Web Resources

Public Health Unit Nutrition Sites

Algoma Public Health Unit
Brant County Health Unit
Chatham-Kent Health Unit
Durham Region Health Department
Eastern Ontario Health Unit
Elgin-St. Thomas Health Unit
Grey Bruce Health Unit
Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit
Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit
Halton Region Health Department
Hamilton Public Health Services
Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit
Huron County Health Unit
Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health
Lambton Health Unit
Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit
Middlesex-London Health Unit
Niagara Region Public Health Department
North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit
Northwestern Health Unit
Ottawa Public Health
Oxford County – Public Health & Emergency Services
Peel Public Health
Perth District Health Unit
Peterborough County-City Health Unit
Porcupine Health Unit
Renfrew County and District Health Unit
Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit
Sudbury and District Health Unit
Thunder Bay District Health Unit
Timiskaming Health Unit
Toronto Public Health
Waterloo Public Health
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health
Windsor-Essex County Health Unit
York Region Public Health Services

Professional Practice

  • Community Dietitians Trusted Food and Nutrition Experts (March 2004) (PDF: 260 KB)
    Role Paper of the Dietitians of Canada Community Dietitians in Health Centres Network

  • Core Competencies for Public Health in Canada
    Core competencies are the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the practice of public health. They transcend the boundaries of specific disciplines and are independent of program and topic. They provide the building blocks for effective public health practice, and the use of an overall public health approach. See also the Public Health Agency of Canada's Core Competency Statements.

  • Reports from the Pan Canadian Task Force on Public Health Nutrition Practice (2009)
    The Pan Canadian Task Force on Public Health Nutrition Practice was formed in collaboration the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to provide strategic guidance and expert advice on public health nutrition practice enhancement in Canada. The Task Force includes leaders in public health nutrition from across Canada and organization liaisons that bring a variety of perspectives related to public health nutrition education, training, regulation, practice, research and workforce related issues.

Reference Materials

  • Nutrition Considerations for Implementing the Ministry of Education’s School Food and Beverage Policy (P/PM150) (NRC, MHP, MEDU: 2010) (PDF: 940KB)
    Webcast slide presentation by Ministry of Health Promotion in Partnership with Ministry of Education and the Nutrition Resource Centre, delivered March 22, 2010.

  • Final report: Results of the environmental scan on bilingual or French lexicons containing words and phrases for use in nutrition and health promotion (NRC: 2007) (PDF: 50 KB)
    This report is a tool to support the work of nutrition and health promotion professionals. The listing of lexicons, thesauri and glossaries will assist nutrition and health promotion professional when writing, designing, interpreting, translating nutrition messages. The report aims to ensure consistent and current French terminology in Ontario in the dissemination of the nutrition message.

  • The Lexicon of Words and Phrases for Use in Nutrition Promotion and Health Promotion (NRC: 2008) (PDF: 106 KB)
    The Lexicon is a tool to support nutrition and health promotion professionals with the use of consistent and current French terminology in Ontario when writing, designing, interpreting and translating nutrition messages.

  • CIHR English-French Lexicon English / Français
    This lexicon, developed to promote consistency in communications throughout CIHR, was designed mainly for writers and translators at CIHR. It contains single and multiple-word entries pertaining to the CIHR community, as well as the most commonly used official titles and names of current federal programs and initiatives. The lexicon contains more than 1700 entries that can be found in TERMIUM Plus®, the Government of Canada's linguistic data bank.

  • National Centre for Health Marketing, CDC: Plain Language Thesaurus for Health Communications (October 2007) (PDF: 225 KB)

  • Community Food Security: “A situation in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes self-reliance and social justice.” (Hamm MW and Bellows AC. JNEB 2003;35:37-43.)
    This position paper. prepared by the OPHA Food Security Workgroup, descibes the goals, partners, actions, scope and history of a systemic approach to community food security. The paper includes a survey of 32 Ontario public health units to determine what CFS work is being carried out and what further action and resources are needed. Also listed are key resources for community food security, most of which can be accessed on-line.

Resources from the Field

  • Ministry of Children and Youth Services - Student Nutrition Program
    Ontario's Student Nutrition Program provides healthy food in Ontario's schools to help students learn and be successful at school-and in life. The Ontario government supports community organizations to deliver nutritious meals and healthy snacks to children and youth in schools and community settings across Ontario. This school year, over a half million children are being served.

    The Ministry of Children and Youth Services provides student nutrition programs with nutrition guidelines to help providers of the rogram make the healthiest possible choices when planning meals and to promote healthy eating habits among young people.The guidelines include ensuring that vegetables and/or fruit are offered at every meal or snack; choosing Ontario grown or produced foods, celebrating cultural diversity and improving nutritional value by offering choices from each of the food groups in Canada's Food Guide.

    For more information go to: Student Nutrition Program or Programme de bonne nutrition des élèves.

"You Can Ask"


Resulting from NRC's collaboration with EatRight Ontario in 2010, the “You Can Ask” resource provides families with information on making healthier choices when dining out. Messages used in this resource have been consumer-tested for relevancy and understandibility. EatRight Ontario has created three webpages that house the various messages:


"You Can Ask" Materials
  • Background Report [PDF: 78 KB, 13 pages]- View the background report on how the messages were created.
  • Article for Public - Download an article for the public on "You Can Ask" messages

"You Can Ask" Website Buttons

NRC has provided buttons for your website that can be downloaded for your use. These web buttons can be used by organizations such as health units and other health-promoting organizations. The buttons can be used to link people to the You Can Ask section of the ERO website from an organization’s own website. It is hoped that through the use of the web buttons, Internet users who may not be searching for this information, but might be interested in it, will access the webpages.


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Last Updated: February 8, 2012.