Manage Abstracts

Public Health Ontario (PHO), a provincial organization that provides scientific and technical guidance to the public health field, has identified healthy eating and food environments as a priority area. In Ontario, 35 public health units (PHUs) are tasked with implementing the Ontario Public Health Standards, which recommend promoting healthy eating behaviours using evidence-informed practices.

Conduct a situational assessment to understand the current state of public health nutrition (PHN) practice in Ontario and identify provincial-wide priorities for scientific and technical support from PHO.

A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 21 semi-structured key informant interviews (n=51 participants) and three visits to PHUs (July-December 2018). Participants (PHN dietitians/practitioners, managers/directors, medical officers of health, researchers, and other stakeholders) were purposively recruited through snowball sampling. Notes from interviews and visits were analyzed concurrently with data generation using content analysis.

Five themes were generated: (1) Current PHN Practice was defined as broad and complex, transitioning towards upstream interventions, collaborative, and coordinated through a voluntary provincial NGO (Ontario Dietitians in Public Health) within a decentralized provincial public health system. (2) Data/Evidence were reportedly not available, accessible, and/or applicable to PHN needs. (3) Guidance for PHN practice was present, absent, and sometimes contradictory depending on the topic (e.g. nutrition guidelines exist for school but not recreation). (4) Resources/Capacity for PHN varied across PHUs although were reportedly insufficient overall. (5) Participants perceived opportunities to improve the Understanding of Nutrition Expertise in Public Health by others (colleagues, PHU leadership, governments, NGOs).

PHN practitioners experience several challenges related to the complexity of PHN, limited data/evidence, mixed guidance, limited resources/capacity, and misperceptions.

Findings will inform useful province-wide scientific and technical support. With the field, PHO will prioritize needs for action to build capacity for public health dietitians to be leaders in promoting health.