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Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic exposures experienced during childhood, for example, neglect. There is growing evidence that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and related socioeconomic conditions contributed to an increased risk of ACEs. As public health programs/services are re-evaluated and restored following the state of emergency, it is important to plan using an ACEs-informed lens. The aim of this study was to identify and prioritize initiatives or activities that Public Health Ontario (PHO) could undertake to support Ontario public health units' work towards ACEs-informed pandemic recovery plans. Methods: The Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative method was adapted to conduct a priority-setting exercise (May–October 2022). Two online surveys were administered with members of the Healthy Growth and Development (HGD) Evidence Network, comprised of public health unit staff working in child and family health/HGD from Ontario's 34 public health units. In the first survey, participants were asked to propose activities or initiatives that PHO could undertake to support Ontario public health units' work towards ACEs-informed planning. In the second survey, participants were asked to score the final list of options against pre-determined prioritization criteria (for example, relevance). Responses were numerically coded and used to calculate prioritization scores, which were used to rank the options. Results: In all, 76% of public health units (n = 26) responded to the first survey to identify options. The 168 proposed ideas were consolidated into a final list of 13 options, which fall under PHO's scientific and technical support mandate areas (data and surveillance, evidence synthesis, collaboration and networking, knowledge exchange and research). A total of 79% of public health units (n = 27) responded to the follow-up survey to prioritize options. Prioritization scores ranged from 76.4% to 88.6%. The top-ranked option was the establishment of a new provincial ACEs community of practice. Conclusions: Over three quarters of public health units contributed to identifying and ranking 13 options for PHO to support public health units in considering and addressing ACEs through pandemic recovery planning. In consultation with the ACEs and Resilience Community of Practice, recently formed on the basis of this exercise, PHO will continue to use the ranked list of options to inform work-planning activities/priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The public health measures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic may have indirectly impacted other health outcomes, such as falls among older adults. The purpose of this study was to examine trends in fall-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada. Methods: We obtained fall-related hospitalizations (N = 301,945) and emergency department visit (N = 1,150,829) data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information databases from 2015 to 2022 for adults ages 65 and older in Ontario. Fall-related injuries were obtained using International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition, Canada codes. An interrupted time series analysis was used to model the change in weekly fall-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits before (January 6, 2015-March 16, 2020) and during (March 17, 2020-December 26, 2022) the pandemic. Results: After adjusting for seasonality and population changes, an 8% decrease in fall-related hospitalizations [Relative Rate (RR) = 0.92, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.85, 1.00] and a 23% decrease in fall-related emergency department visits (RR = 0.77, 95%CI: 0.59, 1.00) were observed immediately following the onset of the pandemic, followed by increasing trends during the pandemic for both outcomes. Conclusions: Following an abrupt decrease in hospitalizations and emergency department visits immediately following the onset of the pandemic, fall-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits have been increasing steadily and are approaching pre-pandemic levels. Further research exploring the factors contributing to these trends may inform future policies for public health emergencies that balance limiting the spread of disease among this population while supporting the physical, psychological, and social needs of this vulnerable group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous literature reports inconsistent associations between obesity and mental health. The objective of this study was to determine the association between weight status and mental health service utilization in Ontario children and youth. Methods: A cross-sectional study of children 0 to 18 years, identified using primary care electronic medical records from the EMRPC database in Ontario, Canada was conducted. Height and weight data were extracted to calculate BMI and linked to administrative data on mental health related outpatient visits, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations. Multivariable logistic regression models were performed. Results: A total of 50,565 children were included. Overall, 2.2% were underweight, 70.4% had a normal weight, 18.3% were overweight, 6.9% had obesity and 2.2% had severe obesity. 28.2% of all children had at least one mental health visit. Multivariable analyses showed children with overweight, obesity, and severe obesity were 1.11 (95% CI 1.05-1.17), 1.18 (95% CI 1.08-1.27) and 1.39 (95% CI 1.22-1.59) times more likely to have an outpatient mental health visit compared to children with normal weight. Conclusion: Increased weight status was associated with mental health related outpatient visits and emergency department visits. This study may inform policy makers' planning of mental health resources for children with obesity and severe obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess public health nutrition practice within the public health system in Ontario, Canada to identify provincial-wide needs for scientific and technical support.Design: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted to identify activities, strengths, challenges and opportunities in public health nutrition practice using semi-structured key informant interviews (n 21) and focus groups (n 10). Recorded notes were analysed concurrently with data generation using content analysis. System needs were prioritised through a survey.Setting: Public health units.Participants: Eighty-nine practitioners, managers, directors, medical officers of health, researchers and other stakeholders were purposively recruited through snowball and extreme case sampling.Results: Five themes were generated: (i) current public health nutrition practice was broad, complex, in transition and collaborative; (ii) data/evidence/research relevant to public health needs were insufficiently available and accessible; (iii) the amount and specificity of guidance/leadership was perceived to be mismatched with strong evidence that diet is a risk factor for poor health; (iv) resources/capacity were varied but insufficient and (v) understanding of nutrition expertise in public health among colleagues, leadership and other organisations can be improved. Top ranked needs were increased understanding, visibility and prioritisation of healthy eating and food environments; improved access to data and evidence; improved collaboration and coordination; and increased alignment of activities and goals.Conclusions: Collective capacity in the public health nutrition can be improved through strategic system-wide capacity-building interventions. Research is needed to explore how improvements in data, evidence and local contexts can bridge research and practice to effectively and efficiently improve population diets and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As public health services are modernized in Ontario, Canada, there is a need to inform the system‐level roles and responsibilities of government agencies. The aim of this study was to identify how Public Health Ontario (PHO) can optimally support evidence‐based planning and programming in Healthy Growth and Development (HGD) across Ontario. Methods and Design: A situational assessment was conducted with key informants from public health and other HGD fields. Sample: Key informants were identified using purposeful snowball sampling and included public health nurses, health promoters, and medical officers of health. Analytic strategy: Twenty telephone interviews and seven focus groups were used to collect data. A thematic analysis was conducted concurrently with data collection. Results: Five themes were identified: (a) Transition to the new Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS) included experiences of adopting the new OPHS within local public health units (PHUs). (b) Collaborating and networking referred to the ability to work with community partners. (c) Data, evidence, and research described the presence of data, evidence, and research to support practice. (d) Decision making, planning, and priority setting described resources available that influenced decision making. (e) Current and emerging issues in HGD included high‐priority topics. Conclusion: Public health practice in HGD is complex with many challenges in data and evidence, and making programming decisions without adequate or measurable indicators. A specialized position at PHO is an opportunity to support some of these system‐wide needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To effectively impact the significant population burden of injury, we completed a situational assessment of injury prevention practice within a provincial public health system to identify system-wide priorities for capacity-building to advance injury prevention in public health.Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was used to collect data on the current practice, challenges and needs of support for injury prevention. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews (n = 20) and focus groups (n = 19). Participants included a cross-section of injury prevention practitioners and leadership from public health units reflecting different population sizes and geographic characteristics, in addition to public health researchers and experts from academia, public health and not-for-profit organizations. Thematic analysis was used to code all of the data by one reviewer, followed by a second independent reviewer who coded a random selection of interview notes. Major codes and sub codes were identified and final themes were decided through iterations of coding comparisons and categorization. Once data were analysed, we confirmed the findings with the field, in addition to participating in a prioritization exercise to surface the top three needs for support.Results: Major themes that were identified from the data included: current public health practice challenges; capacity and resource constraints, and; injury as a low priority area. Overall, injury prevention is a broad, complex topic that competes with other areas of public health. Best practices are challenged by system-wide factors related to resources, direction, coordination, collaboration, and emerging injury public health issues. Injury is a reportedly under prioritized and under resourced public health area of practice. Practitioners believe that increasing access to data and evidence, and improving collaboration and networking is required to promote best practice.Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that there are several system level needs to support best practice in public health injury prevention in Ontario including reducing research to practice gaps and supporting opportunities for collaboration. Our research contributes to the literature of the complexity of public health practice, and presents several mechanisms of support to increase capacity at a system level to improve injury prevention practice, and eventually lessen the population burden of injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The Healthy Kids Community Challenge is a large-scale, centrally-coordinated, community-based intervention in Ontario, Canada that promotes healthy behaviours towards improving healthy weights among children. With the goal of exploring tools available to evaluators, we leveraged electronic medical records from primary care physicians to assess child weights prior to launch of the Healthy Kids Community Challenge. This study compares the baseline (i.e. pre-intervention) prevalence of overweight and obesity in children 1–12 years of age living within and outside Healthy Kids Community Challenge communities. Design: Cross-sectional analysis of a primary care patient cohort. Setting: Electronic Medical Record Administrative data Linked Database (EMRALD) in Ontario, Canada. Participants: A cohort of 19 920 Ontario children who are rostered to an EMRALD physician. Children were 1–12 years of age at a primary care visit with recorded measured height and weight, between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2015. Outcome measure: Overweight and obesity as determined by age- and sex-standardized body mass index using World Health Organization’s Growth Standards. Results: In Healthy Kids Community Challenge communities, 25.6% (95% CI 24.6–26.6%) of children had zBMI above normal (i.e. >1) compared to 26.7% (95% CI 25.9–27.5%) for children living outside of Healthy Kids Community Challenge communities. Conclusions: Despite some differences in sociodemographic characteristics, zBMI of children aged 1–12 years were similar inside and outside of Healthy Kids Community Challenge community boundaries prior to program launch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To describe child and parent weight change during the pandemic, overall and by income precarity., Design: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted., Setting: Caregivers of children 0-17 years of age living in Ontario, Canada, during the COVID-19 pandemic from May 2021 to July 2021., Participants: A convenience sample of parents (n=9099) with children (n=9667) living in Ontario were identified through crowdsourcing., Primary Outcome Measure: Parents recalled, for themselves and their child, whether they lost weight, gained weight or remained the same over the past year. OR and 95% CI were estimated using multinomial logistic regression for the association between income precarity variables and weight loss or gain, adjusted for age, gender and ethnicity., Results: Overall, 5.5% of children lost weight and 20.2% gained weight. Among adolescents, 11.1% lost weight and 27.1% gained weight. For parents, 17.1% reported weight loss and 57.7% reported weight gain. Parent weight change was strongly associated with child weight change. Income precarity measures, including job loss by both parents (OR=7.81, 95% CI 5.16 to 11.83) and disruption to household food supply (OR=6.05, 95% CI 4.77 to 7.68), were strongly associated with child weight loss. Similarly, job loss by both parents (OR=2.03, 95% CI 1.37 to 3.03) and disruption to household food supply (OR=2.99, 95% CI 2.52 to 3.54) were associated with child weight gain., Conclusions: Weight changes during the COVID-19 pandemic were widespread and income precarity was strongly associated with weight loss and weight gain in children and parents. Further research is needed to investigate the health outcomes related to weight change during the pandemic, especially for youth, and the impacts of income precarity., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Objective: To determine if overweight or obesity in preschool-age children is associated with mental health service utilization in later childhood., Subjects: Overall, 10,522 children 2 to <5 years, with no previous history of mental health service utilization, were identified from primary care electronic medical records (EMRs) across Ontario, Canada., Methods: This was a retrospective longitudinal cohort study. Height and weight data were extracted and body mass index z-scores (zBMI) were calculated using the World Health Organization Growth Standards. Mental health service utilization, between ages 5 and <19, was defined using administrative billing codes for mental health outpatient visits, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations. A multivariable Cox proportional hazards model was performed., Results: In total, 74.9% of children were healthy weight (zBMI between -2 and ≤1), 18.8% of children were at risk of overweight (zBMI between 1 and ≤2), 4.9% were overweight (zBMI > 2 and ≤3), and 1.5% had obesity (zBMI > 3). The median follow-up time was 2.2 years (IQR 1.0-4.2). The overall incidence rate of mental health service use was 44.5 events per 1000 person-years. The hazard ratio for girls with obesity was 2.73 (95% CI 1.62-4.60; p < 0.001) compared to girls with healthy weight. Compared to boys with healthy weight, boys 'at risk of overweight' and overweight were 1.22 (95% CI 1.03-1.44; p = 0.02) and 1.43 (95% CI 1.09-1.87; p = 0.01) times at higher risk of an incident mental health visit., Conclusion: Our study shows an association between weight status in preschool school aged children and higher incidence of mental health service use in later childhood. This relationship was strongest in girls. Future research is needed to understand this relationship by mental health diagnosis, sex, and age.

Objectives: International data suggest the prevalence of severe obesity in young children may be increasing, yet no Canadian data are available. The objectives of this study were to examine definitions of severe obesity and to evaluate associated risk factors among young children in Ontario., Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in children 17 to 24 months of age using two Ontario data sources: TARGet Kids! (n = 3713) and BORN Ontario (n = 768). Body mass index z score (zBMI) definitions were adapted from the World Health Organization (WHO) (z score > 3) and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (> 120% of the 95th percentile) and applied to define severe obesity in young children. Multinomial logistic regression was used to evaluate associations between demographic and pregnancy risk factors and zBMI categories., Results: A total of 1.1% (95% CI, 0.8-1.4) of children met the adapted WHO definition of severe obesity compared to 0.3% (95% CI, 0.2-0.6) using the CDC definition. Median neighbourhood household income (OR = 0.80, 95% CI, 0.69-0.93) and maternal pre-pregnancy BMI (OR = 1.08, 95% CI, 1.01-1.15) were associated with severe obesity in unadjusted analyses. After adjustment for potential confounders, the OR for the association between maternal pre-pregnancy BMI and severe obesity was 1.04 (95% CI, 0.94-1.15)., Conclusion: More than 1% of Ontario children met the adapted WHO definition of severe obesity in very early childhood. Modifiable risk factors were identified. Future studies are needed to understand the terminology, prevalence, and risk factors for severe obesity in young children across Canada.

Objectives: To determine whether parent report of difficulty buying food was associated with child body mass index (BMI) z-score or with eating habits in young children., Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in primary care offices in Toronto, Ontario. Subjects were children aged 1-5 years and their caregivers, recruited through the TARGet Kids! Research Network from July 2008 to August 2011. Regression models were developed to test the association between parent report of difficulty buying food because of cost and the following outcomes: child BMI z-score, parent's report of child's intake of fruit and vegetables, fruit juice and sweetened beverages, and fast food. Confounders included child's age, sex, birth weight, maternal BMI, education, ethnicity, immigration status, and neighbourhood income., Results: The study sample consisted of 3333 children. Data on difficulty buying food were available for 3099 children, and 431 of these (13.9%) were from households reporting difficulty buying food. There was no association with child BMI z-score (p = 0.86). Children from households reporting difficulty buying food (compared with never having difficulty buying food) had increased odds of consuming three or fewer servings of fruits and vegetables per day (odds ratio [OR]: 1.31, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03-1.69), more than one serving of fruit juice/sweetened beverage per day (OR: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.28-2.00), and, among children 1-2 years old, one or more servings of fast food per week (OR: 2.91, 95% CI: 1.67-5.08)., Conclusion: Parental report of difficulty buying food is associated with less optimal eating habits in children but not with BMI z-score.

Purpose: Measuring ethnicity accurately is important for identifying ethnicity variations in disease risk. We evaluated the degree of agreement and accuracy of maternal ethnicity measured using the new standardized closed-ended geographically based ethnicity question and geographic reclassification of open-ended ethnicity questions from the Canadian census., Methods: A prospectively designed study of respondent agreement of mothers of healthy children aged 1-5 years recruited through the TARGet Kids! practice-based research network. For the primary analysis, the degree of agreement between geographic reclassification of the Canadian census maternal ethnicity variables and the new geographically based closed-ended maternal ethnicity variable completed by the same respondent was evaluated using a kappa analysis., Results: Eight hundred sixty-two mothers who completed both measures of ethnicity were included in the analysis. The kappa agreement statistic for the two definitions of maternal ethnicity was 0.87 (95% confidence interval, 0.84-0.90) indicating good agreement. Overall accuracy of the measurement was 93%. Sensitivity and specificity ranged from 83% to 100% and 96% to 100%, respectively., Conclusions: The new standardized closed-ended geographically based ethnicity question represents a practical alternative to widely used open-ended ethnicity questions. It may reduce risk of misinterpretation of ethnicity by respondents, simplify analysis, and improve the accuracy of ethnicity measurement., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)