Nova Scotia's Renewed Injury Prevention Strategy - Government of ...

3.5 Work together to build the public healthsystem’s capacity to conduct injury-relatedsurveillance, research, and evaluation.3.6 Work together with other stakeholders acrossthe province and country to:3.6.1 enable the development of consistentnational definitions, standards, coding, andcollection of injury-related data, and3.6.2 share statistics and other informationamong data collection agencies.3.7 Create and support the implementation of astandardized local, provincial, and nationalemergency department surveillance system.Actions to Support Advocacy4.1 Work with advocacy partners to create thenecessary structure(s) that support advocacyfor evidence-based healthy public policy at thelocal, provincial, and national levels.4.2 Develop and communicate consistentmessages to the public and decision makersabout reducing health disparities byaddressing the underlying determinants ofhealth, and the need to adopt innovativeapproaches that will create healthier andsafer communities.4.3 Continue to advocate for the proposed Pan-Canadian Injury Prevention Strategy.4. AdvocacyAdvocacy is a powerful and essential ingredient forcreating change in public policy. Advocacy helps toadvance the perspectives of less privileged citizensand establish the conditions required to improve thehealth and safety of the entire population. The WorldHealth Organization defines advocacy as “acombination of individual and social actionsdesigned to gain political commitment, policysupport, social acceptance and systems supportfor an identified health issue.” 43Advocacy can attract the attention of policy makers,media, and the public to an issue of broad concern,contribute to the development of options forsolutions, and build consensus about what can bedone. In order to be successful, the Nova ScotiaInjury Prevention Strategy must be supported byadvocacy for healthy public policies and initiativesthat promote and protect the health and safety ofNova Scotians.4.4 Promote understanding and increaseawareness among Nova Scotians about thebenefits of creating healthy public policy.Taking It to the Next Level Nova Scotia’s Renewed Injury Prevention Strategy43