[Music] in public health we know from our history that we have the potential to impact greatly on the health of the population with the limited dollars that we have in today's economic climate it's really important for us to be sure that the interventions that we uh are creating are going to work if we're going to make the business case for investment in public health we must must do that based on [Music] [Music] evidence what we need to do is to use the the best evidence the most valid evidence we can find because better evidence better
decisions the challenge of not using evidence in decision-making really is that we are at risk of wasting resources wasting dollars with solutions that we think might work but we don't actually have any evidence to know with some confidence that they're going to work when you make a decision based on evidence it builds your confidence in a in a really significant way other people can can challenge you but you can direct them to to the research to the evidence so it's defensible and people respect you it builds credibility and that credibility that it builds is transferable
people then understand that if you embark on a new initiative that's informed on by research the uptake will be greater because people understand that you are a credible organization and it also I believe heightens the accountability that we have for population Health outcomes and for why stewardship of Health dollars that are coming into the system I would not have the confidence I don't think to practice this public health specialist if I didn't have a sense that I could understand and rely on my understanding of evidence to create the best outcomes for communities ultimately that's what
I'm charged to do as a medical officer of health so I think communities benefit tremendously when evidence is is used in decisions that are about them and in the future we can make better use of the science that is already there uh to make well founded conclusions and to apply them in our daily work it doesn't have to be hard to incorporate evidence and there are you know evidence makers in every Community across the country who are just screaming to have that evidence put on the table they're not that hard to find the other thing
is I think the cost of not using evidence and making a mistake in those interventions is too high to ignore so I think there are are far more compelling reasons for using evidence than not using evidence in decision- making there uh is unnecessary illness and mortality in our society that we could prevent we can use evidence to find the most effective ways of preventing disease when you have this opportunity seize it go through that door because I think it can be a time of change in your organization and you're not doing it alone you're able
to optimize and capitalize assets that others are offering you and knowledge and expertise and I dare say without that we wouldn't be where we are today I think there's another uh value added which is the confidence that the public can get because evidence should be transferable should be transparently available so that the public can look at it see for themselves that the evidence is there that boosts their confidence in the decision It ultimately boosts their confidence in the decision makers as [Music] well
