Working together to thrive: Well-being and public health (Chief Public Health Officer of Canada’s Report on the State of Public Health in Canada 2025)
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The Chief Public Health Officer’s 2025 Report on the State of Public Health in Canada explores the interconnections between public health and well-being, highlighting opportunities for public health to both contribute to and learn from well-being interventions and frameworks.
Public health and well-being
Well-being and good health are inextricably linked. Good health facilitates well-being. Societal contexts that support well-being also support the advancement of key public health priorities, including population health and health equity.
Well-being incorporates multiple facets: social, economic, environmental and health. An increasing focus on well-being globally and nationally can be used to drive intersectoral action on the determinants of health through a whole-of-society approach. Because many factors influencing health and well-being are outside a health system’s mandate, a well-being approach enables public health to address complex societal challenges such as infectious disease threats and wildfires and other extreme weather events connected to climate change.
As the World Health Organization described in its 2021 report Towards developing WHO’s agenda on wellbeing, “The wellbeing agenda strives to create social, economic and environmental conditions that support individual and collective health, quality of life, ability to thrive, the equitable distribution of resources, and planetary sustainability” (p. 15). These goals align closely with public health priorities and values.
Moving from knowledge to action
The Chief Public Health Officer’s report is structured around three main topics, moving from foundational concepts of well-being to practical applications and roles for public health.
Section 1 explores well-being concepts and approaches, including the significant value of First Nations, Inuit and Métis knowledges for understanding well-being. It also examines tools such as the Canadian Index of Wellbeing which arose out of efforts to move beyond the use of gross domestic product (GDP) to assess how a society is faring.
Section 2 outlines three concrete ways that well-being policy goals and measurement frameworks can advance public health priorities by:
- applying a strengths-based lens, which can align with Indigenous well-being approaches and frameworks;
- focusing attention on future generations and planetary health, approaches not always reflected in public health ways of working; and
- stimulating intersectoral action through holistic well-being frameworks that identify multiple domains (and associated sectors), including health, employment, education and income.
Section 3 discusses four potential roles public health can play to support others leading well-being initiatives by:
- providing knowledge on the structural determinants of health to build understanding and action on underlying drivers of inequity in well-being initiatives;
- sharing public health data and evidence, especially disaggregated data that can inform understanding and action to address health inequities;
- advocating for intersectoral action, drawing on public health’s experience addressing the determinants of health to advance health equity; and
- supporting implementation of Indigenous rights, in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Use this resource to
- Facilitate discussion on how well-being concepts and frameworks can be leveraged to advance public health work
- Identify how public health can contribute to well-being interventions and actions
- Co-develop and implement intersectoral collaboration efforts to advance well-being, population health and health equity
Alignment with NCCDH work
Season 3 of the NCCDH's Mind the Disruption podcast focuses on well-being and explores two well-being approaches in Nova Scotia and Alberta.
The NCCDH has conducted work on the structural and social determinants of health, health equity, redistribution of power, climate change and planetary health, and intersectoral collaboration — all topics relevant to well-being concepts, frameworks and approaches. Available resources include:
Let’s Talk: Determinants of health
Let’s Talk: Redistributing power to advance health equity
Climate change resilience part 2: Public health roles and actions
Intersectoral collaboration to address health equity: A curated list
Assessing the impact and effectiveness of intersectoral action on the social determinants of health
Reference
Public Health Agency of Canada. (2025). Working together to thrive: Well-being and public health (Chief Public Health Officer of Canada’s Report on the State of Public Health in Canada 2025). https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/corporate/publications/chief-public-health-officer-reports-state-public-health-canada/working-together-thrive-well-being-public-health-2025/report/report.pdf
Tags: Intersectoral action, Structural determinants, Planetary health, Public Health Agency of Canada