Our agency
KFL&A Public Health is a local public health agency with over 224 staff and 23 volunteers who deliver public health programs and services to the people of the KFL&A area. The underlying goal of our services and programs — from immunization, physical activity, healthy eating, food safety, raising healthy babies and children, sexual health, tobacco use reduction and many other public health areas — is to promote and protect the health of the more than 214,500 residents of the Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington region.
Vision
Healthy people, healthy places
Mission
KFL&A Public Health strives to protect and promote health by improving health equity and working with partners and communities to help residents be as healthy as they can be.
Mandate
We are directed by Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act, the Ontario Public Health Standards and the Ontario Public Health Organizational Standards. We develop and implement evidence-informed policies, programs and services to address the public health needs of the residents of the KFL&A region.
Board of Health members |
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Message from the Board of Health Chair Wess Garrod and Medical Officer of Health Dr. Piotr Oglaza |
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This past year has given all of us at KFL&A Public Health a chance to reimagine and reprioritize how our staff, volunteers and our board can best serve local communities following the intense challenges brought on by the pandemic. With COVID-19 now part of our regular respiratory response, our agency and board members have been able to focus on other, continuing and emerging issues in our region. Our program staff and volunteers have concentrated more efforts on harm reduction strategies pertaining to substance use in our communities, while aligning our priorities with those of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health expressed in its 2023 Annual Report, Balancing Act: An All-of-Society Approach to Substance Use and Harms. We also worked on addressing the continuing rise of Lyme disease locally, mobilized after a local increase in Meningococcal disease, partnered with St. Lawrence College to deliver semi-annual low-cost rabies vaccination clinics in our community, hosted a Workplace Wellness Campaign to reduce occupational sitting in local workplaces and spearheaded a creative Syphilis Awareness Campaign, which is now being adopted by multiple health units in Ontario. Meanwhile, the KFL&A Board of Health was active this year in advocating to federal, provincial and municipal governments with public health guidance to promote and protect the health of our residents, including requests to:
The board of health also endorsed an intention to explore a voluntary merger between KFL&A Public Health, Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit and Hastings Prince Edward Public Health. Members of all three boards formed a voluntary merger committee, which submitted a business case to the province for the merger of the three health units. If approved, all three agencies will join to become the South East Health Unit on Jan. 1, 2025. Finally, KFL&A Public Health produced its 2024 to 2028 Strategic Plan, which is the result of many months of comprehensive analysis and thoughtful consideration, reflection and input from our staff, our board of health and our partners. This annual report showcases the priorities and achievements over the last year. Together, we look forward to a year ahead that will undoubtedly bring more change, but changes that will positively impact the health and wellbeing of the residents in our communities. |
Voluntary Merger
In August 2023, the Ministry of Health, in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, announced the Strengthening of Public Health Initiative, offering support to local public health units that decided to voluntarily merge.
In November 2023, the boards for Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health and Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit announced an intention to explore the feasibility of a merger, with all three board eventually voting to submit a business case for a voluntary merger to the Ministry of Health on April 2, 2024.
A Tri-Board Voluntary Merger Committee was established, comprising of all three board chairs, all three Medical Officers of Health and three members from each board, who worked together to produce a feasibility study and to submit a business case for a merger. With the mandate of the Committee completed, it has since transformed into the South East Transition Team, which continues to be in conversation with the province and is also working to set the stage for the South East Health Unit’s board of health should it come into being Jan. 1, 2025.
Strategic Plan
KFL&A Public Health’s new Strategic Plan for 2024-2028 upholds a mission to protect and promote health by improving health equity and working together with partners and communities to help residents be as healthy as they can be.
This new Strategic Plan focuses on equity, innovation and public health’s unique role in the local community. It is designed to be adaptable to the changing needs of the KFL&A region.
KFL&A Public Health remains a leader of public health initiatives in the province. With this new Strategic Plan, KFL&A Public Health is poised to take on five more years of changes, challenges and successes.
KFL&A Region at a glance
Each year, KFL&A Public Health provides school dental screening to approximately 6,000 elementary school students in our region. Instances of tooth decay (dental caries) found in senior kindergarten students has increased from 25 percent in 2019 to 39 percent in 2023. Each of these children has, on average, four teeth affected by decay.
In KFL&A, the percentage of pregnant individuals reporting mental health concerns during pregnancy has increased from more than 22 percent in 2016 to 36 percent in 2022. Those 15-19 years of age and those 20-24 years of age have seen the greatest increase in reports of mental health concerns during pregnancy.
Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health was updated in 2023. The new guidelines urge Canadians to consider reducing their alcohol use. If you drink, it’s better to drink less. Drinking less reduces risk of injury, violence-related harms and health problems. The new guidelines note that even a small amount of alcohol can damage your health.
In KFL&A, between 2019 and 2020, approximately 21 percent of residents 19 years and older were drinking seven or more drinks each week placing them at increased risk for harms to their health. This is higher than the Ontario average, which stands at approximately 15 percent.
Infectious syphilis rates in KFL&A rose for the third consecutive year in 2023 to more than 46 cases per 100,000. This rate was more than double the Ontario rate (21.6 per 100,000) and placed the KFL&A region third highest for syphilis case rates amongst all public health units in the province.
KFL&A continues to have the highest rate of Lyme disease in the province, with nearly 400 cases recorded in 2023, equating to a rate that is 15 times higher than that of Ontario. The tick-borne diseases Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis and Powassan virus were made reportable in July, with KFL&A recording 13 cases of Anaplasmosis and three cases of Babesiosis.
Violence is not just a private matter, it impacts our community and society. We incur many costs from violence in the form of healthcare, the justice system and social and community services as well as losses for employers and workers, among other costs.
KFL&A has much higher rates of violence-related emergency department (ED) visits than Ontario. In 2021, KFL&A recorded 380 ED visits per 100,000 while the rate for Ontario stood at under 198 ED visits per 100,000.
Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA) compliance continued to recover from decreases during the pandemic. At the end of the 2022/2023 school year, compliance stood at 96 percent, more than six percent higher than the previous year and within a few percentage points of the pre-pandemic levels. Similarly, by the end of the 2022/2023 school year, coverage for school-based immunizations at age 14 was:
- 96.4 percent for Meningococcal disease
- 80 percent for Hepatitis B
- 75 percent for HPV
The Acute Care Enhanced Surveillance (ACES) system collects data from 164 acute care sites across the province, which accounts for roughly 92 percent of all emergency department visits in Ontario. KFL&A's Viral Respiratory Mapper Dashboard had 14,500 views in 2023, compared to 16,000 views in 2022.
Like many Ontario communities, KFL&A has seen an increased rate of opioid-related deaths since 2016. In 2022, KFL&A’s opioid-related death rate was 24.5 per 100,000, higher than in Ontario's opioid-related death rate, which stood at 16.8 per 100,000. Each death is someone’s friend, loved one and a valued member of the community.