invisible – has demonstrated its importance. The value of public health has never been clearer. Understanding that the future depends on strong public health systems, the CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health (IPPH) in Spring 2021 hosted a series of open dialogues on the Future of Canada's Public Health Systems as detailed in our Moving Forward Report (March 2022). This strategic plan is the direct result of these dialogues, along with CIHR's Strategic Plan 2021-2031 (June 2021), the Chief Public Health Officer's A Vision to Transform Canada's Public Health System report (December 2021), and the past five years of work under IPPH's previous The Future is Public Health strategic plan (November 2018).