The Wellesley Institute is a Toronto-based non-profit and non-partisan research and policy institute. Our focus is on developing research and community-based policy solutions to the problems of urban health and health disparities.

We:

• identify and advance practical and achievable policy alternatives and solutions to pressing issues of urban health;
• fund research on the social determinants of health and health disparities, focusing on the relationships between health and housing, poverty and income distribution, social exclusion and other social and economic inequalities;
• support community engagement and capacity building;
• work in numerous collaborations and partnerships locally, nationally and internationally, to support social and policy change to address the impact of the social determinants of health.

Our organization is a unique hybrid: While there are many policy institutes and think tanks, many organizations providing capacity building, and some funding of community-based research, no other institute in Canada brings all these strands together , all focused on developing research and community-based policy solutions to problems of urban health