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2024 was an important year for our Foundation, made possible with the generous support of YOU, our incredible donors. Your contributions funded projects across the spectrum of public health and for that we are so grateful.

We are excited to start the new year with fresh ideas and new projects in our mission to improve population health in BC. While we have hit the ground running with work already underway, we’d also like to look back on the highlights from 2024 and the topics that you, our supporters, found most interesting and informative last year.

  1. Upstream actions for a healthier future

Our most read article last year — by far — was the breakdown of upstream thinking and how it benefits us all. Particularly in public health, thinking upstream encourages us to take action to prevent illness and injury, protect people, promote environments that foster good health, and importantly, to address social injustice, inequities, and the determinants of health. Simply put, by addressing the conditions around us before they have a chance to burden our health, we are creating a healthier and safer world. Examples of upstream actions are all around us, like investing in early childhood development, a housing-first model to address homelessness, and the idea of universal basic income, to help everyone take care of themselves and their families.

2. New Name, Look and Feel — Introducing Pacific Public Health Foundation

    The second top read was the launch news about our new name, brand, and refreshed website!

    Over the last decade, our Foundation has grown, with new partners, team members, and donors across all areas of public health.  Our shift in name allows us to better represent the broad scope of our work, and our bold new brand was created to convey our unique role in public health philanthropy and action. If you’d like to learn more about our shift to Pacific Public Health Foundation, take a look at a video we created that introduces our new name and refreshed vision for the future.

    3. A lesson in the social determinants of health

      The social determinants of health is a very important concept, and we learned that our supporters were eager to learn more! It was one of our most read articles in 2024, despite being published in 2021.

      This guest blog post, written by Svetlana Ristovski-Slijepcevic and Charito Gailling, Project Managers in Population and Public Health at BC Centre for Disease Control, helped to visualize the social determinants of health (SDH) — the conditions where people grow, work, live, and age — making this complex idea more understandable. They encourage us to shift from thinking about the SDH as categories that describe what makes us sick, to describing what factors in our lives contribute to our good health. By shifting that terminology, we are also highlighting the upstream ways our overall environment impacts our health. We know the SDH are so important, which is why we support inclusive public health policies that are necessary to create more equitable conditions for communities across in BC.

      4. Social Justice and Public Health

        Originally written at the outset of the pandemic, when international protests against systemic racism were taking place in 2020, this topic rightfully still resonates with our audiences today. The article explains the philosophy of social justice, and how it is a prerequisite for health. Health disparities, created by SDH like racism, Indigeneity, income, and gender discrimination, result in unfair circumstances for many equity-deserving populations in our province. In order to ensure good health for every population served, public health systems must consider social justice and equity when providing programs and services to keep communities safe.

        5. The Five Waves of Public Health Development

          Rounding out our top five is an article about the history of public health development, and what the future of public health may look like. Describing each wave as cumulative, we invite readers to envision change over time and imagine how each preceding wave created the context for the next great advancement in public health. The fifth wave — or what is envisioned for the future — is a public health system that emphasizes upstream efforts and considers the social determinants of health like where we live, work, play, learn, and grow.

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          With 30 actioned projects and over $1.8M spent on public health initiatives, 2024 was a year of tremendous achievement, growth, and pride for us. Although we have much to celebrate, we still have so much work to accomplish. As always, we thank our donors and partners for their continued support, and we hope that you will join us by donating to help fund some of the most pressing health priorities in our province in 2025. Follow us on social media, and join our newsletter to catch our latest news first, and check out the rest of our content, covering all things public and population health!

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