Evaluating the Impacts of Community-Campus Engagement on Population Health in Ottawa and Thunder Bay, Canada: A Mixed-Method Contribution Analysis Protocol (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Municipalities play a crucial role in population health due to their community connections and influence on health determinants. Community-campus engagement (CCE), collaborations between academic institutions and communities, is a promising collaborative approach to addressing community health priorities. However, evidence of CCE's impact on population health remains limited. Measuring the impacts of CCE is inherently complex due to factors such as diverse stakeholders, context-specific variables, and dynamic interactions within a community. OBJECTIVE This research aims to develop robust evidence on the impacts of CCE on population health outcomes in Ottawa and Thunder Bay, Canada, focusing on five shared health priorities: housing, discrimination, poverty, violence, and mental health. METHODS We will use a proven CCE model called CityStudio, which has been implemented in both cities. We will employ Mayne’s mixed-methods Contribution Analysis in three stages: (1) Formulating a Theory of Change that outlines the expected contributions of CCE to population health outcomes, (2) Gathering qualitative and quantitative data in line with the established Theory of Change. The data will be collected from various sources, including case studies of existing CityStudio projects, an online CCE stakeholder survey, a literature review, and population and community health data, and (3) Reviewing the gathered evidence to determine the extent of CCE impacts on population health. RESULTS Ethics approval for this project was granted in May 2023. We have since initiated Stage 1 by reviewing the literature to inform the development of the Theory of Change. We expect to complete this study by May 2026. CONCLUSIONS Our study will address two critical gaps about how improving health outcomes depends on CCE: (i) how academic institutions can best engage with their communities to improve population health outcomes, and (ii) how municipalities can engage with academic institutions to address their community health priorities. Conducting our work in differing contexts will allow us to consider a broader range of other influences on outcomes, thus making our work applicable to various settings and outcomes.