2 International studies have been even more limited, though some environmental scenario studies include health impacts. Only few countries have done a public health foresight study (PHFS), with the Netherlands as one of the frontrunners with 25 years of their Dutch PHFS. Where in the field of (global) environmental change and economy scenario studies have built up a long history, applications within the field of public health have been limited. Especially in the period after the Second World War, these explorations of the future became more systematic with some notable examples by Kahn and the Shell scenarios (see ref. This methodology addresses uncertainty which is unmistakably attached to future trends.įor centuries people have been engaged in thinking about the future. Dealing with uncertainty is one of key elements of foresight methodology, also known as scenario studies or future outlooks, terms that can be considered as mutually exchangeable. Having only 50% of the knowledge, but having to take 100% of the decisions is a quote from the Dutch Prime Minister that reflects the uncertain situation that we are currently in.
Its speed of spreading, the direct and indirect impacts it has on our health and quality of life, and even its domination of the media given opportunity to a legion of all kinds of experts, could hardly been foreseen. Visit iamentalhealth.ca for more information.One thing that the Coronavirus outbreak has shown is that we hardly had a clue what a global pandemic would be like and how it could affect daily life. The pandemic has made clear that the future of mental health in Canada is not only a ‘health’ issue, it is a societal issue.Ĭlick here to read the report, The Future of Mental Health: A Strategic Foresight Study. The complex and interconnected challenges emerging from the pandemic require coherent, collective and innovative responses and approaches. New paradigms present new problems which require new approaches, and uncertain futures require creative consideration. However, there are concerns that funding is not driven by data or directed to the areas or services where it is critically needed.” “The recent surge in federal and provincial funding for mental health research, digital services, and community programs indicate a recognition of the urgent need for expanded mental health care. This has enabled us to speculate on how mental health organizations and individual Canadians might be affected in the future, and reveals areas of opportunity to improve the system’s preparedness and resilience moving forward. Using a strategic foresight-driven approach, we explored the pandemic’s current and future impacts on mental health in Canada. In light of this, and anticipating the profound impacts within and beyond the health system shaped and exacerbated by the pandemic, the report examines possible responses to the increasingly urgent and complex mental health needs of Canadians. – Mary Alberti, Chief Executive Officer, IAM “ If we were going to plan for the future of mental health in Canada then we needed to look beyond today and into the future.” The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted what was already known about the mental health care system in Canada: it is inadequately resourced, organizationally fragmented and siloed, and faces consistently increasing demand across all sectors.
Highly unexpected and highly impactful, Canadians are still struggling to conceptualize it effectively, and there is no doubt that it has, and will continue to have, profound and as yet unmeasured effects across all facets of life. The COVID-19 pandemic could be described as, what scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls, a ‘black swan event’.
“In this time of profound and ongoing uncertainty, our objective has been to better understand the shifting mental health system in Canada through a collective and creative approach.” Submitted by the Institute for Advancements in Mental Health (IAM) and OCAD U CO
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