How we train and educate our health care providers and researchers has evolved as much as science has. Whether it is developing an academic specialty, creating new standards for training, building our learning institutions, or expanding the breadth of learning to include clinical research, CMHF Laureates in this area have profoundly impacted future generations of health scientists, scholars and clinicians.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health policy as the “decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific health care goals within a society.” Health policy sets the foundation for the delivery of safe and cost effective quality care and shapes the entire health care landscape at all levels – institutional and geographic, patient and provider.
Building capacity in health organizations, forming new ones, and inspiring institutional change and collaboration to achieve greater effectiveness are just some of the ways these change-makers have improved health in Canada and the world.
Many Laureates have been expressly concerned with the human side of medicine and health care. The arts and humanities deepen our understanding of the body, health, medicine, illness, suffering, disability and the provision of health care.
To achieve positive health outcomes in our communities we rely on active promotion of healthy lifestyles, avoidance of disease, injury and infections, and protection and empowerment the vulnerable and empowering the disadvantaged.
The focus of Global health is improving health and health care equity for populations across the world. Such initiatives consider medical and non-medical disciplines including epidemiology, sociology, economic disparities, public policy, environmental factors and cultural influences.
Health science research benefits the entire human race. As citizens of the world, some Canadian health heroes also bring their knowledge, passion and experience to support health care delivery to other nations in need.
Female reproduction includes the internal and external organs that play a role in the emergence of new offspring.
Our digestive system breaks our food into parts small enough for our body to absorb and be used for energy, growth and cell repair. Just as it handles our daily intake of fluids and solids, it has an important function in eliminating solid waste from our body. The digestive system comprises the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, appendix, liver, pancreas and gallbladder.
The immune system fights infection (microbes) through special organs, cells and chemicals. The immunology of infectious disease studies how the immune system responds to infectious agents and how infectious agents interact with, modify or elude the immune system. More recent developments have shown that immunology may play an important role in the treatment of some cancers. Allergies occur when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance — such as pollen, bee venom or pet dander — or a food that doesn't cause a reaction in most people.