The North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO) is a collaborative partnership of interested researchers, research organizations, governments, and health organizations promoting evidence-informed health system policy decision-making. Due to the high degree of health system decentralization in the United States and Canada, the NAO is committed to focusing considerable attention to state and provincial health systems and to creating a foundation for more systematic health system and policy comparisons among substates.
Featured

Alberta: A Health System Profile

Sustainability and Resilience in the
Canadian Health System

Health Reform Observer – Observatoire des Réformes de Santé
COVID-19 Updates
- COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout Reports
- Centralization and integration of public health systems: Perspectives of public health leaders on factors facilitating and impeding COVID-19 responses in three Canadian provinces, Health Policy
- Learning from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: Comparing policy responses in Uruguay with 10 other Latin American and Caribbean countries, Health Policy OPEN
- Comparison of COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout Approaches across Canada Case Studies of Four Diverse Provinces, Health Reform Observer
New Publications & Reports
- Primary Care Governance and Financing: Models and Approaches, NAO Rapid Review
- Physician workforce planning and boom-bust economic cycles: a retrospective on the Barer-Stoddart report, CMAJ
- Team-based primary care reforms and older adults: a descriptive assessment of sociodemographic trends and prescribing endpoints in two Canadian provinces, BMC Primary Care
NAO News
- Newsletter – May 2023
- Where should the new health-care money go? Here are Canada’s most pressing problems — and solutions, Toronto Star (Feb 15, 2023)
Events
- Book Launch: The Boundaries of Medicare: Public Health Care Beyond the Canada Health Act by Katherine Fierlbeck and Gregory Marchildon (April 4, 2023)
*Video recording available
Health System Profiles

Canada Health System Review (2020)

Mexico Health System Review (2020)

United States Health System Review (2020)
The North American Observatory is hosted at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario. We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.