We are very pleased to have done the “Opportunity Cost of Not Investing in Interpretation” report – it is so important to have clarity on these challenges and…

Hindia Mohamoud, Director, OLIP
The WOW seminar on immigrant women’s nutrition and health was a step in the right direction towards closing the gap between academic researchers and service providers.

Josephine Etowa
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa
Canada has been shaped by people who came from all over the world to build this country. WOW offers a platform for us to celebrate this history and the future it will help…

Alex Munter, Chair of the OLIP Council and President and CEO of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre
My nomination is an indication that our hard work in building Canada is recognized. All we do is to serve the community in return for embracing us when we needed it.  

Mehdi Mahdavi
Ottawa Immigrant Entrepreneurship Awards Nominee
I was happy to see integration to Algonquin territory and indigenous culture related programming in 2014 WOW. Please continue to involve local Aboriginal organisations and…

Linda Manning
WOW 2014 participant, Senior Fellow, University of Ottawa
The target beneficiary of the work of OLIP is the whole community. In this short period we have planted together important seeds for Ottawa’s development.  

Dick Stewart
OLIP Council
OLIP helps to unite and share scarce resources for greater impact by working together in the field of student education.

Walter Piovesan
Associate Director of Education, Ottawa Carleton District School Board
I’m really impressed with the level of energy and commitment around the Health and Wellbeing table and look forward to continuing collaboration between OLIP and OPH.

Marcela Tapia
Ottawa Public Health
All the WOW events that I went to were great – WOW does give a sense of a community trying to improve its attraction and retention!

Caroline Andrew
Professor, University of Ottawa
The City of Ottawa will continue to play a lead role in the implementation of the Ottawa Immigration Strategy, just as we did in the founding of OLIP.

Steve Desroches
City Councillor and Deputy Mayor of Ottawa

Updates on COVID Equity Data Project

April 30, 2021

OLIP’s Health and Wellbeing Sector Table initiated the Strengthening Disaggregated Sociodemographic Data Related to COVID-19 project, which worked to address and mitigate the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on immigrant and racialized communities through the collection and use of disaggregated data across OLIP partners. This project funded by Ottawa Community Foundation used three strategic components of partnerships, research, and mobilization to successfully design and implement six key activities.

As part of the strategic component of partnerships, two activities focused on developing and strengthening partnerships on data advocacy, data sharing agreements, and collaborative reporting. These project activities resulted in the development and strengthening of five data partnerships including IRCC, OPH, and the City of Ottawa.

For the strategic component of research, OLIP partnered with two research teams to advance our understanding of equity data capacity. Dr. Josephine Etowa, an Associate Professor in Public Health at University of Ottawa, with her team of health researchers developed a health equity indicator-based framework and key recommendations to support health equity research and measurement. These recommendations are key to help guide connected planning across sectors to improve health and wellbeing outcomes. Dr. Tracey Lauriault, an Associate Professor in Critical Media and Big Data at Carleton University and a Masters’ student Madeleine Le Jeune conducted in-depth interviews with 15 partners to understand the collection, analysis, use and governance of socio-demographic data throughout their organization.

As part of the strategic component of engagement, OLIP engaged immigrant and racialized communities, and enhanced organizations’ capacities to be responsive to immigrant communities’ needs. This activity collated and adapted community stories of the disproportionate effects of COVID-19. OLIP also supported knowledge sharing across partners and communities on the use of disaggregated data to engage key communities as well as identify and disseminate effective practices.

This project builds on a multi-sectoral effort to highlight the inequities experienced by immigrant and racialized community. This initiative aims to improve evidence-based and equitable planning for these communities and collaborative interventions across sectors. To build on the substantial progress made on this project, OLIP has secured funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the City of Ottawa to curating progress on equity data and to further support OLIP partners’ data capacity.