CBU Aims To Establish Centre For The Advancement Of Population Health

CBU has long been home to the belief that it is essential to establish sound health practices through access to good community facilities and resources. President and Vice Chancellor John Harker is convinced that “Grappling with population-based health issues is the responsibility of us all and certainly a university with educational, research and recreational resources should do its share.”Cape Breton University has demonstrated the value of collaboration through the establishment of entities such as the Centre for Cape Breton Studies, the Centre for Sustainability of Energy and the Environment, and the Cape Breton Health Recreation Complex. In keeping with the mission of the university, Harker states that “CBU is embarked on consultations with faculty and staff towards the creation of a new Centre for the Advancement of Population Health to foster initiatives relevant to community health that fall within the CBU mandate and will serve the residents of Cape Breton Island.”

This new Centre could bring together a core group of academics in nursing, science, social sciences and other disciplines who can continue to expand several projects, programs and partnerships that have short and long term health benefits for various segments of the local population. Moreover, several existing relationships and initiatives already established on campus would lend critical mass to the overall focus of the new Centre. These include the Centre of Excellence for Population Health and Chronic Disease Control located in the new Health Recreation Complex, the Max Bell Health Care Model that is currently in place with the Cape Breton District Health Authority, and on-going health research projects lead by CBU Nursing faculty as well as the excellent federally funded research on Aboriginal Health directed by Dr. Cheryl Bartlett.

“It is important that Cape Breton University fully utilize its great faculty and staff to extend and expand its role in sustaining the health and well being of our population. There is much that can be done by the university where platforms for action will be suggested through research and scholarship. Combining scholarship and community engagement is what we must do to support viable solutions for the range of serious health issues in our communities,” notes Harker.

“Such a Centre would create opportunities and collaborative projects, and expand current valuable research in progress that will result in the best possible outcomes for a community that deserves nothing less than the best.”