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Our story

Health Nexus began 20 years ago as OPC when a group of committed people in child and family mental health services made a radical decision. They decided to stop treating problems and work to prevent them instead!

This dynamic group started the Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse, an innovative organization that 'moves upstream' to stop social and health problems before they start. Inspired by the Ottawa Charter, OPC decided to focus on the social conditions that influence health.

This is how OPC became a hub for all the information related to prevention and health promotion. One of the first organizations working in health promotion, OPC hosted province-wide initiatives and demonstration projects, such as Better Beginnings Better Futures, Healthy Lifestyles, Voices for Children and Ontario Healthy communities that later became part of larger infrastructures.

We are strong believers that health is best promoted by the people who work locally in their communities. This is why we have been committed for the past 20 years to provide high quality information, support and advice to organizations and individuals who work in areas of primary prevention and health promotion. Through training and education initiatives, we have provided great networking opportunities and linked Ontarian service providers across disciplines sharing similar community concerns.

Today, as a modern clearinghouse, we continue to act as a centralized knowledge translation and exchange hub for the ever-increasing body of information about health promotion. We still provide a unique and comprehensive combination of services in both official languages to strengthen population-based health promotion. Part of a larger network of health promotion resource centres (OHPRS) and an affiliate of the Canadian Health Network, we work to support and build the capacity of people and organizations as they plan and implement health promotion strategies in their communities.