Evaluating Ontario’s High Priority Communities Strategy: Integrating Care, Redressing Health Inequities and Improving Population Health “From the Ground-Up”

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed profound inequities in the health of Canadians: racially diverse, newcomer and low-income communities were most likely to experience illness and death. In December 2020, Ontario announced the High Priority Communities Strategy (HPCS) that funded "lead agencies" in 17 marginalized communities to support scores of community partners who in turn devised culturally appropriate "micro-strategies" to provide education, tests, vaccinations and wrap-around care. We draw on evaluations conducted over three years to assess the HPCS and synthesize lessons learned for integrating care, reducing health inequities and improving population health from the "ground up." These lessons are all the more important post the COVID-19 pandemic as health inequities worsen and the healthcare system faces intersecting crises.