Canada's health system was built for a different era and a different understanding of how health works — and for whom.The Nation State built hospitals for some. The Welfare State built universalist programs that don't work for all. The Enabling State, the one we need now, taps into the community infrastructure where health is produced more equitably.We are at the transition point between the second and third paradigm. Social prescribing is an operational bridge between the system we have and the one we need. These resources describe how.
Key Resources
Strengthening Community Connections: The Future of Public Health is at the Neighbourhood Scale
Commissioned by the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada · Mulligan K. · DLSPH / NCCPH, 2022
Commissioned for Canada's national public health transformation report. Identifies four priority actions for investing in neighbourhood-scale community health, including community governance, equity-
centred data, local investment, and confronting structural barriers to systems change. A foundational Canadian argument for neighbourhood as the unit of health.
Strengthening Community Health Infrastructure for a Resilient, Democratic, and Secure Canada: A Role for Social Prescribing
CSA Group Public Policy Centre · Mulligan K. · 2025
Makes the case for community health infrastructure, including social prescribing, as a health intervention and an investment in national security and democratic resilience. Addresses geopolitical uncertainty, social fragmentation, and the untapped capacity of community as a strategic response to converging societal pressures. Published by Canada's leading standards and policy body.
Social Prescribing as Strategic Health Infrastructure
Commissioned Lead Paper · Longwoods Healthcare Quarterly ·
Mulligan K., (forthcoming, 2026)
Canada's healthcare system is approaching structural limits: nearly $400 billion in annual spending, while one in five Canadians is without a family doctor, emergency departments overflow, and health inequities persist that universal coverage alone cannot resolve.This paper argues that social prescribing offers not merely an additional program but a paradigm shift, functioning as a strategic catalyst for an Enabling State model of healthcare that redirects public investment toward the community infrastructure where health is actually produced.It traces Canada's health system through three historical paradigms - Nation State, Welfare State, and the emerging Enabling State - and shows how social prescribing bridges the transition, generating $4.43 return on every dollar invested while building resilience against converging societal pressures including climate change, trade instability, and geopolitical uncertainty.Full text available upon publication.
A Healthier Canada: Economic & Social Impacts of Social Prescribing
CISP · KPMG Canada · Canadian Red Cross, 2024
Rigorous economic modelling of social prescribing's return on investment in Canada. Demonstrates $4.43 returned per dollar invested, reduced health system utilization, and measurable gains for older adults and youth. The quantitative case for SP as fiscally responsible health policy.
Social Prescribing in Canada 2025: Bridging the Gap Between Health and Social Care
Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing, 2025
The most national overview of social prescribing in Canada — where it's happening, how it works, and what's needed to scale it. Covers implementation across provinces and territories, the link worker model, community co-design, and the evidence base for SP as a bridge between health care and the social infrastructure that produces health.
Canada's Survival Depends Not Just on International
Trade, But Also on Social InfrastructureandSecuring Sovereignty: Why Defending the Care
Economy is a $100M Bargain
The Hill Times · Mulligan K., 2025
Two pieces making the case for social and community infrastructure as national resilience investment — a strategic response to geopolitical, economic, and social fragmentation. $100M per year could fund one link worker per 40,000 Canadians.
The Case for Social Prescribing
Maclean's · Mulligan K., January 2025
Public-facing argument for social prescribing as the community layer the health system never funded. Describes the full arc of the Canadian health system - primary care inadequacy, world-class acute care, rehabilitation, and the community gap - through the lens of the author's lived experience. Accessible entry point for non-specialist audiences.
Contributed by Kate Mulligan, PhDFounding Scientific Director, Canadian Institute for Social PrescribingAssociate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University
of TorontoCanada's 2025–26 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice[email protected]
socialprescribing.ca