The impact of recession on the health of rural citizens in British Columbia, Canada.

The Challenges of Projecting the Public Health Impacts of Marijuana Legalization in Canada; Comment on “Legalizing and Regulating Marijuana in Canada: Review of Potential Economic, Social, and Health Impacts”

A recent editorial in this journal provides a summary of key economic, social, and public health considerations of the forthcoming legislation to legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana in Canada. As our government plans to implement an evidence-based public health framework for marijuana legalization, we reflect and expand on recent discussions of the public health implications of...

Health Services Research Spending and Healthcare System Impact; Comment on “Public Spending on Health Service and Policy Research in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States: A Modest Proposal”

The challenges associated with translating health services and policy research (HSPR) evidence into practice are many and long-standing. Indeed, those challenges have themselves spawned new areas of research, including knowledge translation and implementation science. These sub-disciplines have increased our understanding of the critical success factors associated with the uptake of research ev...

Time to Shift from Systems Thinking-Talking to Systems Thinking-Action; Comment on “Constraints to Applying Systems Thinking Concepts in Health Systems: A Regional Perspective from Surveying Stakeholders in Eastern Mediterranean Countries”

A recent International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM) article by Fadi El-Jardali and colleagues makes an important contribution to the literature on health system strengthening by reporting on a survey of healthcare stakeholders in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) about Systems Thinking (ST). The study’s main contributions are its confirmation that healthcare stakeholde...

Ebola Treatment and Prevention are not the only Battles: Understanding Ebola-related Fear and Stigma

The Dilemma of Physician Shortage and International Recruitment in Canada

The perception of physician shortage in Canada is widespread. Absolute shortages and relative discrepancies, both specialty-wise and in urban-rural distribution, have been a daunting policy challenge. International Medical Graduates (IMGs) have been at the core of mitigating this problem, especially as long as shortage of physicians in rural areas is concerned. Considering such recruitment as h...