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
New Publications & Reports
- Physician workforce planning and boom-bust economic cycles: a retrospective on the Barer-Stoddart report, CMAJ
- Comparison of COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout Approaches across Canada Case Studies of Four Diverse Provinces, Health Reform Observer
- Team-based primary care reforms and older adults: a descriptive assessment of sociodemographic trends and prescribing endpoints in two Canadian provinces, BMC Primary Care
- Mobilization of science advice by the Canadian federal government to support the COVID-19 pandemic response, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
- Increasing pneumococcal vaccine uptake in older adults: a scoping review of interventions in high-income countries, BMC Geriatrics
- The financial risks of unpaid caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from a self-reported survey in a Canadian jurisdiction, Health Services Insights
NAO News
- Where should the new health-care money go? Here are Canada’s most pressing problems — and solutions, Toronto Star (Feb 15, 2023)
- ‘Intentionally underfunded public system’: Critics call Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s healthcare plan a ‘privatization agenda’., Yahoo News (Jan 19, 2023)
- NAO Newsletter – February 2023
Upcoming Events
- Book Launch: The Boundaries of Medicare: Public Health Care Beyond the Canada Health Act by Katherine Fierlbeck and Gregory Marchildon (April 4, 2023 @ 12-1 PM)
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.