A New Blueprint for Brain Health: How Community-led Evaluations Will Construct a Healthier Future

This open access book presents an integrative vision to achieve better brain health. Across the globe is a growing awareness of the impact of neurological conditions and mental health on wellbeing. Also as populations age, the number of people impacted by brain health conditions also grows, shining a light on the need for brain health “solutions” that are sustainable. Although the knowledge of what is working for a variety of brain health conditions continues to expand, we need to realize that not all solutions will come from medical research. What is needed to address brain health in a more sustainable way is a better understanding of the care that community provides and how a vision of better brain health will be found by deepening our understanding of the role of community and elevating the value of their contributions. Community organizations provide frontline care and have a tangible understanding of the needs that accompany the populations above. This means they are well equipped to provide local and accessible care. Community is a place in which brain health solutions can be delivered in a sustainable, effective, efficient, equitable and person-centered way.  As such, the knowledge community organizations can contribute to the bigger picture of health care is important. This project responds to the need to better understand community care by highlighting how the role of evaluative thinking in the community sector can help us generate evidence to navigate towards better brain health futures.  By first recognizing and then supporting community-led care, we can expand how we view and receive care.

Along these lines, the book moves from a view of healthcare as being only delivered in hospitals and clinics to recognizing the continuum of care and integration of healthcare options. It provides a space for stories of health care solutions that indeed have connected health to the social and the community sectors. By exploring community interventions that have been integrated with biomedical/neuroscientific solutions, we will learn how integrated sustainable solutions can be created. The role of evaluation in helping facilitate the creation of such solutions also will be explored.

This project is a partnership between the Ontario Brain Institute and the Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions and reflects our collective learnings from our work in developmental evaluation and brain health.

Sanjeev Sridharan is Professor of Health Policy Evaluation at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Previously he was the Country Lead, Learning Systems and Systems Evaluation at the India Country Office of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to this position, Sanjeev was Director of the Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions at St. Michaels Hospital and Associate Professor at the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.   He is a former associate editor of the American Journal of Evaluation and has been on boards of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, New Directions for Evaluation and Evaluation and Program Planning.

Dr. Jordan Antflick is the Director, Integrated Discovery at the Ontario Brain Institute, a not-for-profit world leader in brain research, commercialization and care. In this role, Jordan provides leadership on the Institute’s communication, patient engagement, knowledge translation, and evaluation activities. Before joining OBI, he earned an Honours BSc in Pharmacology from the University of Alberta, and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto and Collaborative Program in Neuroscience studying cerebellar neurochemistry. With publications in the fields of neuroscience, patient engagement, and health promotion, Jordan applies his varied research background to his current role where he aims to make research relevant to various audiences inside and outside of science.

Dr. Kaela Scott is a Knowledge Translation & Evaluation Specialist at the Ontario Brain Institute, a not-for-profit world leader in brain research, commercialization, and care. In this role, Kaela works with community groups and integrated discovery research programs to build capacity for knowledge translation and evaluation and elevate the role of community care. Before joining OBI, she worked in the non-profit sector ensuring the experiences and perspectives of persons with lived experience were shared to inform policymaking. Kaela has a PhD in Neuroscience from the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University.

April Nakaima is a Senior Evaluator at The Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions. She has co-led evaluations of poverty reduction initiatives, brain health community initiatives, and dance activity health promotion. April has co-edited volumes in Evaluation and Program Planning on building evaluation capacity, New Directions for Evaluation on addressing health inequities in China and Canada, and a volume in production on assumptions in theories of change, building upon the work of John Mayne.