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NCCID Strategic Plan 2025-2030

Publication Summary

The NCCID Strategic Plan (2025–2030) guides how the organization will help Canadian public health professionals prevent and manage infectious diseases through clear, equity-focused evidence. Anchored in a commitment to supporting Indigenous, rural, and vulnerable populations, the plan centers on three main priorities: building digital literacy and responsible AI use to fight misinformation, adopting a multi-sector One Health approach that connects human, animal, and environmental health, and equipping health systems to adapt to climate change impacts on disease spread.

Mandate 

NCCID is funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada to support evidence-informed and knowledge-based decision making at all levels of Canada’s public health systems.

Mission

NCCID’s mission is to ensure that public health practitioners, program administrators and policy makers have rigorous, relevant and recent knowledge and evidence to prevent and manage infectious diseases for populations across Canada.

Vision

Public health personnel (practitioners, planners, programmers, policy-makers) at all levels of authority are able to integrate evidence and knowledge to collaborate and respond to infectious diseases effectively.

Principles and Lens

All NCCID activities are driven by a commitment to health equity and improving conditions that prevent and control infectious diseases. NCCID foregrounds the following in particular:

  • Public health needs in rural, remote and northern Canada, particularly with respect to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities
  • Immediate and on-going public health needs of populations that are mobile, by choice or circumstance
  • Opportunities to augment the capacity to integrate one health and climate change perspectives to public health planning, training and programming to respond to emerging infectious disease threats

NCCID supports public health personnel to connect and share knowledge with each other. Across infectious diseases topics, NCCID aligns its work with the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, the Calls to Justice of the Final Report on the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Core Competencies for Public Health, Release 2.0.

Strategic Pillars: 2025-2030

Priority 1: Digital Literacy

NCCID will use AI and digital tools responsibly to strengthen knowledge mobilization, combat misinformation and disinformation, and advance culturally safe evidence and knowledge. NCCID will support public health personnel in building trust, resilience and equity in infectious diseases information and responses in Canada.

Vision for 2030:
  • A digital literacy framework guides staff training, tools selection, and ethical standards to ensure NCCID staff are digitally literate and use AI tools ethically and effectively
  • NCCID staff are recognized for their ability to use digital tools to critically analyze and validate infectious disease evidence, ensuring the information they mobilize is accurate, credible, and relevant, and adapted for audiences’ information needs 
  • NCCID’s work contributes to digital public health infrastructure, advancing reconciliation, equity and trust.

Actions:

  • Develop and pilot a digital literacy framework in the areas of:
    • AI and digital tools for knowledge mobilization
    • Refuting mis- and dis-information
    • Improving website SEO capabilities for AI searches
    • Ethical AI use in infectious diseases public health
  • Short term opportunity (Years 1-2)
    • Staff training to use emerging digital tools
    • Identify key questions and collaborators
    • Build partnerships and begin internal testing
  • Long-Term (Year 3+)
    • Implement tech tools to modernize knowledge mobilization (e.g., website chatbot)
    • Validate rapid fact checking protocols for AI-created resources
    • Use AI to tailor evidence for rural, remote, and marginalized communities.
    • Employ AI tools in evaluation frameworks and reporting.
    • Explore integrated data frameworks combining zoonotic, environmental, and climate metrics for public health audiences.

Priority 2: One Health Approaches in Public Health

NCCID will bridge gaps in knowledge and networks to amplify opportunities for One Health approaches in infectious diseases public health. Promoting current case examples of One Health approaches, particularly from outside of Canada, NCCID will help to illustrate how considerations of animal health and welfare, soil and water quality, and other factors are essential components of population health and well-being. Multi-sector, multi-disciplinary frameworks have been discussed in Canada for decades, but often times need to be reinforced with successful real-world examples. The majority of One Health literature focuses on veterinary public health or infectious disease ecology. NCCID will reframe this, facilitating connections and action and adding value without duplicating efforts. Taking a One Health view of infectious diseases and public health will support more holistic understanding of infectious diseases burdens, responses and monitoring. This priority builds on a systems-informed initiative mapping governance, programs, and surveillance for One Health underway, which will position us as a national convenor in this area.

Vision for 2030:

  • NCCID is recognized and trusted in both human and non-health sectors (environmental, wildlife, veterinary, ecological health)
  • NCCID’s One Health lens incorporates equity, Indigenous perspectives, and inter-species well-being which currently views nature/the environment as a threat. NCCID will be a partner in prevention – a positive opportunity for balancing human, animal, and ecosystem overlap with climate change
  • NCCID supports and enhances preparedness, helping professionals stay engaged, informed and ready for crises, and acts as a super-connector across sectors, where professionals seek help from NCCID to connect them with collaborators

Actions:

  • Short-term (1-2 years)
    • Conduct a national scoping of existing One Health-related public health programs to identify integration opportunities and key partners.
    • Explore potential overlap with NCCEH and its work related to One Health; encourage involvement with all NCCs.
    • Determine NCCID’s natural entry points in the international pandemic treaty and Canada’s pandemic preparedness plans.
    • Determine potential new partners who see NCCID in non-human public health spaces (e.g. wildlife, ecologists, forestry, etc.); Indigenous partners bring holistic health perspective and understanding of the environment and must be engaged early.
    • Determine potential international partnerships to allow for broader assessment of novel interventions. Support public health personnel in implementing the new Core Competencies for Public Health on planetary health and climate.
  • Long term (3+ years)
    • Develop and promote shared teaching tools, interdisciplinary case studies, and other resources for One Health and public health professionals.
    • Complement the leadership vet schools have in One Health education, to build leadership in public health and medical schools.  
    • Raise awareness and promote public health inclusion in environmental impact assessment.
    • Help facilitate systematic action where there have been numerous, unconnected discussions.

Priority 3: Climate Change

NCCID will be explicit about how changes in climate (extreme weather, natural disasters, habitat changes for vectors, for example) are influencing infectious disease dynamics, and the repercussions for populations in Canada. Using a Program Science framework to discuss burden, responses and interventions, NCCID will help make explicit the essential evidence and information that public health personnel will need to prepare and mitigate emerging infectious disease threats with communities.

Vision for 2030:

  • NCCID supports public health professionals to act on climate-related infectious disease risks. Through evidence synthesis and tools, NCCID can show public health professionals that their daily work builds climate resistance and resilience

Actions

  • Short term (1- 2 years)
    • Determine where and how NCCID can add value in the areas of infectious diseases and climate change.
    • Develop a systems-informed framework that connects climate hazards with infectious disease risks and public health responses.
    • Develop an internal framework to guide climate change integration into NCCID’s KT work.
    • Connect with leading climate scientists across Canada to translate their work/projections into actionable public health guidance for public health practitioners.
    • Connect with Indigenous and northern communities’ lived experiences in climate-related infectious disease response.
    • Help public health personnel understand how to act, so that climate change issues are not overwhelming.
    • Work with other NCCs for a cohesive approach to supporting public health personnel on climate change responses and resilience.
  • Medium/long term (3+ years)
    • Determine how NCCID can help to mitigate harm and prepare public health systems – encouraged arming PH practitioners with evidence and practical tools to make them better prepared as they will be largely impacted (e.g., caseload)
    • Ensure that cultural frameworks are included in KT, planning, and partnership-building
    • Build in methods for complex system evaluation
    • Support mitigation plans and standards of practice
    • Implement the One Health and Climate Change priorities in a complementary way to strengthen NCCID’s role in advancing integrated, equity-focused infectious disease preparedness

NCCID will report regularly on the progress made on the three pillars of this strategic plan. NCCID will also continue to monitor changes in infectious diseases public health realms, to ensure we remain responsive and nimble for emerging demands.