CFPC Launches Poverty Tool for Primary Care Providers

The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), eight of its provincial Chapters, and the territories, in collaboration with the Centre for Effective Practice (CEP), launched a new resource called Poverty: A Clinical Tool for Primary Care Providers to help family physicians identify patients who may suffer health issues as a result of living in poverty.

Individualized for Alberta

The Poverty tool is:

• Individualized for each participating province and territory, through the incorporation of local resources and supports
  (Launch Alberta’s tool now)
• Designed for quick and intuitive use in your day-to-day practice
• Endorsed by the CFPC and its provincial Chapters

This clinical tool offers specific resources to help health care providers screen for and respond to poverty concerns in patient encounters, particularly when caring for underserved, vulnerable, and marginalized populations. Social determinants of health, such as poverty, play a major role in patients’ health outcomes. The CFPC and the Centre for Effective Practice (CEP) have joined forces to expand and disseminate an Ontario poverty tool, which the CEP developed with clinical leadership from Dr Gary Bloch, to raise awareness among family physicians and other health professionals of how poverty affects their patients.