The Fall Health Policy Workshop will provide an introduction to how health policy is conceived, made, implemented, and evaluated in Canada.
The workshop will describe how health policy decisions are shaped by internal and external forces – explicit and implicit values, public opinion, interest group advocacy, media narratives, partisan politics, institutional structures, and Canadian federalism. It will address the role of research-based evidence in policy-making and how it varies. Participants will gain insights into policy development and evaluation.
Date and Location
November 9-10, 2026. The workshop will be held on the UBC Vancouver (Point Grey) campus.
Objectives
The workshop is designed to create a common understanding of the key features of Canadian health policy-making. The workshop will include analyses of:
- An overview of the core concepts associated with health policy and their significance;
- Identification of key health policy laws, regulations, actors, structures, and processes that shape health policy making;
- Ethical and allocative dimensions of health policy, especially as they relate to resource allocation and equity;
- The factors that affect the impact of research-based evidence on decision-making;
- The basic elements of the policy-making process and its stages;
- Basic approaches to developing and evaluating health policy options.
Why Attend the Workshop?
The focus of most graduate education is research – both acquiring the skills and experience to do research, and mastering a body of research evidence that informs programs and services. Many graduates will pursue careers in the health system in various capacities. There is often an expectation that the scientific evidence will be the key driver of health care decision-making in general, and health policy in particular. This evidence certainly matters, but it is but one factor – those who want to apply their knowledge and skills to best effect in the real world need to understand how the real world works.
Health care in Canada is many things: a right of citizenship and expression of social solidarity; a largely public utility; core national infrastructure; a tax-funded redistribution system; a mix of government-run, non-profit, and for-profit entities. It is by far the largest component of provincial government spending. While health care is largely a provincial responsibility, the federal government provides significant transfer payments and is directly responsible for healthcare provided to specific populations. In order to sustain and prioritize these financial resources and efforts, effective policies at the local, provincial and federal levels are essential.
This is hard work, and importantly, it is political work. Health systems are uniquely complex and, and they deal with issues fraught with uncertainty. They are not manufacturing systems that can be standardized to produce identical outputs with very low variability. Needs change due to demographics, the appearance or eradication of viruses, and the ability to prevent health breakdown. Health care is vitally important, but in wealthy countries it has limited capacity to improve population health outcomes. Always there are competing interests.
Health services planning and policies are about choices: how much to spend; who to spend it on; what to fund publicly; which drugs or devices to acquire, and at what cost. These allocative problems underlie policy options where values and expectations may conflict – some needs can be met cheaply while others only at great cost, and the strength of evidence varies.
Learning Activities
The workshop will use a mix of methods: formal instruction, conceptual learnings, and discussion of contemporaneous health policy problems from the perspectives of policy formulation, options development, and analysis. View the program here. Pre-workshop readings will be assigned.
Workshop Faculty
The workshop’s faculty will be drawn from Canadian policymakers, health care providers, Canadian health policy researchers and CHSPR faculty. The workshop will be coordinated, hosted, and moderated by CHSPR. Confirmed speakers will be announced soon.
Application and Registration
The two-day in-person workshop has a maximum enrollment of 50. There is a cost associated with workshop participation to defray speakers’ travel and accommodation costs. For graduate students enrolled at UBC, the cost is $200. For others, the cost is $1,000. There are space constraints, so apply early. Please note that the application form does not require payment; payment will be due upon acceptance. Please email Judea Todd with any questions.