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This paper overviews our recent results of energy market modeling, including The option pricing formula for a mean-reversion asset, variance and volatility swaps on energy markets, applications of weather derivatives on energy markets, pricing crude oil options using the Lévy processes, energy contracts modeling with delayed and jumped volatilities, applications of mean-reverting processes on Alberta energy markets, and alternatives to the Black-76 model for options valuation of futures contracts. We will also consider the clean renewable energy prospective in Canada, and, in particular, in Alberta and Calgary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goal: This study aimed to examine provincial differences in patient spending for cancer care and reductions in household spending including decisions to forego care in Canada. Methods: Nine-hundred and one patients with cancer, from twenty cancer centers across Canada, completed a self-administered questionnaire (P-SAFE version 7.2.4) (344 breast, 183 colorectal, 158 lung, and 216 prostate) measuring direct and indirect costs and spending changes. Results: Provincial variations showed a high mean out-of-pocket cost (OOPC) of CAD 938 (Alberta) and a low of CAD 280 (Manitoba). Differences were influenced by age and income. Income loss was highest for Alberta (CAD 2399) and lowest for Manitoba (CAD 1126). Travel costs were highest for Alberta (CAD 294) and lowest for British Columbia (CAD 67). Parking costs were highest for Ontario (CAD 103) and lowest for Manitoba (CAD 53). A total of 41% of patients reported reducing spending, but this increased to 52% for families earning

Minimal Canadian data are available on the RAS testing rates, treatment patterns, and corresponding overall survival (OS) in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients. We conducted a population-based cohort study of left-sided RAS wild-type (WT) mCRC patients diagnosed between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2019, and who were treated with first-line (1L) chemotherapy plus the epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor panitumumab, chemotherapy plus bevacizumab, or chemotherapy alone, in Alberta, Canada, using electronic medical records and administrative health system data. Of the 2721 patients identified with left-sided mCRC, 320 patients with RAS WT mCRC were treated with 1L systemic therapy: chemotherapy plus panitumumab (n = 64), chemotherapy plus bevacizumab (n = 52), or chemotherapy alone (n = 204). Only 65% and 39% of the 320 1L-treated patients initiated second- and third-line therapy, respectively. A total of 71% of individuals with treated left-sided mCRC underwent RAS testing. The median OS for mCRC patients with RAS WT left-sided tumours was higher for patients treated with 1L panitumumab plus chemotherapy (34.3 months; 95% CI: 23.8–39.6) than for patients who received 1L chemotherapy alone (30.0 months; 95% CI: 24.9–34.1) or 1L bevacizumab plus chemotherapy (25.6 months; 95% CI: 21.2–35.7). These findings highlight an unmet need in left-sided RAS WT mCRC, with relatively few individuals receiving a biologic agent in combination with chemotherapy in the 1L setting, a high rate of attrition between lines, and a need for increased RAS testing before treatment initiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Snow gone" (SGN) stage is one of the critical variables that describe the start of the official forest fire season in the Canadian Province of Alberta. In this paper, our objective is to evaluate the potential of MODIS-based indices for determining the SGN stage. Those included: (i) enhanced vegetation index (EVI), (ii) normalized difference water index (NDWI) using the shortwave infrared (SWIR) spectral bands centered at 1.64 μm (NDWI1.64μm) and at 2.13 μm (NDWI2.13μm), and (iii) normalized difference snow index (NDSI). These were calculated using the 500 m 8-day gridded MODIS-based composites of surface reflectance data (i.e., MOD09A1 v.005) for the period 2006-08. We performed a qualitative evaluation of these indices over two forest fire prone natural subregions in Alberta (i.e., central mixedwood and lower boreal highlands). In the process, we generated and compared the natural subregion-specific lookout tower sites average: (i) temporal trends for each of the indices, and (ii) SGN stage using the ground-based observations available from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. The EVI-values were found to have large uncertainty at the onset of the spring and unable to predict the SGN stages precisely. In terms of NDSI, it showed earlier prediction capabilities. On the contrary, both of the NDWI's showed distinct pattern (i.e., reached a minimum value before started to increase again during the spring) in relation to observed SGN stages. Thus further analysis was carried out to determine the best predictor by comparing the NDWI's predicted SGN stages with the ground-based observations at all of the individual lookout tower sites (approximately 120 in total) across the study area. It revealed that NDWI2.13μm demonstrated better prediction capabilities (i.e., on an average approximately 90% of the observations fell within ±2 periods or ±16 days of deviation) in comparison to NDWI1.64μm (i.e., on an average approximately 73% of the observations fell within ±2 periods or ±16 days of deviation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial control charts are used in manufacturing to quickly and robustly indicate the status of production and to prompt any necessary corrective actions. The library of tools available for these tasks has grown over time and many have been used in other disciplines with similar objectives, including environmental monitoring. While the utility of control charts in environmental monitoring has been recognized, and the tools have already been used in many individual studies, they may be underutilized in some types of programs. For example, control charts may be especially useful for reporting and evaluating data from regional surveillance monitoring programs, but they are not yet routinely used. The purpose of this study was to promote the use of control charts in regional environmental monitoring by surveying the literature for control charting techniques suitable for the various types of data available from large programs measuring multiple indicators at multiple locations across various physical environments. Example datasets were obtained for Canada's Oil Sands Region, including water quality, air quality, facility production and performance, and bird communities, and were analyzed using univariate (e.g., x-bar) and multivariate (e.g., Hotelling's T2) control charts. The control charts indicated multiple instances of unexpected observations and highlighted subtle patterns in all of the example data. While control charts are not uniquely able to identify potentially relevant patterns in data and can be challenging to apply in some monitoring analyses, this work emphasizes the broad utility of the tools for straightforwardly presenting the results from standardized and routine surveillance monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil contains a diverse fauna and microflora that are vital for maintaining healthy soils and their various ecosystem services. Oribatid mites are typically highly abundant arthropods in the soil and are used as indicators for environmental monitoring. The aim of this study was to determine oribatid mite community response to natural land cover, anthropogenic disturbance, space, and climate in the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada. Our results found that oribatid mite total abundance was significantly reduced by mining, cultivation, and well sites. Species richness was significantly reduced by mining and cultivation. Shannon's diversity index was significantly higher for all natural land cover types, seismic lines, and forest harvest. Additionally, species diversity was lower under the relative influence of energy-related soft linear disturbances than for naturally vegetated sites and forest harvesting, and was lowered further by anthropogenic disturbances with more impact on soil integrity (cultivation, mines, urban/industrial, road/trail verges, well sites). Abundance, richness, and diversity also increased with increased frost free period and with eastward longitude. Mite community composition included a notable composition difference between lowland habitats and upland forest types, and between natural land cover and intense anthropogenic disturbance types (e.g., mines, cultivation). Our study highlighted oribatid mite communities' response to natural land cover, anthropogenic disturbance and spatial–climatic factors assessed over broad spatial scales and the potential utility of oribatid mites as ecosystem health indicators under multiple ecological drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having a complete hydrological time series is crucial for water-resources management and modeling. However, this can pose a challenge in data-scarce environments where data gaps are widespread. In such situations, recurring data gaps can lead to unfavorable outcomes such as loss of critical information, ineffective model calibration, inaccurate timing of peak flows, and biased statistical analysis in various applications. Despite its importance, predicting monthly streamflow can be a complex task due to its connection to random dynamics and uncertain phenomena, posing significant challenges. This study introduces an ensemble machine-learning regression framework for modeling and predicting monthly streamflow time series with a high degree of accuracy. The framework utilizes historical data from multiple monthly streamflow datasets in the same region to predict missing monthly streamflow data. The framework selects the best features from all available gap-free monthly streamflow time-series combinations and identifies the optimal model from a pool of 12 machine-learning models, including random forest regression, gradient boosting regression, and extra trees regressor, among others. The model selection is based on cross-validation train-and-test set scores, as well as the coefficient of determination. We conducted modeling on 26 monthly streamflow time series and found that the gradient boosting regressor with bagging regressor produced the highest accuracy in 7 of the 26 instances. Across all instances, the models using this method exhibited an overall accuracy range of 0.9737 to 0.9968. Additionally, the use of either a bagging regressor or an AdaBoost regressor improved both the tree-based and gradient-based models, resulting in these methods accounting for nearly 80% of the best models. Between January 1960 and December 2021, an average of 40% of the monthly streamflow data was missing for each of the 26 stations. Notably, two crucial stations located in the economically significant lower Athabasca Basin River in Alberta province, Canada, had approximately 70% of their monthly streamflow data missing. To address this issue, we employed our framework to accurately extend the missing data for all 26 stations. These accurate extensions also allow for further analysis, including grouping stations with similar monthly streamflow behavior using Pearson correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blackleg, caused by Leptosphaeria maculans, is an important disease of canola (Brassica napus). The pathogen can attack stems, leaves and pods, but basal stem cankers are most damaging and can result in significant yield losses. In Canada, Verticillium stripe (Verticillium longisporum) has recently emerged as another disease threat to canola. Symptoms of Verticillium stripe can resemble those of blackleg, and the two diseases may occur together. The effect of blackleg on yield was explored in field experiments with two canola hybrids and by evaluating a wider variety of hybrids in commercial crops in central Alberta, Canada. The impact on yield of L. maculans/V. longisporum interactions was also assessed under field and greenhouse conditions. In most hybrids, the relationship between blackleg severity and yield components was best explained by second-degree quadratic equations, although a linear relationship was found for one variety sampled in commercial fields. When L. maculans was co-inoculated with V. longisporum, blackleg severity and yield losses increased. In some cases, Verticillium stripe caused greater yield losses than blackleg. The results suggest that the interaction between L. maculans/V. longisporum may cause more severe losses in canola, highlighting the need for proactive disease management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Alberta increases conventional solar power generation, land-use conflicts with agriculture increase. A solution that enables low-carbon electricity generation and continued (in some cases, increased) agricultural output is the co-locating of solar photovoltaics (PV) and agriculture: agrivoltaics. This review analyzes policies that impact the growth of agrivoltaics in Alberta. Solar PV-based electricity generation is governed by three regulations based on system capacity. In addition, agrivoltaics falls under various legislations, frameworks, and guidelines for land utilization. These include the Land Use Framework, Alberta Land Stewardship Act, Municipal Government Act, Special Areas Disposition, Bill 22, and other policies, which are reviewed in the agrivoltaics context. Several policies are recommended to support the rapid deployment of agrivoltaics. Openly accessible agrivoltaics research will help optimize agrivoltaic systems for the region, and can be coupled with public education to galvanize social acceptability of large-scale PV deployment. Clearly defining and categorizing agrivoltaics technology, developing agrivoltaics standards, making agrivoltaics technology-friendly regulations and frameworks, and developing programs and policies to incentivize agrivoltaics deployment over conventional PV will all accelerate the technology's deployment. Through these measures, Alberta can achieve conservation and sustainability in the food and energy sectors while simultaneously addressing their renewable energy and climate-related goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crossfield is located in the province of Alberta in Canada and is one of the most well-known reservoirs of hydrocarbons. Since the 1950s, there has been continuous exploitation of more than 10 formations such as Cardium, Viking, Ellerslie, Elkton, Shunda, and Wabamun. Because of its location near the Foothills, the southwestern part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, the Crossfield area has a complex geology and relatively deeper reservoirs, therefore requiring an in-depth examination of each formation. In this study, geological, technical, and economic analyses were performed on each formation within the 10 sections of the study lands in the Crossfield area. As the result of the study, there was potential for drilling 48 horizontal wells in the Cardium A zone and the Viking formation. In addition, it turned out to be economically feasible even at the WTI price of 60 dollars per barrel considering Alberta's Royalty Framework, which is determined by the production rate and the price of oil, and the Horizontal Oil New Well Royalty Rate feature. A further study is required to investigate the exploitation potential of the Cardium B zone, the Ellerslie, and the Elkton formations in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effect of inclement weather conditions on the travel demand for three classes of vehicles for a primary highway in the province of Alberta, Canada. The demand variables are passenger cars, trucks, and total traffic. It is well known from previous studies that adverse weather conditions such as low temperatures and heavy snowfall cause variation in traffic flow patterns. A winter weather model, based on the dummy variable regression model, was developed to quantify the variations in traffic volume due to snowfall and temperature changes. To establish the relationships, vehicular data was collected from six weigh-in-motion (WIM) sites, and the weather data associated with the WIM sites was collected from nearby weather stations. The study revealed that the variation in truck traffic, due to inclement weather conditions, was insignificant compared to variation in passenger car traffic. This study also investigated the temporal transferability of the developed winter weather model to test if a model can be applied irrespective of the time when it was developed. In addition, an attempt was made to check if the model coefficients could be optimized differently for different classes of traffic for estimating correct traffic variations. To evaluate transferability, the performance of both dummy variable regression and naive (without dummy variables) models was investigated. The results revealed that the dummy variable regression models show better performance for passenger car traffic and total traffic and naive winter weather models give better results for truck traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: In this article, we report on action research in the Canadian province of Alberta, based on forging alliances with officers who enforce federal, provincial, and municipal legislation involving animals. Some of these officers worked in rural areas, and others worked in urban areas. Some mainly enforced Alberta's Animal Protection Act, while a few specialized in enforcing Canada's Criminal Code. For the most part, however, participating officers had a mandate to enforce animal-related local bylaws. Such ordinances or rulebooks exist because Alberta's Municipal Government Act allows local councils to enact legislation regarding domestic and wild animals, particularly as regards people's health, property, safety, and welfare. Many professionals refer to policies such as these, which are deeply rooted in the western legal tradition, such as "animal control." Our findings illuminate how animal-control policies and personnel can help to protect domesticated animals, not just people. Even so, our research highlights that animal-control policies as well as animal-protection policies routinely fail to protect officers who enforce legislation involving animals. Furthermore, whenever officers who enforce legislation involving animals work in unsafe conditions, this endangers human as well as non-human lives. Across Canada and internationally, laws exist to protect animals and to stop them from becoming public nuisances and threats. The work of officers who enforce local bylaws protects both domestic animals and humans. Despite the importance of this work, research in this area is emergent, but growing. We conducted research with officers mandated to enforce legislation involving animals, with a focus on local bylaw enforcement in the province of Alberta, Canada, which includes the city of Calgary. Some experts regard Calgary as a "model city" for inter-agency collaboration. Based on partnerships with front-line officers, managers, and professional associations in a qualitative multiple-case study, this action-research project evolved towards advocacy for occupational health and safety. Participating officers spoke about the societal benefits of their work with pride, and they presented multiple examples to illustrate how local bylaw enforcement contributes to public safety and community wellbeing. Alarmingly, however, these officers consistently reported resource inadequacies, communication and information gaps, and a culture of normalized disrespect. These findings connect to the concept of "medico-legal borderlands," which became central to this study. As this project unfolded, we seized upon opportunities to improve the officers' working conditions, including the potential of relational coordination to promote the best practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restoring anthropogenic footprints to pre-disturbance conditions or minimizing their long-term impacts is an important goal in conservation. Many footprints, particularly if left alone, have wide-ranging effects on biodiversity. In Canada, energy exploration footprints result in forest dissection and fragmentation contributing to declines in woodland caribou. Developing cost effective strategies to restore forests and thus conserving the woodland caribou habitat is a conservation priority. In this study, we compared the effects of wildfire and local variation in the amount of residual woody debris on natural regeneration in jack pine on exploratory well pads in Alberta's boreal forest. Specifically, we investigated how footprint size, fire severity (overstory tree mortality), ground cover of fine and coarse woody debris, and adjacent stand characteristics (i.e., height, age, and cover), affected tree regeneration densities and height using negative binomial count and linear models (Gaussian), respectively. Regeneration density was 30% higher on exploratory well pads than adjacent forests, increased linearly with fire severity on the exploratory well pads (2.2% per 1% increase in fire severity), but non-linearly in adjacent forests (peaking at 51,000 stems/ha at 72% fire severity), and decreased with amount of woody debris on exploratory well pads (2.7% per 1% increase in woody debris cover). The height of regenerating trees on exploratory well pads decreased with fire severity (0.56 cm per 1% increase in fire severity) and was non-linearly related to coarse woody debris (peaking at 286 cm at 9.4% coarse woody debris cover). Heights of 3 and 5 m on exploratory well pads were predicted by 13- and 21-years post-fire, respectively. Our results demonstrate that wildfires can stimulate natural recovery of fire-adapted species, such as jack pine, on disturbances as large as exploratory well pads (500–1330 m2) and that the type and amount of woody debris affects these patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peatlands in the western boreal plains of Canada are important ecosystems as they store over two percent of global terrestrial carbon. However, in recent decades, many of these peatlands have been fragmented by access roads constructed for resource extraction and transportation, challenging their carbon storage potential. To investigate how roads have been impacting tree and shrub growth and productivity in these peatlands, this study was conducted in a forested bog and woody fen in Carmon Creek, Alberta, Canada. In 2017, vegetation surveys were conducted along 20 m transects that extended on both sides of the road with 4 m2 circular plots at 2, 6 and 20 m distance from the road and were followed by disc or core collection from woody stems. Within 20 m of the road at the bog site, we observed a shift towards significantly larger radial growth of trees in the downstream areas (t = 3.23, p = 0.006) where water table position was deeper, while at the fen site, radial growth of tall shrubs had little response to the road. Combining the effects of direct tree clearing and hydrology induced shifts in growth, aboveground net primary productivity (NPPag) post-road construction was reduced significantly in areas where vegetation was cleared during the road construction (i.e., upstream areas of the bog: t = 5.21, p < 0.0001 and downstream areas of the fen: t = 2.64, p = 0.07). Substantially lower NPPag around the road construction areas compared to reference areas shows tremendous loss of carbon sink potential of trees and shrubs after road construction through peatlands. Altogether, roads constructed through peatlands perpendicular to the water flow may shift long-term carbon sinks into sources of carbon, at least for the initial few years following road construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the reproductive success of a temperate dioecious shrub, Canada buffaloberry, Shepherdia canadensis (L.) Nutt., in central Alberta, Canada, by examining the effects of spatial patterns and overstory canopy on flower and fruit production. S. canadensis is more abundant and productive (more fruit) at forest edges and in forest gaps, suggesting a dependence on higher light conditions than is typical of late-seral forests. We used path analysis to demonstrate that flower and fruit production exhibited density-dependent effects at a scale of 50 m2 around focal female plants. Fruit production was positively affected by male intraspecific density (pollen supply) and negatively affected by female intraspecific density (pollen competition), but not correlated with overall intraspecific density. The effects of sex-differentiated density are partly due to pollinator responses to male plant density. Flower production was positively affected by overall intraspecific density. A pollen supplementation trial doubled fruit production relative to a control, demonstrating that local male density (pollen availability) and pollinator activity can limit fruit production in S. canadensis. Canopy cover was negatively related to both flower and total fruit production, with approximately one-third (34%) of the total effect of canopy on fruit production due to the effect of canopy on flower production. The commonly observed negative association between canopy cover and fruit production in buffaloberry, therefore, is partly a result of the reduction first in flower number and second in fruit set. This study clarifies the mechanisms associated with the often-noted observation, but not previously assessed at the level of individuals, that reproductive output in S. canadensis is density dependent, limited by canopy cover through reductions in both flowering and fruit set, and pollinator limited. These findings hold implications for managing animal species that depend on the fruit of S. canadensis and suggest future directions for research on dioecious and actinorhizal species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turbulent wakes trailing utility-scale wind turbines reduce the power production and efficiency of downstream turbines. Thorough understanding and modeling of these wakes is required to optimally design wind farms as well as control and predict their power production. While low-order, physics-based wake models are useful for qualitative physical understanding, they generally are unable to accurately predict the power production of utility-scale wind farms due to a large number of simplifying assumptions and neglected physics. In this study, we propose a suite of physics-informed statistical models to accurately predict the power production of arbitrary wind farm layouts. These models are trained and tested using five years of historical one-minute averaged operational data from the Summerview wind farm in Alberta, Canada. The trained models reduce the prediction error compared both to a physics-based wake model and a standard two-layer neural network. The trained parameters of the statistical models are visualized and interpreted in the context of the flow physics of turbulent wind turbine wakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coarse woody debris (CWD; large parts of dead trees) is a vital element of forest ecosystems, playing an important role in nutrient cycling, carbon storage, fire fuel, microhabitats, and overall forest structure. However, there is a lack of effective tools for identifying and mapping both standing (snags) and downed (logs) CWD in complex natural settings. We applied a random forest machine learning classifier to detect CWD in centimetric aerial imagery acquired over a 270-hectare study area in the boreal forest of Alberta, Canada. We used a geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) approach in the classification with spectral, spatial, and LiDAR (light detection and ranging)-derived height predictor variables. We found CWD to be detected with great accuracy (93.4 ± 4.2% completeness and 94.5 ± 3.2% correctness) when training samples were located within the application area, and with very good accuracy (84.2 ± 5.2% completeness and 92.2 ± 3.2% correctness) when training samples were located outside the application area. The addition of LiDAR-derived variables did not increase the accuracy of CWD detection overall (<2%), but aided significantly (p < 0.001) in the distinction between logs and snags. Foresters and researchers interested in CWD can take advantage of these novel methods to produce accurate maps of logs and snags, which will contribute to the understanding and management of forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, our aim was to model forest fire occurrences caused by lightning using the variable of vegetation water content over six fire-dominant forested natural subregions in Northern Alberta, Canada. We used eight-day composites of surface reflectance data at 500-m spatial resolution, along with historical lightning-caused fire occurrences during the 2005–2016 period, derived from a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. First, we calculated the normalized difference water index (NDWI) as an indicator of vegetation/fuel water content over the six natural subregions of interest. Then, we generated the subregion-specific annual dynamic median NDWI during the 2005–2012 period, which was assembled into a distinct pattern every year. We plotted the historical lightning-caused fires onto the generated patterns, and used the concept of cumulative frequency to model lightning-caused fire occurrences. Then, we applied this concept to model the cumulative frequencies of lightning-caused fires using the median NDWI values in each natural subregion. By finding the best subregion-specific function (i.e., R2 values over 0.98 for each subregion), we evaluated their performance using an independent subregion-specific lightning-caused fire dataset acquired during the 2013–2016 period. Our analyses revealed strong relationships (i.e., R2 values in the range of 0.92 to 0.98) between the observed and modeled cumulative frequencies of lightning-caused fires at the natural subregion level throughout the validation years. Finally, our results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method in modeling lightning-caused fire occurrences over forested regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boreal forest in Canada comprises a wide variety of ecosystems, including stabilized (overgrown) sand dunes, often referred to as sand hills. Globally, sandy soils are known for supporting a high diversity of invertebrates, including ants, but little is known for boreal systems. We used pitfall trap sampling in sand hill, aspen parkland and peatland ecosystems to compare their ant diversity and test the prediction that areas with sandy soils have higher invertebrate diversity compared to more mesic/organic soils. Overall, sand hills had ~45% more ant species compared to other sampled ecosystems from Alberta. Similar to other studies, local canopy cover within sand hills was found to be inversely related to ant species richness and diversity. Although sand hills are rare across the region, they are high biodiversity areas for ants, with the sand hills of north-central Alberta having higher species richness of ants compared to other studied areas in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging evidence shows that homelessness continues to be a chronic public health problem throughout Canada. The Bridge Healing Program has been proposed in Edmonton, Alberta, as a novel approach to combat homelessness by using hospital emergency departments (ED) as a gateway to temporary housing. Building on the ideas of Tiny Villages, the Bridge Healing Program provides residents with immediate temporary housing before transitioning them to permanent homes. This paper aims to understand effective strategies that underlie the Tiny Villages concept by analyzing six case studies and applying the lessons learned to improving the Bridge Healing Program. After looking at six Tiny Villages, we identified four common elements of many successful Tiny Villages. These include a strong community, public support, funding with few restrictions, and affordable housing options post-graduation. The Bridge Healing Program emphasizes such key elements by having a strong team, numerous services, and connections to permanent housing. Furthermore, the Bridge Healing Program is unique in its ability to reduce repeat ED visits, lengths of stay in the ED, and healthcare costs. Overall, the Bridge Healing Program exhibits many traits associated with successful Tiny Villages and has the potential to address a gap in our current healthcare system.