CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR HEALTH HUMANITIES (CAHH)

What CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR HEALTH HUMANITIES (CAHH) does

The Canadian Association for Health Humanities (CAHH) is a Canada-based nonprofit professional association founded to advance health humanities — the interdisciplinary field connecting arts, humanities, and social sciences with health professions education and practice. CAHH serves clinicians, physicians, health professions educators, students and residents, academics, artists, writers, and people with lived experience. Its portfolio centers on the annual Creating Space conference (held since 2010; the 2026 edition is April 19-21 in Ottawa), the monthly Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series co-hosted with the League of Canadian Poets and the Health Arts Research Centre, the peer-reviewed Unsilenced Stories exhibition and open-access digital archive, the Canadian Creative Works (HAM) Database, the H.E.A.L. Healthcare Learning Resource, and the National Award for Excellence in the Health Humanities and the Peterkin Brett-MacLean student prize.

The underlying operating stack is a small, web-based platform layer: a Squarespace-hosted website with an integrated membership storefront, the EventsAir platform for conference registration and abstract submission (deployed via the University of Ottawa Office of Continuing Professional Development), Zoom for monthly virtual rounds, a Mailman-hosted CAHH-L Listserv at the University of Calgary, and YouTube for archived sessions. Content assets — the HAM Database, the Unsilenced Stories archive, and resource directories for journals, conferences, educational programs, and global organizations — function as the association's primary knowledge products.

CAHH generates revenue through tiered annual membership dues (MD/Clinician/Academic $150 CAD, Non-MD Health Professional $100 CAD, with free tiers for artists and learners), Creating Space conference registration and sponsorships, and a principal philanthropic donation from Associated Medical Services (AMS), which the association identifies as its primary funder. The 2026 Creating Space conference is accredited for 13 RCPSC Section 1 Hours and 13 CFPC Mainpro+ credits, giving the event standing as a continuing professional development channel for Canadian physicians. CAHH operates as an independent nonprofit with no parent company and no disclosed private equity, venture, or public-market ownership.

Name

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR HEALTH HUMANITIES (CAHH)

Legal name

Canadian Association for Health Humanities

Website

https://cahh.ca

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Short description

CAHH is a Canadian nonprofit professional association advancing health humanities through an annual conference, monthly virtual rounds, a peer-reviewed exhibition and archive, curated research databases, and national awards, serving clinicians, educators, learners, artists, and lived-experience contributors.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Professional Association Services

NAICS

Professional Organizations (81392), Business Associations (813910)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Association & Society Conference Management (Nonprofit, Professional Bodies) (THAHACAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Medical, Scientific & Healthcare Congress Organizers (THAHACAD), Virtual/Hybrid Conference Production & Platform Management (THAHACAM), Sponsorship, Exhibitor & Partnership Management Services (THAHACAK)

Keywords

• Health humanities association
• Professional membership programs
• Academic conference services
• Medical education resources
• Arts and health programs

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Annual Membership Dues: CAHH generates revenue through tiered annual membership fees based on the calendar year (January to December). Membership tiers include MD/Clinician or Academic ($150 CAD), Non-MD Health Professional ($100 CAD), and free tiers for Full-Time Artists, Health Professions Students, Medical Residents, Undergraduate Students, and Graduate Students.
2. Annual Conference Revenue (Creating Space): Revenue is generated through conference registration fees for the annual Creating Space conference. Sponsorship opportunities are also sold to organizations. The 2026 conference offers accreditation credits (RCPSC Section 1 Hours and CFPC Mainpro+ credits) for professional development.
3. Donations and Grants: CAHH is funded through a generous donation from Associated Medical Services (AMS). This represents a philanthropic funding stream supporting the association's operations and initiatives.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

CAHH operates an annual tiered individual membership program (paid for clinicians/academics, free for students and artists) and hosts the annual Creating Space conference, an accredited interdisciplinary event that convenes clinicians, scholars, artists, and learners around the arts-humanities-health intersection. The association also delivers monthly Cross-Pollinations virtual rounds in partnership with the League of Canadian Poets, maintains an open-access Unsilenced Stories digital archive and a downloadable Canadian Creative Works (HAM) database, and offers curated resource directories for journals, educational programs, conferences, and organizations. Membership, conference registration, and sponsorship are the primary transactional mechanisms, supported by philanthropic funding from Associated Medical Services (AMS).

Product overview

The Canadian Association for Health Humanities (CAHH) offers a portfolio of programs and resources rather than a unified software product. Core offerings include the annual Creating Space conference (accredited for medical education credits), the Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series (monthly Zoom-based sessions in partnership with the League of Canadian Poets), and the National Award for Excellence in the Health Humanities. The Unsilenced Stories Exhibition and Digital Archive provides a national peer-reviewed platform for artist-led health narratives, while the Canadian Creative Works (HAM) Database catalogs Canadian works at the arts-health interface. CAHH also maintains resource directories for educational programs, journals, and conferences globally, and provides the H.E.A.L. Healthcare Learning Resource. Membership is available with tiered pricing for different professional categories. The organization is funded by Associated Medical Services.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• CAHH Annual Membership Annual membership program with tiered pricing by professional category: MD/Clinician or Academic ($150 CAD), Non-MD Health Professional ($100 CAD), and free tiers for Full-Time Artists, Health Professions Students, Medical Residents, Undergraduate Students, and Graduate Students. Membership grants access to the annual conference, Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds, the Unsilenced Stories archive, the HAM Database, contributors network listing, the CAHH-L Listserv, and nomination/eligibility for awards and prizes.
• Creating Space Annual Conference Annual national conference bringing together artists, writers, scholars, clinicians, activists, and learners to explore intersections of arts, humanities, and social science disciplines with medical sciences and health professions education. The conference is accredited for RCPSC Section 1 Hours (13 hours for the 2026 edition) and CFPC Mainpro+ Credits (13 credits for the 2026 edition), and features sponsorship opportunities, abstract presentations, awards, and the Unsilenced Stories exhibition. Registration is processed through the EventsAir platform.
• Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series Monthly virtual rounds series combining health humanities and poetry, illuminating insights on healthcare challenges and approaches and building connections between health professionals, the humanities, and the arts. Sessions are hosted on Zoom with public registration and the archive is published on YouTube for asynchronous access.
• Unsilenced Stories Exhibition and Digital Archive CAHH's national peer-reviewed exhibition and open-access digital archive of artist-led health narratives featuring Canadian artists whose work explores health, illness, disability, care, identity, memory, and lived experience. Submissions are accepted via a Google Form and selected through a peer-reviewed jury process; the archive is freely browsable online by artist name, themes, mediums, and approaches.
• Canadian Creative Works Database (HAM Database) An online, downloadable Excel-based database of Canadian creative works at the intersection of arts/humanities and health/medicine, cataloging published writings (fiction, memoir, philosophy, history) and visual artworks and performance recordings by Canadian authors or on Canadian subject matter. The database is curated by Monica Kidd and Bernice Foneska and maintained by Graham McCaffrey at the University of Calgary Faculty of Nursing.
• Health Humanities Rounds Ongoing educational rounds/webinar series focused on health humanities topics, hosted under CAHH's Initiatives menu and intended for members and the broader health humanities community.

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered major and core.

• Royal Canadian Academy of Arts / Académie royale des arts du CanadamajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts is a 2026 Conference Partner for Creating Space 16. The partnership supports the conference's objective of exploring the impact of arts and humanities on health professions education and practice, and elevating voices of people with lived experience.
• League of Canadian PoetscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe League of Canadian Poets co-hosts the Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series with CAHH and the Health Arts Research Centre. This monthly event combines health humanities and poetry, illuminating insights on healthcare challenges, approaches, and building bridges between health professionals, humanities, and the arts.
• Health Arts Research CentrecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Health Arts Research Centre co-hosts the Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series with CAHH and the League of Canadian Poets. Located at the University of Northern British Columbia, the Health Arts Research Centre focuses on interrogating determinants of health disparities in northern communities.
• University of Ottawa Office of Continuing Professional DevelopmentmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe University of Ottawa's Office of Continuing Professional Development accredits the Creating Space 16 conference as an Accredited Group Learning Activity (Section 1) under the Maintenance of Certification Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and certifies Mainpro+ credits for the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Canadian Medical Association: Canada's national physician membership organization offering CPD, advocacy, and educational programming. Serves the same Canadian clinician base as CAHH but at vastly larger scale; relevant as both a potential partnership channel and the dominant incumbent CAHH must navigate around.
• Royal Society of Medicine: A large UK-based medical society offering CPD-accredited events across all medical specialties, including humanities-adjacent programming. Represents the scaled, institutional model that a mature health humanities association could grow toward.

Emerging players

• Columbia Narrative Medicine: An academic program at Columbia University pioneering narrative-based approaches to clinical care and medical education. Comparable in mission (arts/humanities as clinical practice) but differs in being institutionally housed rather than association-led, representing a model CAHH could partner with or learn from.

Others

• Center for Medical Humanities (Durham University): A UK academic center funding interdisciplinary research and pedagogy at the humanities-health intersection. Comparable intellectual mission and resource-mapping activities to CAHH, though structured as a funded research center rather than a member association.
• League of Canadian Poets: A core programming partner co-hosting the Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series with CAHH. While not a peer in mission, the structural co-programming relationship makes it a strategically adjacent organization whose priorities directly affect CAHH's monthly programming cadence.
• Associated Medical Services (AMS): CAHH's primary funder and a Canadian healthcare philanthropy supporting medical education and humanities initiatives. Functions as a grantmaker rather than competitor, but its strategic priorities shape CAHH's program direction and financial sustainability.
• Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada: The national specialty credentialing body that grants the Section 1 accreditation that CAHH's conference carries. Functions as both a partner (accreditor) and an adjacent ecosystem player whose CPD framework defines demand for CAHH's programming.

Direct peers

• Academy for Professionalism in Health Care: A professional association promoting humanistic practice in healthcare through conferences, awards, and educational programs. Parallels CAHH's annual gathering and National Award program structure, serving similar clinician and educator members.
• American Society for Bioethics and Humanities: The primary US-based professional association advancing bioethics and humanities in healthcare, ASBH runs an annual conference, membership programs, and credentialing activities — directly analogous to CAHH's role in Canada. Both serve clinicians, scholars, and educators working at the humanities-health intersection through member-driven governance.
• Health Humanities Consortium: A US-based consortium of educators and institutions developing health humanities pedagogy across health professions. Directly comparable to CAHH's educational-programs mapping and cross-institutional convening function, with overlapping faculty, conference, and community engagement missions.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CAHH_ACSHS
• Instagraminstagram.com/cahh_acshs

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR HEALTH HUMANITIES (CAHH)