Catherine, N.L.A., Barican, J., Tang, J., White, O., & Thomson, K. (2026, July). Informing a Monitoring Framework for British Columbia’s Universal Prenatal and Early Childhood Public Health Prevention and Promotion Services. Vancouver, British Columbia: Children’s Health Policy Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University. Commissioned report for BC Ministry of Health. pp. 1-19. Available from: https://childhealthpolicy.ca/informing-a-monitoring-framework/

Executive Summary

This report informs the development of a monitoring framework for BC’s universal prenatal and early childhood public health prevention and promotion services. Drawing on lessons from comparable jurisdictions, we identified priority domains and indicators for monitoring universal services from pregnancy to age six as well as corresponding system requirements needed to support population-level monitoring in BC.

We found that BC already has many of the foundational elements needed for population-level monitoring, including existing indicator work, data systems, and public health infrastructure. Building on these strengths, the next step is to better align and standardize service pathways, data collection, data linkage, indicators, and governance into a coordinated provincial monitoring system. Doing so would strengthen BC’s ability to monitor service reach, service quality, outcomes, and equity across universal prenatal and early childhood public health prevention and promotion services and support ongoing system improvement.

Read the full report.