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While Canada has had relatively high vaccination rates against COVID-19, specifically during earlier waves of the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy has continued to serve as a significant barrier to adequate protection against the virus and, more recently, booster vaccine uptake. This paper explores the processes underlying Canadians' perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines and their decisions to take or refuse them, as well as how public policy and health messaging about vaccination has influenced vaccination attitudes and behaviors. Our focus group interviews with 18 vaccinated and unvaccinated adult Canadians conducted during October 2021 reveal that, in some respects, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy conforms to prior knowledge about some of the factors that affect vaccine attitudes (e.g., the influence of known medical providers) but deviates from current theoretical frameworks regarding general vaccine hesitancy. Specifically, these frameworks emphasize a lack of scientific knowledge and literacy ("knowledge deficit" accounts) or individuals' inability to incorporate rational risk perceptions into initial emotional responses to vaccines ("emotionality/irrationality" accounts). In contrast to the knowledge deficit account, we find that expressions of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy were most frequently associated with an information surplus or inability to prioritize information from multiple and often contradictory sources. Furthermore, top-down pro-vaccination messaging often triggered significant pushback against what participants perceived as moral shaming of the unvaccinated. Our findings demonstrate the necessity for a new framework to understand and address vaccine hesitancy. A better theoretical account of vaccine hesitancy has important implications for future vaccination efforts, specifically within the context of new variants and low booster vaccination rates in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, public insurance for physician and hospital services, without cost-sharing, is provided to all residents. Outpatient prescription drug coverage, however, is provided through a patchwork system of public and private plans, often with substantial cost-sharing, which leaves many underinsured or uninsured. We conducted a systematic review to examine the association of drug insurance and cost-sharing with drug use, health services use, and health in Canada. We searched 4 electronic databases, 2 grey literature databases, 5 specialty journals, and 2 working paper repositories. At least 2 reviewers independently screened articles for inclusion, extracted characteristics, and assessed risk of bias. The expansion of drug insurance was associated with increases in drug use, individuals who reported drug insurance generally reported higher drug use, and increases in and higher levels of drug cost-sharing were associated with lower drug use. Although a number of studies found statistically significant associations between drug insurance or cost-sharing and health services use, the magnitudes of these associations were generally fairly small. Among 5 studies that examined the association of drug insurance and cost-sharing with health outcomes, 1 found a statistically significant and clinically meaningful association. We did not find that socioeconomic status or sex were effect modifiers; there was some evidence that health modified the association between drug insurance and cost-sharing and drug use. Increased cost-sharing is likely to reduce drug use. Universal pharmacare without cost-sharing may reduce inequities because it would likely increase drug use among lower-income populations relative to higher-income populations. • There is a gap in the literature pertaining to the effects of drug insurance and cost-sharing in a Canadian context. • We conducted a systematic review of Canadian studies and found that there was consistent evidence that the expansion of drug insurance was associated with meaningful increases in drug use, that individuals who reported drug insurance coverage generally reported higher drug use relative to those who reported no coverage, and that increases in and higher levels of drug cost-sharing were associated with lower use. • Universal pharmacare without cost-sharing may reduce inequities in access to essential drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates stakeholder's perspectives about freight congestion in Canada's major metropolitan regions. Interviews with 28 Canadian stakeholders from different sectors are analyzed using Strauss/Corbin extended approach of symbolic interactionism with the objective of producing an explanatory theory to identify barriers to freight in Canada. By integrating emergent categories with a structured framework of theoretical propositions, we are able to offer insights to understand the perceived barriers to goods movement in the Canadian landscape, as well as to detail a framework of interventions to improve freight mobility. In total, 50 themes emerged as barriers to the movement of goods, which were grouped into nine subcategories, and four overarching categories which broadly frame the issues of goods movements as relating to high infrastructure utilization (Infrastructure Demand Outstripping Supply), the cost impacts of diminishing reliability of distribution (Physical Distribution Headwinds Impeding Commerce), rapidly growing regions and ineffective or absent policy support (Urgent Regulatory Encumbrances), and a lack of a robust data collection, analysis, and information sharing framework (Information and Data Management Complexities). These categories were considered in the frame of addressing goods movement barriers and were argued to be influenced by factors of cost, political risk, implement-ability, and maintainability. A framework was developed identifying four high-level interventions: data and knowledge mobilization; public-private collaborative freight evaluations; government funding and political support; and, capacity alterations: improvements and expansions. The key concepts of the framework are to collect and analyze data to inform public-private stakeholder evaluations of policy interventions, with government funding to support both knowledge generation efforts, policy actions and capacity investments. There is a significant need to expand data collection and information sharing, focus infrastructure investments on public transit and intermodal accessibility, and integrated policy development towards transportation and land use planning to address the physical and policy barriers affecting freight mobility and congestion. The emergent theory is contrasted with selected global regions to assess generalizability and the relevance of international perspectives to the Canadian environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scandals have always been a highly salient problem in politics. In judging politicians for their misconduct, voters may arguably be biased – they may evaluate scandals based on individual motivations, such as partisanship and self-interested concerns. In this paper, we examine these two considerations in the case of two real-world corruption scandals involving a single incumbent government. In addition to testing for the effects of partisan motivations in authentic situations, we consider how scandals associated with policy goals interact with personal motivations, shaping the degree to which people penalize a scandalous government. Across two survey experiments that prime respondents about real-world corruption scandals, we manipulate question wording for some participants and measure their evaluations of a scandalous leader's performance. We find an effect for self-interested concerns when the benefits associated with the scandal are concentrated and tangible. Our findings suggest that voters hold public figures accountable for misbehaviour and that there are limits to partisan loyalties in political scandals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• First trends analysis of data from the national Canadian Cannabis Survey. • Past-year cannabis use increased since non-medical cannabis legalization in Canada. • The proportion of past-year consumers using cannabis frequently is unchanged. • Past-year use of edibles, drinks and vape pens/cartridges has increased. • Legal purchasing is displacing the illicit cannabis market in Canada. Cannabis use for non-medical purposes was legalized and regulated in Canada through the Cannabis Act in October 2018. This paper examined trends in use of cannabis for non-medical purposes and related indicators from pre- to post-legalization in Canada (2018–2022). Data from 5 years of the Canadian Cannabis Survey, an annual web-based survey administered to Canadians 16 years of age or older, were used in the analysis (n 2018 =12,952; n 2019 =11,922; n 2020 =10,821; n 2021 =10,733; n 2022 =10,048). Cannabis measures include questions about use, types of products, sources, risk perceptions and beliefs, and exposure to public education campaigns and health warnings. Adjusted logistic regression models tested differences in outcomes over time. Past 12-month cannabis consumption increased among Canadians from 22 % in 2018 to 27 % in 2022 (AOR=1.41;99 % CI:1.28–1.54). Similarly, daily/almost daily (DAD) consumption increased from 5 % in 2018 to 7 % in 2022 (AOR=1.36;99 % CI:1.16–1.59). Consumption of dried flower, hash/kief, and concentrates/extracts (e.g., wax, shatter, budder) decreased since 2018, whereas consumption of edibles, beverages and vape pens/cartridges increased (p < 0.001). Legal purchasing increased from 4 % in 2018 to 69 % in 2022, while accessing cannabis through social and illegal sources decreased over time (p < 0.001). More Canadians are reporting cannabis consumption since legalization and regulation of cannabis for non-medical purposes, continuing a pre-existing trend despite an increase in awareness of the risks of consuming cannabis. Trends in product use indicate a transition from dried flower and concentrates/extracts towards consumption of cannabis foods, drinks and vape pens/cartridges. The legal market is increasingly displacing the illicit cannabis market in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a framework for a financial, economic, and stakeholder analysis of a residential rooftop solar net-metering program. The empirical focus of the paper is the net-metering program in Ontario, Canada, but the methodology is applicable to evaluating other public programs. The results highlight that without the Federal Government's subsidy for the initial investment cost, net-metered solar systems are not financially viable for representative households. Moreover, the stakeholder analysis reveals that for each additional net-metered system installed in Ontario, non-net-metered households experience financial losses of six times the benefits to the net-metered households. The net losses to the Federal Government of Canada and the Canadian economy are five and nine times the benefit to the net-metered households, respectively. The only stakeholder who benefits marginally is the Government of Ontario. In terms of environmental benefits, our estimate of the cost of greenhouse gas abatement by residential net-metered solar is 325 CAD per ton of CO 2 , which is significantly higher than the current (65 CAD in 2023) and future (170 CAD by 2030) national carbon price set by the Government of Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thunderstorm winds are the costliest wind hazard in Canada, but they have not been well studied. This paper investigates atmospheric conditions prone to downbursts in Canada using a combination of reported downbursts from damage survey reports, ERA5 reanalysis data, lightning flash observations, radar imagery, and upper air measurements for the period of 2019–2023. We propose a novel Downburst Precursor Parameter (DPP) by integrating two low-correlated thermodynamic and kinematic parameters. DPP outperforms other existing instability indices in downburst diagnosis in Canada. Our spatial analysis reveals the absence of damaging downbursts west of the Rockies, while approximately half of all recorded damaging downbursts occurred in southeastern Canada. Squall lines and supercells are the most common types of downburst-generating storms in Canada. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds of storms are squall lines when a downburst is accompanied by lightning flashes, which occurred in ∼71% of all cases. The remaining ∼29% of downbursts without lightning are mostly dry downbursts, typically displaying a disorganized pattern of convective storms on a radar screen. The equivalent potential temperature difference between the surface and mid-level in the troposphere (∆ θ e) exceeds 13 K prior to 61% of damaging downbursts. This result indicates that ∆ θ e might be a useful downburst indicator in Canada despite lower values compared to many regions in the United States. [Display omitted] • Convective parameters for diagnosing downburst-prone environments were investigated. • Novel Downburst Precursor Parameter (DPP) enhances downburst diagnosis accuracy. • DPP > 0.7 signals highest risk for downburst development. • Squall lines and supercells are the dominant storm types with a ratio of 2:1. • Surface-to-midlevel equivalent potential temperature difference is a useful downburst index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened and made visible the embodied consequences of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) inequalities and the relationalities of health in place. This paper combines insights from relational geographies and embodied epidemiology to explore psychosocial concerns among Ghanaian migrants in Canada due to their multiple and simultaneous roles in the WASH space in Ghana, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored this using narratives from in-depth interviews with 27 participants (16 women and 11 men) residing in Ontario, Canada. The case of Ghana offers insight into how social ties with home communities could provide a safety net during emergencies but could also affect the psychosocial wellbeing of migrants. Results revealed four interrelated psychosocial stressors, including social stressors, financial stressors, stressors related to perceived inequality and stressors related to the fear of infection during WASH access. The paper underscores the urgent need for research to move beyond local health implications of WASH inequalities and begin to prioritize how these social inequalities are embodied at distant locations. • The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the global health interconnectedness • Embodied subjectivities of WASH insecurity span across space and time • Migrants embody multidimensional WASH psychosocial stressors because of their social connections with home • Policy responses must address WASH subjectivities beyond the local [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research pertaining to racial disparities for Black families in child welfare is relatively limited in Canada. Recent research reveals that the overrepresentation of Black families in Canadian child welfare systems typically begins at the reporting or investigation stage and continues throughout the child welfare service and decision-making continuum. This research is occurring against the backdrop of increasing public acknowledgement of Canada's historic anti-Black policy-making and institutional relationships to Black communities. Though there is increased awareness about anti-Black racism, there has been limited exploration of the connection between anti-Black racism in child welfare legislation and how this policy generates disparities for Black families in both child welfare involvement and outcomes – this paper seeks to fill this gap in knowledge. The objective of this paper is to explore the entrenchment of anti-Black racism within the child welfare system by critically assessing the language and absence of language within the guiding legislative and implementation policies. Utilizing a critical race discourse analysis method, this study explores the entrenchment of anti-Black racism within the Ontario child welfare system by critically assessing the language and absence of language within the guiding legislative policies that shape practice for Black children, youth, and families. The findings revealed that though the legislation does not explicitly address anti-Black racism, there were instances where the legislation indicated that race and culture may be considered in responding to children and families. The lack of specificity, particularly in the Duty to Report, has the potential to contribute to disparate reporting and decision-making for Black families. Policy makers should acknowledge the history of anti-Black racism that informed the development of the legislation in Ontario and move towards tackling systemic injustices that disproportionately affect Black families. More explicit language will shape future policies and practices to ensure that the impact of anti-Black racism is considered across the child welfare continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Traffic congestion has a greater negative effect on females' life and work-life balance satisfaction. • Females appear to pay a price off their wages, in order to avoid traffic congestion. • The policy implications are discussed. At equal distance, the impedance created by traffic congestion strongly affects the duration of commute. Extant literature indicates that commute impedance negatively affects wellbeing, distinctly from the distance and the duration of commute. These negative effects are reported to be larger for women. Consequently, workers, especially females, must be willing to accept lower wages if reaching the job location entails fewer traffic congestions and accommodates a speedier commute. Using the Canadian General Social Survey of 2015 and the Census of 2016, the present paper assesses the wellbeing and wage consequences of commute impedance on men and women who drive to work. The study first demonstrates that the negative impact of commute impedance on wellbeing is greater for women. Second, consistent with the greater negative effect of traffic congestion on their wellbeing, women appear to pay a price off their wages, in order to avoid commute impedance. The policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Researchers seeking to identify public policies to reduce automobile use have frequently compared characteristics such as population density and freeway provision across metropolitan regions to identify differences, their causes, and their implications for automobile reliance. One frequent comparison has been between metropolitan regions in Canada and the United States given their similar contexts but differing modal shares. However, past studies have produced inconsistent findings with respect to how Canadian and American metropolitan regions can be distinguished with respect to population densities and freeways. In response to methodological concerns with past research, this paper measures population densities and freeways in the 57 North American metropolitan regions with at least one million residents. Two spatial scales (metropolitan region and central core) are used to measure overall density, population-weighted average census tract density, and density of the top 5% of the population. These same spatial scales are also used to measure the absolute and per capita quantities of freeway lanes. The paper provides methodological explanations using Los Angeles and Vancouver as examples. While Canada's metropolitan regions are commonly portrayed as denser and less auto-oriented than their US counterparts, the six largest of Canada's metropolitan regions do not have population higher densities and fewer freeways than all of the 51 largest US metropolitan regions. Indeed, this generalization holds only when individual results are combined to produce national averages, as there are numerous US metropolitan regions that have density and freeways in the same range as Canada's metropolitan regions. The paper discusses some of the differences and recommends approaches for future comparative research into the causes of variation in transport and land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults are at high risk from influenza and its complications, and are therefore an important population for prevention efforts. In Canada, public health efforts targeting influenza are multi-pronged and include vaccination programs as well as surveillance which informs the national surveillance reporting platform FluWatch run by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Recommendations regarding use of vaccines are made nationally by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) and by the Comité sur l'immunisation du Québec in Quebec, while vaccination programs are planned and delivered at the provincial/territorial level as opposed to as a harmonized national immunization program. NACI performs rigorous targeted literature reviews to inform their statements, and recommendations also vary by whether they apply on Individual (pertaining to decisions for individual patients) vs. Programmatic (informing policy decisions for implementation of publicly funded vaccination programs) levels. This unique context results in inter-provincial variation in vaccine schedules and funded vaccine products. In this paper, the importance of influenza vaccination for older adults is discussed; to provide insights from the Canadian context, the evolution of NACI evidence reviews and recommendations on influenza vaccination is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electoral success of populist movements in recent years has encouraged parties and politicians to incorporate populist themes increasingly into their discourse. While Canada has not been immune to these trends, populism has enjoyed relatively little electoral success in modern Canadian politics. A new People's Party fielded candidates in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections but failed to win any seats in Parliament. Some populist themes such as nativism or authoritarianism have not rewarded their proponents in Canadian elections. Another dimension, distrust of elites, politicians and the media, is more present in Canadian public opinion today, and was a part of past populist movements such as Social Credit or Reform. In this paper, we examine the structure and correlates of populist attitudes held by Canadians, utilizing data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies. In conclusion, we consider the potential for a populist political party or leader to enjoy electoral success in the Canada of today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study examines a diverse range of life circumstances and outcomes for youth accessing homelessness services who have a history of involvement with child protection services. • Data presented is drawn from the 2019 Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey—which is the largest study ever conducted in Canada on youth homelessness (n = 1375). • This study presents risk factors that are likely to be associated with the first experience of homelessness, including adverse childhood experiences and involvement with child protection services. Youth leaving or being discharged from child protection services (CPS) are a particularly vulnerable population in Canada that could be at an increased risk of homelessness, which has many adverse consequences including declining physical and mental health, school disengagement, involvement with the justice system, and substance use disorders. In this paper, we examine the extent to which youth accessing homelessness services with a history of involvement with CPS differ from their peers who have not interacted with CPS using the 2019 Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey—which is by far the largest study ever administered in Canada on youth homelessness (n = 1375). This examination includes a diverse range of life circumstances and outcomes, including quality of life, relationships with friends and family, criminal records, education, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Furthermore, controlling for demographic characteristics, we present risk factors that are likely to be correlated with youth homelessness, including ACEs and the CPS history, and conclude by discussing policy implications and proposing future research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) is a provincial consortium of twenty-one publicly funded universities in Ontario, Canada. A consortially-built platform called Scholars Portal is our digital library for archiving ebook content and making it available 24/7 to university students and faculty. An Ebooks Committee has responsibility for coordinating the consortial acquisition of ebooks, within the context of an Information Resources Committee. This paper discusses the consortial strategy and philosophy for ebook licensing in OCUL, which involve a focus on ownership and local loading rights, for dual purposes of preservation and immediate access. Key processes, tools, and accomplishments of this innovative service model are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jurisdictions around the world are responding the to potential of smart grids in different ways. This paper employs a multi-level perspective approach to socio-technological transitions to examine why the Canadian province of Ontario has seen a relatively smooth transition of smart meter technologies from the niche to regime levels as compared with other Canadian provinces, and other jurisdictions in the United States, European Union, and Australia. The paper also examines the reasons for Ontario's advanced legislative and policy framework around Smart Grid development, relative to those of other provinces. The complex institutional landscape around electricity that has emerged in Ontario since the break-up of the province's monopoly utility Ontario Hydro in the late 1990s emerges as a significant factor in both outcomes. The role of the province's municipally-owned LDCs spell out "local distribution companies (LDCs) as the primary agents for smart meter deployment, as opposed to a dominant vertically integrated utility, appears to have had an important mediating effect on public opposition to smart meters. With respect to Smart Grid policy, the diversity of high capacity institutional actors that now define the province's electricity policy landscape has facilitated the emergence of several interagency policy development niches. In a manner consistent with the concept of technological niches in the socio-technical transitions literature, the interagency status of these policy niches has shielded them from the regime level selective pressures that would likely have existed in a more unified institutional structure, and empowered new policy ideas to move from the niche to regime levels. These outcomes have significant implications for the understanding of socio-technological transitions, particularly around the role of institutional complexity in the emergence of niches for technology and policy development purposes and in niche to regime level transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social inclusion of the illicit drug user. It does this through a comparative examination of policy orientations to the social inclusion of people who use drugs. Six policy documents from Canada and Scotland produced in the years 2000 and 2001 were systematically sampled from 42 known documents. A poststructural content analysis adapted from the work of Maarten Hajer and mapped onto an analytic frame derived from Nikolas Rose's Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self is conducted. Within the years considered, drug policy texts from Scotland signaled a more punitive approach to drug use and a less socially inclusive approach to people who used drugs than drug policy texts from Canada. The differences in policy directions identified were in keeping with a priori interpretations of each country's broad approach to illicit drug use and to the social inclusion of the illicit drug user, if not to social inclusion itself. Methodologically, combining the approaches of Hajer and Rose proved complimentary and useful as well as promising for future application to the content analysis of public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on findings from our exploratory qualitative study that aims to advance knowledge around access to and experiences with abortion services among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. We applied an Indigenous methodology to engage with 15 Indigenous Peoples across Canada utilizing a conversational interview method. Our study was informed by an Indigenous Advisory Committee consisting of front-line service providers working in the area of abortion service access and/ or support across Canada. We conducted conversations from September and November 2021. Participants identified with Métis, Cree, Dene, Inuit, Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Mi'kmaq nations, across nine provinces and territories. Participants spoke to six themes encompassing challenges and potential solutions around abortion access experiences among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. These included (1) logistical barriers, (2) poor treatment, (3) stigma, (4) impacts of colonialism on attitudes towards abortion, (5) traditional knowledge, and (6) follow-up care and support. Our study demonstrates that Indigenous Peoples experience abortion access barriers that are different than non-Indigenous Canadians, and that these barriers are closely linked to colonialism. Indigenous knowledges and practices that honor reproductive choice that pre-dates settler colonialism, must be brought forward into today to enhance the quality of abortion care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies barriers and opportunities that Indigenous women in Canada face in energy, mining, and forest sector employment through a review of scholarly and practitioner literature published between 2000 and 2022, and 10 in-depth interviews conducted between May and August 2021 with Indigenous women working in various capacities within (or knowledgeable about) natural resources industries in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Our findings reveal that it is important to understand the intersections of gender, culture, ethnicity/race, language, and class to respond to the challenges Indigenous women face in natural resources employment. Some of the barriers that Indigenous women encounter in these industries are similar to those faced by non-Indigenous women (glass ceilings, lack of mentors, for example). Indigenous women encounter the added dimension of racism (based on Indigenous status) as well as limitations based on geographic location. Our recommendations for improving the status of Indigenous women in natural resources industries in Canada include implementing specific targets for Indigenous women in professional, technical, and senior administrative positions; enabling the Native Women's Association of Canada to serve as an information and employment conduit to industry associations and employers; and creating mechanisms to enable Indigenous women who live off-reserve to access quality employment opportunities. Enabling Indigenous women to access skilled, well-paid employment in natural resources should be considered a key priority and opportunity for governments, resource development companies, industry associations and gender equality advocacy organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is endowed with abundant lignocellulosic biomass from agriculture and forestry. These sources provide a foundation for the development of Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept which is supported by government renewable energy policy initiatives. However, the chemical structure of lignocellulosic biomass comprising carbohydrate polymers and lignin makes the structure recalcitrant to deconstruction, thereby constraining the ability of enzymes to convert these polymers into fermentable sugars without expensive and highly capital intensive pretreatment processes. The challenges are further compounded by the diversity of lignocellulosic biomass available in Canada, which typically necessitates commercial pretreatment pathways optimized for each feedstock type. In turn, these conditions constrain the development of viable business models for the commercialization of Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept. In order to address these challenges, Canadian researchers have continued to undertake research to develop pretreatment technologies applicable to several Canadian lignocellulosic biomass sources. The objective of this paper is to review contributions by Canadian researchers vis-à-vis the development of bioconversion pretreatment technologies needed to advance the commercialization of Canada's cellulosic biorefinery concept. These pretreatment technologies include physical, physico-chemical, biological, and processes that combine these methods. This paper also highlights the role of multi- institutional science and innovation collaborative approaches for advancing Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept further downstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2015, a new Liberal Government came to power in Canada, elected on a platform that included legalization and regulation of cannabis for recreational purposes. Their legislation, based on recommendations from a Federal Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation, is due in early April 2017.Methods: This commentary utilizes Canadian Federal policy papers, previous literature, and internal and international agreements to examine two key areas critical to the development of a nationwide regulated market for cannabis in Canada; the need to overcome restrictions to legalizing cannabis in United Nations' drug control treaties, and the unique challenges that non-medical cannabis creates for navigating interprovincial trade policies in Canada.Results: Irrespective of UN conventions that appear to prohibit legalization of cannabis the Government is preparing to bring forward legislation as this article goes to print. At the same time significant squabbles impede the selling of even beer and wine inter-provincially in Canada. This paper identifies the challenges facing Canadian legalization efforts, but also shows how the legalization legislation may provide opportunities to engender significant change beyond the simple legalization of a specific drug.Conclusion: This commentary does not argue for any specific course of action for Canada, but rather explores the nuance of legalization absent from the declaration in the Liberal party platform. The paper argues that Canada's efforts may hasten the dismantling of the UN drug control structure, and provide renewed opportunities for intern-provincial trade in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars assert that Indigenous peoples across the globe suffer a disproportionate burden of mental illness. Research indicates that colonialism and its associated processes are important determinants of Indigenous peoples’ health internationally. In Canada, despite an abundance of health research documenting inequalities in morbidity and mortality rates for Indigenous peoples, relatively little research has focused on mental health. This paper provides a critical scoping review of the literature related to Indigenous mental health in Canada. We searched eleven databases and two Indigenous health-focused journals for research related to mental health, Indigenous peoples, and Canada, for the years 2006–2016. Over two hundred papers are included in the review and coded according to research theme, population group, and geography. Results demonstrate that the literature is overwhelmingly concerned with issues related to colonialism in mental health services and the prevalence and causes of mental illness among Indigenous peoples in Canada, but with several significant gaps. Mental health research related to Indigenous peoples in Canada overemphasizes suicide and problematic substance use; a more critical use of the concepts of colonialism and historical trauma is advised; and several population groups are underrepresented in research, including Métis peoples and urban or off-reserve Indigenous peoples. The findings are useful in an international context by providing a starting point for discussions, dialogue, and further study regarding mental health research for Indigenous peoples around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have recently noted that we live in an “age of apologies”, in which there is a surge of government apologies for certain wrongs. In Canada, there have been at least 10 major apologies since the late 1980s. This paper reviews these apologies, and the ways they articulate with multiculturalism as a state policy. While these apologies are often considered separately, and in political terms, in this paper I argue that it is important to consider them together. To do so helps illuminate some of the political economic dynamics shaping the rise in apologies and why and how this rise in apologies is co-extensive with significant neoliberal transformations in the Canadian state, and of Canadian ways of understanding diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common perception of a foreign service career emphasizes the role of high-ranking diplomats traveling the world to engage in the high politics of statecraft and negotiation. Critical geographic scholarship, however, has recently turned to examine the more mundane, quotidian, and regularized work of foreign policy professionals in consulates, embassies, and foreign ministries. This paper builds a historical and institutional understanding of the work of Canada's foreign service officers, examining how ideals, practices, and structures related to professionalism, elite status, expertise, and collective bargaining matter for articulating diplomats' self-identity, and how this shapes and is shaped by institutional change in the Canadian state. We look first at the changing "institutional culture" within the foreign service, especially how FSOs understand their work and its relationship to the foreign ministry as a workplace, and how this workplace has changed through institutional shifts in the departmental configuration housing the diplomatic corps. We then examine the role of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO), which represents and bargains on behalf of foreign service officers in Canada, in shaping Canadian foreign service officers' sense of themselves, their work, and their place in the Canadian state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives/background: This paper outlines the current state of Canadian training, clinical services, research, and advocacy initiatives related to non-respiratory sleep disorders, with a specific focus on insomnia, the most common sleep problem in children.Methods: Information for this narrative review was collected from peer-reviewed publications, web-resources, and personal communications and experiences.Results: It is estimated that approximately one-third of Canadian children and youth present with insomnia, and that this is impacting their physical and mental health, as well as learning in school. Training in pediatric sleep is limited and highly inconsistent within and across disciplines. While there are some publicly and privately funded pediatric sleep services available, these are mostly focused on respiratory sleep problems and are not equally accessible across the country.Conclusions: Pediatric assessment and treatment services for non-respiratory sleep disorders needs to be more integrated into the Canadian health care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Millions of Canadians rely on public transportation to conduct daily activities and participate in the labour force. However, many low-income households are disadvantaged because existing public transit service does not provide them with sufficient access to destinations. Limited transit options, compounded with socioeconomic disadvantage, can result in transport poverty, preventing travel to important destinations, like employment opportunities. Given the growing gentrification of Canadian downtowns and the dispersion of poverty into Canadian suburbs, the time is right for a national accounting of those living in transport poverty, and the development of a national transport and land use strategy for alleviating the risks of accessibility deprivation. Accordingly, in this paper we measure and analyze vertical inequalities in access to employment in Canadian cities in order to estimate how many, where, and to what extent, Canadians are at risk of transport poverty. We make use of open transit network data and cutting edge accessibility measurement methods to generate comparative scores suitable for a national-scale analysis. We find that in aggregate, lower income neighbourhoods tend to have better levels of transit accessibility. But despite this overall positive outlook, there are still nearly one million low-income individuals living in urban areas with low transit accessibility. We summarize our findings by generating descriptive typologies for areas vulnerable to transport poverty which are then used to develop and recommend planning strategies to reduce inequalities. Highlights • We measure transit access to employment for Canada's eight largest cities. • We estimate where and to what extent Canadians are at risk of transport poverty. • Findings show low SES residents generally live in more accessible areas. • However, there are still nearly one million residents at risk of transport poverty. • A neighbourhood-scale cluster analysis is used to inform policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Local public health authorities often lack the capacity to adapt to climate change, despite being on the 'front lines' of climate impacts. Upper-level governments are well positioned to create an enabling environment for adaptation and build local public health authorities' capacity, yet adaptation literature has not specified how upper-level governments can build local-level adaptive capacity. In this paper we examine how federal and regional governments can contribute to enabling and supporting public health adaptation to climate change at the local level in federal systems. We outline the local level's self-assessed adaptive capacity for public health adaptation in Canadian and German comparative case studies, in terms of funding, knowledge and skills, organizations, and prioritization, drawing upon 30 semi-structured interviews. Based on interviewees' recommendations and complemented by scientific literature, we develop a set of practical measures that could enable or support local-level public health adaptation. We find that adaptive capacity varies widely between local public health authorities, but most report having insufficient funding and staff for adaptation activities. We propose 10 specific measures upper-level governments can take to build local public health authorities' capacity for adaptation, under the interrelated target areas of: building financial capital; developing and disseminating usable knowledge; collaborating and coordinating for shared knowledge; and claiming leadership. Federal and regional governments have an important role to play in enabling local-level public health adaptation, and have many instruments available to them to fulfill that role. Selecting and implementing measures to enable local public health authorities' adaptive capacity will require tailoring to, and consideration, of the local context and needs. Highlights • Local public health authorities often lack capacity to adapt to climate change. • National and regional governments can play supportive or enabling role. • We propose 10 concrete measures to enable local public health adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Child discipline remains a topic of public health interest across the globe. Despite this enduring interest, very little is known about the child disciplinary practices of African immigrants in Canada. This paper explores the disciplinary practices of African immigrant parents in Alberta, a Canadian province with a recent surge in the population of African immigrants. Employing a critical ethnographic methodology, informed by transnational theory, we collected data through in-depth qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of African community leaders (n = 14), African immigrant parents (n = 32), policymakers (n = 2), and health and immigrant settlement workers (n = 10). As members of the African immigrant community, we were deeply immersed in the research settings, which afforded us the opportunity to collect pertinent observational data in the form of reflexive notes. Thematic analysis of the data revealed child disciplinary approaches that incorporate Canadian and African parenting practices, as well as practices that appear somewhat unique to this demographic. We found that African immigrant parents used corporal discipline, persuasive discipline, and a hybrid of the two, as well as emerging practices involving transnational fostering and emotional isolation of children who persistently misbehaved. These practices, in their totality, appeared to be influenced by the transnational experiences of parents and precepts that are traceable to Canada's legal and educational systems. We present theoretical, policy, and service implications of our findings, including a recommendation to incorporate sociocultural dimensions of child discipline into Canadian child welfare policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Census-based deprivation indices have been widely used in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and UK to measure area-based socio-economic inequalities. This paper examines the indicators used in census-based area deprivation indices using a political ecology approach. We question whether the current indicators of deprivation derived from census data are meaningful for the all age groups and minority groups in the population, with a particular focus on deprivation indicators used in New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. We comparatively reviewed methodological papers and reports that describe the indicators of deprivation in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the UK from 1975 to 2014. We consider the relationship between the notion of standards of living and measurements of deprivation and explore how hegemonic cultural constructs are implicit in measures of deprivation that privilege a Eurocentric, ageist and gender normative construction of statistics. We argue for more political ecological analyses to studying the relationship between social inequalities, geographies, health inequities and political economy to transform structures of oppression and inequality. This requires turning the analytical gaze on the wealthy and privileged instead of defaulting into deficit models to account for inequality. Studies of deprivation and inequality would benefit from understanding the processes and operations of power in the (re)production of socio-economic and health inequities to inform holistic strategies for social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distribution, stratigraphy and chronology of landslide deposits within the Gouffre Valley to provide a long-term context for the 1663 CE M 7.0–7.5 Charlevoix earthquake, Charlevoix-Kamouraska Seismic Zone (CKSZ), southern Quebec, Canada. Our mapping utilized a 1 × 1 m digital terrain model, and we interpreted deposit age and stratigraphy from 30 new AMS radiocarbon ages, supplemented by 51 regular radiocarbon ages and 23 dendrochronology ages compiled from previous studies. These data provide a robust chronological connection between the 1663 CE earthquake and large-scale landslide deposits that cover about 24 km2, extend about 20 km along the valley bottom, and originated from separate source areas. Eight, relatively small-scale (less than 0.48 km2), prehistoric landslide features are also present in the Gouffre Valley, including three dated landslides, aged between about 7950–7300, 6595–6087, and 1310–1200 cal BCE, a poorly-constrained deposit aged between 4782–4452 BCE and 1663 CE, and four landslides of unknown age. There is no evidence to support an earthquake trigger for any of these prehistoric landslides. Instead, the widespread deposits associated with the 1663 CE earthquake represent the only multi-event, landslide signature in the Gouffre Valley. This, in combination with a long gap between early postglacial and late Holocene mass movement activity in several nearby lakes, is consistent with the 1663 CE earthquake being the largest to occur in the CKSZ over the past about 10 ka. • Large-scale landslide deposits present along lower 20 km of Gouffre Valley. • Robust connection between age of landslides and strong 1663 CE earthquake. • No clusters of older, pre-1663, similarly-aged landslides in valley. • 1663 CE earthquake is largest to occur in CKSZ over the past roughly 10 ka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infant mortality is a metric influenced by societal, political and medical advances. The way vital events are collected and reported are not always uniform. A lack of uniformity has disadvantaged some groups in society. In Canada, a multi-jurisdictional vital statistics system has truncated our ability to produce infant mortality rates for the Indigenous population. To understand how this evolved, this paper outlines the history of infant mortality, generally and internationally, and then documents the efforts to harmonize the collection and reporting of vital statistics (births and deaths) in Canada. Following this analysis is a historical review of vital event reporting for Canada's Indigenous population. A major finding of this paper is that racism, reframing, and jurisdictional posturing has limited our ability to accurately estimate live births and infant deaths for the Indigenous population. To improve Indigenous infant mortality estimation, Canada's governments need to transcend multijurisdictional challenges and fulfill international reporting obligations to Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to find the determinants of Canadian international patent activity at the industrial level. The paper achieves this goal in two steps. In the first step, Canadian worldwide patent applications are mapped into industry classifications. The paper draws on three different methods (Johnson, 2002 [13]; Schmoch et al., 2003 [22]; and Lybbert and Zolas, 2013 [16]) and two different data sources (EPO PATSTAT and OECD Triadic patent families) to do this task. In the next step, Canadian patent applications abroad are modeled by using a modified gravity model. The empirical results suggest that the industrial R&D and value added of Canada and destination countries as well as industrial exports are significant factors of Canadian patent activity abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are currently at the crux of political, environmental, technological, and cultural discussions due to climate change. A drastic reduction of GHG emissions is needed in order to mitigate potentially catastrophic climate change impacts. Thus, thoroughly understanding emission sources is imperative. A disaggregated analysis of Canada’s future GHG emission projections has not yet been conducted. The objectives in this paper are to assess disaggregated GHG emissions in Canada for the years 2014, 2030, and 2050, and analyze the results through Sankey diagrams. Emissions are calculated using a bottom-up multi-regional accounting-based Long-range Energy Alternative Planning systems model. Each major economic sector in Canada is analyzed including the electricity generation, residential, commercial and institutional, industrial, transportation, and agriculture sectors. The emissions released in these sectors are traced to the resources and end-uses responsible. Results are presented for Canada and for provinces individually. GHG emissions contained in exported resources are evaluated. Results show that Canada’s business-as-usual GHG emissions will grow from 732 million tonnes in 2014 to 780 and 798 million tonnes in 2030 and 2050, respectively. Canada exports more emissions contained in resources than it emits. Per capita emissions intensity will fall by 14% between 2014 and 2050. Results are compared to climate targets and key areas of GHG mitigation potential are identified. Alberta’s oil and gas sector and Ontario’s transportation sector are the two single largest sectoral sources of emissions by 2050. This research can help policy makers, innovators, and the public better understand GHG emissions, which can lead to more effective GHG mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether low income and subjective financial strain are associated with mental health, as well as whether mastery weakens this association. We analyze three waves of a large sample of Canadians and utilize random and fixed effects regression strategies to assess bias introduced by unobserved time-stable confounders. In random effects models, both low income and subjective financial strain are associated with distress and anger. In fixed effects models that control for all time-stable confounders, the effect of low income is reduced to non-significance for both outcomes. The effect of subjective strain is also reduced in fixed effects models, but remained statistically significant. Sobel tests indicated that the effect of subjective strain on mental health is transmitted through mastery, but this indirect path is modest in magnitude. When interactions are tested, mastery weakens the association between subjective strain and distress, and this effect is robust to the influence of time-stable controls, but mastery does not buffer the subjective strain-anger relationship in either random or fixed-effects models. Finally, moving below the low income threshold increases anger for low mastery individuals, but seems to reduce anger when moving below the low income threshold is coupled with increases in mastery. Collectively, our findings demonstrate the importance of assessing the influence of unobserved time-stable confounders in stress research. Further, discrepancies in the moderating role of mastery reinforce calls for the assessment of multiple outcomes in mental health research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper addresses a critically important area in Canadian immigration and health from both a social and a spatial perspective. It employs multilevel and contextual approaches to examine the social determinants of immigrant health as well as the place effects on self-reported health at a regional and neighborhood scale. The data come from the raw microdata file of the 2005–10 Canadian Community Health Survey (a random national health survey) and the publicly available Canadian Marginalization index based on the 2006 Census. Three populations are compared: Canadian-born, overall foreign-born, and Chinese immigrants. The results suggest various degrees of association between self-reported health, individual and lifestyle behavioral characteristics, and neighborhood material deprivation and ethnic concentration in census tracts. These factors contribute differently to the reported health of Chinese immigrants, Canada's largest recent immigrant group. A healthy immigrant effect is partially evident in the overall foreign-born population, but appears to be relatively weak in Chinese immigrants. For all groups, neighborhood deprivation moderately increases the likelihood of reporting poor health. Ethnic concentration negatively affects self-rated health, with the exception of the slight protective effect of Chinese-specific ethnic density in census tracts. The multilevel models reveal significant area inequalities across Census Metropolitan Areas/Census Agglomerations in risk of reporting unhealthy status, with greater magnitude in the foreign-born population. The vast regional variations in health among Chinese immigrants should be interpreted carefully due to the group's heavy concentration in large cities. The study contributes to the literature on ethnicity and health by systematically incorporating neighborhood contextual effects in modeling the social determinants of immigrant health status. It fills a gap in the literature on neighborhoods and health by focusing on ethnically disparate groups rather than on the general population. By revealing regional disparities in health, the paper adds a spatial perspective to the work on immigrant health. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper contributes to an understanding of overseas professional development of teacher educators through an analysis of the learning experiences of a group of Chinese teacher educators (CTEs) in Canada. Drawing on qualitative data, research findings reveal specific areas of knowledge are deemed by the CTEs as essential for enhancing their own practice and noteworthy characteristics of their approaches to learning overseas. The CTEs' sense-making processes also provide insights into the complexity of overseas learning and the necessity of "unlearning" long-held beliefs and practices, which enables the development of new ideas, knowledge, and skills. • This paper analyses the overseas learning experiences of teacher educators from 31 key Chinese teacher universities. • The teacher educators identify approaches that are essential for the improvement of Chinese teacher education. • Their professional learning is characterised by a pragmatic search of solutions to problems in China. • Their sense-making of overseas learning illuminates the complexity of cross-boundary interaction. • Analysis of cultural differences reveals nuanced but important aspects of professional development in international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nationally representative human biomonitoring data on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including organochlorine pesticides (OCs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are available through the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). We have used a systematic approach building on the reference interval concept proposed by the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to derive human biomonitoring reference values (RV95s) for selected POPs in blood plasma in the general Canadian population. Biomarkers were chosen based on specific selection criteria including their detection in most Canadians (>66% detection rate). Age and sex were evaluated as possible partitioning criteria and separate RV95s were derived for the sub-populations in cases where partitioning was deemed necessary. RV95s for OCs, PCBs, and BFRs were derived both on a whole weight of blood plasma and on a lipid weight adjusted basis whereas they were derived only on a whole weight basis for PFASs. RV95s ranged from 0.018μg/L (PCB 201) to 21μg/L (perfluorooctane sulfonate) and from 3.1μg/kg lipid (PCB 201) to 1400μg/kg lipid (p,p'-DDE). The 22 RV95s reported in this paper represent the first set of reference values for POPs in the Canadian general population against which individual and population human biomonitoring data may be compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is some statistical evidence indicating that Somali refugees and immigrants have high rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Somalis in North America call autism the “Western disease” because there is no word for autism in the Somali language and because many believe it does not exist in Somalia. In Toronto, Somali parents have forged an “epistemic community,” united around a coherent theory of the development of autism, its defining features, and most successful therapies. They work together with researchers to support the theory that gut bacteria is a causal factor for the development of autism. They argue that it is the diet and medical environment in North America (including the use of preservatives, genetically-modified processing, and antibiotics in both health care and food production) that explains the high rates of autism within the Somali diaspora. The paper argues that race and nationality have been underexplored in theories of embodied health movements. I argue that Somali parents' organizing pushes theories of health social movements in new directions, by suggesting that experiences of forced migration and racial exclusion, as well as non-Western cultural ontologies of health, are important for understanding embodied experiences of illness and the forging of “politicized collective illness identities” that challenge mainstream scientific understandings of autism. As such, Somalis' race and nationality play key roles in their pathways to group construction, in their embodied experiences of illness, and in their resources for mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the feeling of lost control of the body that so many women experience through pregnancy and the postpartum period – why they feel it and how they interpret that feeling – and women's responses to the sense of lost control. For the 63 Canadian women we interviewed, the sense of lost control was related to the degree they felt their bodies changed and the number of physical problems they experienced while pregnant. Many women's references to “luck” as the cause of body changes and problems experienced underscored how little control they felt they had when they were pregnant. At the same time, women felt responsible for the well-being of their babies, and thus experienced guilt about their unruly bodies. Careful attention to diet helped some women, but not others, regain some sense of control; women with past experience of pregnancy who “gave in” to body change were more sanguine. In the postpartum period, body work (especially exercise) functioned to increase women's sense of control, but a variety of motives led them to do this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fossil fuel-driven transport sector has been one of the major contributors to CO 2 emission across the world keeping it on the energy policy agenda for the past three decades. Canada ranks second in gasoline consumption among OECD countries and Canadian gasoline expenditure share has been increasing since the 1990s. Fuel efficiency policies aim to decrease gasoline consumption; however, the effect can be mitigated by changes in consumer behavior such as traveling more distances — a rebound effect. Thus, the effectiveness of fuel efficiency policy is dependent on the magnitude of the rebound effect. In this paper, we estimate the rebound effect for personal transportation in Canada using data from the household spending survey for the period 1997–2009. The model includes a system of expenditure share equations for gasoline, other energy goods, and non-energy goods specified by AIDS and QUAIDS models and estimated by the nonlinear SUR method. Our estimation results show a rather high average rebound effect of 82–88% but with significant heterogeneity across income groups, provinces, and gasoline prices. Specifically, the rebound effect ranges from 63 to 96% across income groups and provinces and increases with gasoline prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injury is the leading cause of death for Canadians aged 1 to 44, occurring disproportionately across regions and communities. In the Inuit territory of Nunavut, for instance, unintentional injury rates are over three times the Canadian average. In this paper, we develop a framework for assessing vulnerability to injury and use it to identify and characterize the determinants of injuries on the land in Nunavut. We specifically examine unintentional injuries on the land (outside of hamlets) because of the importance of land-based activities to Inuit culture, health, and well-being. Semi-structured interviews (n = 45) were conducted in three communities that have varying rates of search and rescue (SAR), complemented by an analysis of SAR case data for the territory. We found that risk of land-based injuries is affected by socioeconomic status, Inuit traditional knowledge, community organizations, and territorial and national policies. Notably, by moving beyond common conceptualizations of unintentional injury, we are able to better assess root causes of unintentional injury and outline paths for prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The act of problem formation is integral to the policymaking process. Moreover, the process by which certain situations, experiences or events are rendered problematic hinges upon the places, spaces and networks through which the issue is made visible and intelligible to policy makers and decision makers. In this paper, we explore these epistemic geographies by unpacking one such example – the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s At Home/Chez Soi study – a federally funded, $110 million field trial of the Housing First (HF) model. HF prioritizes rapid rehousing of the chronically homeless, followed by separate support and treatment services. The model has become widespread in Canada since 2005, based in large part on understandings of its cost-effectiveness. In this article, we utilize At Home/Chez Soi as an illustrative case for examining how ‘chronic homelessness’ is translated into a discourse of costs and benefits, and given an accounting value, through a series of translations. This problematization advances a particular logic – what we refer to as ‘bedspace’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, Castleden and colleagues published a paper in this journal using the concept of 'place' as an analytic tool to understand the nature of palliative care provision in a rural region in British Columbia, Canada. This publication was based upon pilot data collected for a larger research project that has since been completed. With the addition of 40 semi-structured interviews with users and providers of palliative care in four other rural communities located across Canada, we revisit Castleden and colleagues' (2010) original framework. Applying the concept of place to the full dataset confirmed the previously published findings, but also revealed two new place-based dimensions related to experiences of rural palliative care in Canada: (1) borders and boundaries; and (2) 'making' place for palliative care progress. These new findings offer a refined understanding of the complex interconnections between various dimensions of place and palliative care in rural Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale Living with a chronic illness poses many challenges, especially during the adolescent stage of development. Few studies have explored young people’s experiences of talking about their illness and how they go about deciding if and when they should tell others about their condition. Objective Our study sought the perspectives of Canadian children and adolescents living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to determine how they go about deciding if and when to tell others about their illness. Methods Twenty-five participants with IBD, ranging in age from 10 to 17 years old, were interviewed about their experiences. Results Our participants highlighted that they generally preferred to conceal their illness. However, when they did disclose, they drew on a diverse range of contextual factors such as their knowledge of the illness as well as the severity of their illness, to make the decision. They also highlighted that one of the main challenges they experience is dealing with negative reactions to the news of their illness. This paper presents a decision-making model describing how children decide whether to disclose or conceal their IBD. Conclusion Our study illustrates that for children and adolescents, managing others’ knowledge about their illness has important implications for illness identity management. We argue that knowledge of how children with IBD make disclosure decisions is an important part of understanding the social experience of having IBD, and in creating environments that allow them to adapt to life with IBD. Our study clearly highlights the need for specific programs to be implemented to normalize IBD and to create supportive environments for children and adolescents diagnosed with IBD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research suggests that racial inequalities in health vary in magnitude across societies. This paper uses the largest nationally representative samples available to compare racial inequalities in health in the United States and Canada. Data were obtained from ten waves of the National Health Interview Survey (n = 162,271,885) and the Canadian Community Health Survey (n = 19,906,131) from 2000 to 2010. We estimated crude and adjusted odds ratios, and risk differences across racial groups for a range of health outcomes in each country. Patterns of racial health inequalities differed across the United States and Canada. After adjusting for covariates, black-white and Hispanic-white inequalities were relatively larger in the United States, while aboriginal-white inequalities were larger in Canada. In both countries, socioeconomic factors did not explain inequalities across racial groups to the same extent. In conclusion, while racial inequalities in health exist in both the United States and Canada, the magnitudes of these inequalities as well as the racial groups affected by them, differ considerably across the two countries. This suggests that the relationship between race and health varies as a function of the societal context in which it operates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the core primary care reform initiatives seen across provinces in Canada is the introduction of inter-professional primary healthcare teams in which family physicians are encouraged to collaborate with other health professionals. Although a higher proportion of physicians are collaborating with various health professionals now compared to the previous decade, a substantial number of physicians still do not work in a collaborative setting. The objective of this paper is to examine the age, period and cohort effects of Canadian family physicians’ decisions to collaborate with seven types of health professionals: specialists, nurse practitioners, nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists, psychologists and occupational therapists. To this end, this paper employs a multivariate probit model consisting of seven equations and a cross-classified fixed-effects strategy to explain the collaborative decisions of family physicians. Utilizing three cross-sectional physician surveys from Canada over the 2001–2007 period, cohorts are defined over five-year intervals according to their year of graduation from medical school. We find that newer cohorts of physicians are more likely to collaborate with dieticians, physiotherapists, psychologists and occupational therapists; newer female cohorts are more likely to collaborate with nurses while newer male cohorts are less likely to collaborate with nurses but more likely to collaborate with specialists. Older physicians are more likely to collaborate with specialists, physiotherapists, psychologists, and occupational therapists; the age effect for nurses is U-shaped for male physicians while it is inverse U-shaped for females. Family physicians are collaborating more with all seven health professionals in 2004 and 2007 compared to 2001. Belonging to a group practice has a largely positive influence on collaborations; and being paid by a fee-for-service remuneration scheme exerts a negative influence on collaboration, ceteris paribus. The findings suggest that combining a non-fee-for-service remuneration arrangement with a group practice structure would facilitate effective collaboration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to identify the indicators that are currently disclosed in corporate sustainability reports. Canada is used as a case study in the paper. The indicators were identified based on a content analysis of 94 Canadian reports from 2008. The findings show that a total of 585 different indicators were used in the reports. Differences in the use of indicators between sectors were described. The use of indicators suggested by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was also investigated. It was found that 31 of the 94 reports included indicators explicitly identified as GRI indicators. The most reported GRI indicators appeared in 28 of the reports, while the least reported indicators appeared in 5 of the reports. This paper provides one of the first in-depth reviews of the indicators used in corporate sustainability reports. It is anticipated that the results will be of interest to practitioners and academics in corporate sustainability reporting and sustainability indicators. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper reports on a qualitative study examining everyday practices of healthy living (HL). Forty-four semi-structured interviews were undertaken with Canadian and UK citizens, aged 45 – 70, in April–May 2010. The research sits within the now substantial literature concerned with how health information is mediated, both by people and technologies, and employed in the context of ‘good’ health citizenship. Throughout this work, notions of ‘choice’ and ‘empowerment’ have been interrogated, theoretically and empirically, to reveal both the knowledge/power relationships integral to ‘informing’ processes and the shifting relationship between information and care in contemporary health encounters. In this paper, we analyse how people make sense of what it means to live healthily and how they know if they are doing so by focussing on three ways in which study participants become informed about healthy living: through their engagement with universal HL messages, through their own information searches, and through their attempts to measure their ‘healthiness’. Following critique of the “logic of choice” in contemporary healthcare, we understand healthy living as a “situation of choice” where complex problems are framed as simple matters of choice and where information and technologies are understood as neutral aids to decision-making in support of ‘correct’ choices. Our analysis builds on and extends Mol’s work by exploring how participants negotiate between this “logic of choice” and her alternative “logic of care” in their accounts of everyday HL informing practices and how the two logics “interfere” with one another. These accounts show resistance to the logic of choice through ‘calls for care’ but they also show clearly how the disciplining logic of choice works to (re)present such calls for care as failed attempts at healthy living, undermining the very practices the logic of choice seeks to encourage. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the provision of mobility options being one of the important policy areas vital to addressing transportation accessibility of the elderly. A provincial analysis, taking the case of the Province of Ontario in Canada, is warranted given that the country’s highly decentralized system puts provincial policies at the forefront in meeting this challenge. The paper evaluates the important progress made in this policy area and stressed the need to go beyond the traditional policy focus on the less able-bodied elderly and consider the increased heterogeneity of the elderly population with respect to lifestyle, preferences, resources, health and physical abilities. While significant efforts have been made, a more explicit recognition of population aging in Ontario’s transport policy motivation that could strongly influence transport strategies and investments attuned to the mobility concerns in an aging society remains to be seen. The paper summarizes the general concerns in the literature, policy developments, and the challenges in crafting solutions in terms of policy and research for Ontario and other regions with similar institutional setup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]