Search

Background: There is evidence of the benefits of integrated knowledge translation (IKT), yet there is limited research outlining the purpose of a knowledge broker (KB) within this approach. The Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit (MSSU) acts as a KB to support patient-oriented research across the Maritime provinces in Canada. The "Bridge Process" was developed by the Nova Scotia (NS) site as a strategy that involves work leading up to and following the Bridge Event. The process supports research addressing priority health topics discussed at the event by stakeholder groups. The objectives of this paper were to (1) describe the outputs/outcomes of this IKT approach; and (2) examine the role of the KB. Methods: Quantitative data were collected from registration and evaluation surveys. Outputs are described with descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were collected through evaluation surveys and internal documents. Data related to KB tasks were categorized into three domains: (1) Knowledge Manager, (2) Linkage and Exchange Agent, and (3) Capacity Developer. Results: The Bridge Process was implemented four times. A total of 314 participants including government, health, patient/citizen, community, and research personnel attended the events. We identified 24 priority topics, with 7 led by teams receiving support to complete related projects. Participants reported improved understanding of the research gaps and policy needs and engaged with individuals they would not have otherwise. Although patients/citizens attended each Bridge Event, only 61% of participants who completed an evaluation survey indicated that they were 'actively engaged in group discussion.' The KB's role was identified in all three domains including Knowledge Manager (eg, defining questions), Linkage and Exchange Agent (eg, engaging stakeholders), and Capacity Builder (eg, research interpretation). Conclusion: The MSSU facilitated an IKT approach by acting as a KB throughout the Bridge Process. This deliberative and sequential process served as an effective strategy to increase collaborative health research in the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. This paper will explore the social history of the transnational migration of foreign-trained doctors to western countries in the post-WWII era, by examining, as a case study, South Asian-trained doctors who were first licensed in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia between 1961 and 1971.Design. This article draws on both quantitative and qualitative primary sources. First, we analyzed the 1966 and 1971 copies of the Canadian Medical Directories (CMD), the annual compendium of all licensed practitioners in the country (over 20,000 practitioners). These CMD entries were supplemented by the annual returns of ‘intended occupation’ (those designated as ‘physician’ or ‘surgeon’) of landed immigrants to Canada, as compiled by the federal Department of Manpower and Immigration. Secondly, we analyzed testimony of 26 oral histories and narrative accounts of foreign-trained doctors being compiled as part of an ongoing multiyear program of research on the immigration of foreign-trained doctors to Canada. We have interviewed 14 doctors who, at one point in their career, practiced in Nova Scotia, 8 of whom were South Asian-trained medical practitioners. These oral interviews provide personal reflections on the process of professional and social acculturation that occurred as these foreign doctors settled in Canada.Results.The results of this paper indicate that the social history of the immigration of South Asian-trained doctors to Canada in the 1960s must be seen within a larger and more complicated pattern of the international migration of health care professionals. Indeed, the demand for foreign-trained doctors in Britain was in part a reflection of the out-migration of British-born doctors who were leaving the National Health Service for Canada, the USA, and Australia. And the demand in Canada for doctors was itself a reaction to the drift of a certain number of Canadian-trained doctors for advanced training in the USA.Conclusions. In this way, this article sheds important historical perspectives on the globalization of health human resources and the complicated, multiple migrations that continue to animate international health human resources today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies have found that public opinion influences policy outcomes. However, the question of whether some groups have more influence than others has received very little attention in empirical work, despite its theoretical significance. This study will represent a first step in addressing this issue. Specifically, it considers three hypotheses: (1) the opinions of highly educated people will have more influence than those of less educated people, (2) The opinions of rural dwellers will have less influence than those of urbanites, and (3) The opinions of visible minority groups will have less influence than those of mainstream (whites). The paper uses a different strategy to the majority of previous studies on the influence of public opinion on policy in which measures of policy are regressed on a measure of public opinion and appropriate control variables. Instead, it employs qualitative document analysis of transcripts of face-to-face consultations as well as written submissions on the issue of bringing to balance the fiscal deficit in Nova Scotia. I find fairly strong support for the hypothesis that the opinions of educated people have more influence, as well as stronger support for the hypothesis that the opinions of urban dwellers will have more influence on the policy than those of the rural dwellers. However, there was no support for the hypothesis that the opinions of visible minority groups will have less influence than those of mainstream (whites). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the legalization and marketing of recreational cannabis in Canada, specifically the province of Nova Scotia, that has extended state monopoly over sales. Beginning with Howard Becker's classic analysis of "becoming a marijuana user," this ethnographic investigation of the first day of state cannabis sales utilizes and extends Bourdieusian analyses, particularly by showing how "symbolic violence" and "taste distinctions" work beyond overt class reproduction to establish state classifications and rituals. The practices we observe show state formation in action at the point of sale, including education, warning, prohibition, and promotion. As we demonstrate, the state marketing of cannabis works to invite emotional identification toward becoming the state consumer as an embodied habitus. The citizen is not just redeemed morally by the legal recategorization of cannabis but brought into a new subject position as good consumer citizen at the moment of ritual consumption, that is, brought into a "tasteful state." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the eighteenth and early-to-mid-nineteenth centuries the Irish, who moved throughout the British Empire, helped to build the social, political and economic structures that would enable the success of countless colonial settlements. They were merchants, traders, fishers and labourers, and a significant proportion of them were Catholic. While many would go on to play pivotal roles in the development of Catholicism in the colonies, the Irish were not alone and often joined or were joined by other Catholic groups such as the French, Spanish and Scottish Highlanders. That the Irish achieved greater political and economic success, though, had a knock-on effect for the other Catholic groups could then use the foundation that the Irish established for their own progress and development. This article considers the place of Catholics on Britain’s expanding colonial landscapes by examining the political awakening of Irish Catholics in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, two of Britain’s north Atlantic colonies, between 1780 and 1830. These two colonies, like many others, witnessed the growth of an Irish Catholic laity that was ambitious, pragmatic and adept at using the political structures available to reframe their legal status. The election of Laurence Kavanagh, a second-generation Irish Catholic merchant from a tiny fishing outpost on Cape Breton Island, to Nova Scotia’s legislative assembly in 1820, is offered as an example of how this process actually worked on the ground and opens up a broader discussion about the importance of minority populations like Catholics to Britain’s imperial programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on current knowledge of the ecology and distribution of Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina), both in eastern Canada and elsewhere, we conclude this species is native to Cape Breton Island. Seventy-two reports of Snapping Turtle from Cape Breton (1999-2017) indicate a range centred in the area south of Bras d'Or Lake. Date of oviposition ranged from 19 June to 10 July (median = 26 June) among 26 nests observed during 2012-2014. Clutch size for these nests was 23-65 eggs (mean = 46) and among 25 protected nests average rate of hatchling emergence was 21.5%. Time from oviposition to emergence of hatchlings (n = 256) was 75-120 days (mean = 87.2; SD = 9.0) among 20 nests. First emergence ranged from 9 September to 20 October (75-114 nest days; mean = 90) and last emergence ranged ftom 13 September to 28 October (86-120 nest days; mean = 100). Duration of emergence ranged from one day (i.e., synchronous emergence; five nests) to 37 days (mean = 11 days). The number of days on which hatchlings emerged at a nest ranged from one to nine days (mean = 4 days). Maximum carapace length was 25.0-31.8 mm (mean = 29.0 mm) and maximum carapace width was 23.5-30.0 mm (mean = 27.0 mm) for 256 hatchlings that emerged from 20 protected nests. Mass of hatchlings was 4.9-9.9 g (mean = 7.8 g). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, an amelanistic Eastern Red-backed Salamander, Plethodon cinereus, was discovered in Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is the second amelanistic Eastern Red-backed Salamander that has been documented from the Halifax area. Albino and leucistic individuals have also been identified from Nova Scotia. These aberrant conditions, including the two amelanistic individals, were discovered in isolated, fragmented, and disturbed habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A radiocarbon 14 C chronology determined for plant macrofossils in exposed salt-marsh sediments at Amherst Point, Nova Scotia, Canada, shows that the edge of the high salt marsh aggraded 7.5 m since 900 bc, equivalent to a mean rate of 25.9 cm 100 yr -1 . Four phases of rapid aggradation (900–600 bc, 100 bc– ad 200, ad 700–1100, and ad 1600 to present) were interspersed with three phases of slower aggradation (600– 100 bc, ad 200–700, and (tentatively) ad 1100–1600). The stepped pattern of marsh aggradation probably resulted from eustatic sea-level fluctuations superimposed on background signals of crustal subsidence and tidal-range expansion. Because the rate of high salt-marsh aggradation lagged or exceeded the rate of higher high water (HHW) increase at various times, the high salt-marsh aggradation trend only approximates the trend of HHW increase. The eustatic sea-level fluctuations are estimated to have a range of at least 0.8 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]