Health equity for professionals
Health care providers play an important role in promoting opportunity for all and addressing the determinants of health. As a health care provider, you can create change in a client’s life simply by initiating a conversation about his or her socioeconomic status and having the capacity to help.
This section includes a three-step clinical tool that was developed under the clinical leadership of Dr. Gary Bloch. The tool can be used to address poverty in primary care, and the web-based resources can help you and your clients navigate income support systems.
Poverty: A Clinic Tool for Primary Care Providers (ON)1
Screen Everyone
Poverty is everywhere but it is not always apparent. You should screen everyone. Ask your client, “Do you ever have difficulty making ends meet at the end of the month?”
Poverty is a Risk Factor
Like with other risk factors, include poverty into clinical decision-making. Research has shown that growing up in poverty has been associated with increased adult morbidity and mortality resulting in a number of risk factors, for example:
- cardiovascular disease
- diabetes
- mental illness
- cancer
- chronic disease
- toxic stress
Intervene
By asking these simple questions to your clients, you can help them by providing information about income security programs.
For everybody
Have you filled out and sent in your tax forms?
For older adults living in poverty
Do you receive Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement?
For families with children
Do you receive the Canada Child Benefit on the 20th of every month?
For people with a disability
Do you receive Disability Benefits?
For Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Métis, Inuit)
Have you used Non-Insured Health Benefits?
For social assistance recipients
Have you applied for extra income supplements?
For more information on the tool
Please visit the Ontario College of Family Physicians for more information about the clinical tool and learn more about the Primary Care Providers’ Role.
Benefits finder tool
Use this tool from the Government of Canada to get a customized list of benefits for which your client may be eligible.
Income referral resources
To find programs and services in your community, connect to 2-1-1 helpline or to the 211 online database that provides information on, and referrals to, Ontario’s community, social, health and government services.
For additional local resources visit NorthEasthealthline.ca for health-related resources, events, and news specific to your area.
1 Centre for Effective Practice. Poverty: A Clinical Tool For Primary Care Providers. Retrieved from https://cep.health/clinical-products/poverty-a-clinical-tool-for-primary-care-providers/?®ion=6.
This item was last modified on July 23, 2025