This week’s final episode of North End Matters on Wednesday, December 19
sadly brings the show to an end.
North End Matters was part of Dr. Waldron’s
multi-phase North End Project that began with her research project “Challenges
& Opportunities: Identifying Meaningful Occupations in Low-income, Visible
Minority Communities in the North End.” Over the course of North End Matters,
we not only discussed the social determinants of health for individuals and
communities in the North End, but we also met many individuals who were
determined to make a difference. While the list of people that appeared on
North End Matters is too long to include here, it should be noted that there is
no shortage of intellectual might and passion in the North End.
In this final episode of North End Matters, Dr. Waldron will be joined by Susan
Eaton to discuss the next phase in the North End Project, the People Assessing
Their Health (PATH) process. PATH is an exciting, innovative, and collaborative
community development and health promotion approach that uses a facilitated
process (focus groups) to engage a community in discussing their priorities
about what makes and keeps people healthy and in developing its own unique
Community Health Impact Assessment Tool (CHIAT). CHIAT will be used to
bring the health concerns of the North End community forward in discussions on
public policy. It can then be used by the community to examine the potential
positive and negative health impacts in the community of any policy, program,
project or service proposed by governments (local, provincial or federal),
institutions and community groups, as well as major infrastructure projects.
Susan Eaton has worked on numerous PATH projects over the years that have
been funded by Health Canada and the National Collaborating Centre for
Healthy Public Policy. Susan is an adult educator with over 35 years of
experience in group facilitation and community development. She holds a
Master of Education degree in Adult Education. In the 22 years before
becoming a freelance facilitator, writer and researcher, she worked in the field
of international development. In July 2012, Susan and a PATH colleague were
invited speakers at the first-ever conference on community health impact
assessment held in Bangkok, Thailand.
Dr. Waldron is very interested in engaging North End residents, health
professionals, community agency professionals, social service providers,
policymakers, business owners and others in the PATH/CHIAT project.
If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Dr. Waldron by email
at iwaldron@dal.ca or by phone at: 494-4267.
Information on Dr. Waldron’s other projects can be found at
http://experts.dal.ca/?q=expert%2Fingrid-waldron
