The WHO ranked physical inactivity as the fourth most important non-communicable disease in the world. It is of grave concern that fewer than 1 in 10 young Canadians are meeting health-related activity guidelines. The built environment (city design, transport network) may facilitate childrenâs and youthsâ physical activity, but intervention studies are needed to better inform public health policy and urban planning. I have the rare opportunity to address this gap in knowledge by capitalizing on our teamâs close partnership with the City of Vancouver to assess if planned adaptations along the Comox-Helmcken Greenway (downtown) will positively influence childrenâs and youthsâ physical activity.
Hypothesis: Children and youth attending schools in proximity to the Greenway will demonstrate a significant increase (or attenuation of age-related decline) in objectively measured physical activity (with a focus on active transport) compared with counterparts who reside elsewhere.
Specific objectives are to:
- Assess whether targeted changes to the built environment along the Greenway positively influence child and youth physical activity overall.
- Assess its impact on active transport.
- Explore how children, youth and their parents perceive and move within their neighbourhood, how closely perceptions are mirrored in objective assessments of the BE, and how barriers and facilitators to outdoor activity, active transport to school and other destinations conspire with intrapersonal and socio-cultural factors to influence behaviour.
For this natural experiment, I will utilize a non-equivalent control group design (intervention-vs. matched comparison schools). Building upon my successful pilot (Oct. â12), all measurements will be school- and class-based as preferred and approved by the Vancouver School Board (July 2012). Baseline assessments will be conducted in summer â13, and post-intervention assessments in summer â14 (depending on Cityâs timelines). I will use a variety of state-of-the art measurement and analyses tools, including: accelerometry and global positioning systems (when and where are children and youth active), Geographic Information Systems (ArcGIS, Esri; objective environment assessments), and a host of complimentary questionnaire data, including participant and parentsâ perceptions, as well as their own physical activity.
This project has the potential to influence urban planning toward mobility-friendly design for young people.
While limited research has documented the mental health status of transgender and gender variant youth, the available evidence suggests this is an extremely vulnerable group.
This project will document the mental health issues and related risk exposures of transgender and gender variant youth in Canada. It will also explorehow their home, school, and community environments contribute to mental health.
The National Canadian Trans Youth Survey will sample transgender and gender variant youth nationwide, recruited through service providers and social networks. Survey questions will assess a broad range of physical and mental health outcomes and related behaviours, primarily drawn from existing national, provincial, and international school-based adolescent health surveys. This will allow direct comparison of trans and gender-variant youths’ health and well-being to the rest of the population. Dr. Veale will lead the mental health component of the project. This will involve exploring the relationship between young people’s social environments and mental health, including school experiences, family supports, and exposure to discrimination or violence. With a focus on specific mental health issues such as emotional distress, self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, this research will identify both health inequities for trans and gender variant young people, as well as environments and experiences that contribute to mental health risk or resilience.
Analysis of all of these factors will identify potential intervention points for school and community strategies to improve the mental health and well-being of transgender and gender variant youth. The results will be taken back to the surveyed youth themselves, as well as academic audiences, education and public health stakeholders through a variety of knowledge-to-action strategies, and serves as the critical first step in developing policies and programs to promote the mental health of transgender youth.
Five million new cases of dementia are diagnosed every year worldwide. These diagnoses disrupt home environment patterns and relationships and cause repercussions on families. Accordingly, dementia caregivers experience higher stress than other groups and face diverse care demands. Existing literature suggests dementia presentation may impart different caregiver challenges: cognition in Alzheimer’s disease (AD); delusions in Dementia with Lewy Body (DLB); and neuropsychiatry in Parkinson’s disease associated dementia (PDD). Inconsistencies in studies comparing dementia caregivers make it difficult to draw clear conclusions. First, caregiver definitions are inconsistent. Second, caregiver well-being is under-represented. Third, disease pathology and associated-dependencies place differential demands on caregivers, which has yet to be examined in a comparative framework.
The proposed research will address this gap by comparing dementia-related symptoms that contribute to caregiver well-being[LL1] . The aim is to determine the unique profile of contributors to caregiver well-being in neurodegenerative diseases (i.e. AD, DLB, PDD) present with dementia[LL2] .
It is expected dementia presentations and associated factors will differentially impact caregiver well-being. Dr. Roland will administer questionnaires to evaluate well-being (life-satisfaction, depression), burden and coping in caregivers. Focus groups will bring together a range of dementia caregivers from three groups (AD, DLB, PDD) to explore group norms and diverse experiences. Subsequent interviews will further explore the issues pertinent to caregiver well-being. This novel research will identify the unique profile of caregiving factors within a comparative framework. This is important since different presentations of dementia have discrete long-term implications for caregiver psychosocial outcomes.
Relevant knowledge gained from Dr. Roland’s research will inform resources targeted to reduce stressors and support care needs
Studies reveal that transgender and gender non-conforming people experience pervasive and multiple forms of violence in numerous public and private places, suggesting they may be more vulnerable to violence across their lifespan than the general population.
This study will develop knowledge about the intersections between violence, gender identity/expression, place, and mental health in the lives of transgender and gender non-conforming people. It will investigate the strategies people use to prevent and resist violence and maintain their mental health. The study will also explore how different geographic contexts, gender discrimination, racism, and/or poverty undermine or enhance safety, belonging, resiliency, and mental health.
The proposed study will use Photovoice, a community-based participatory research method that combines photography, dialogue, and social action. The study will be conducted in two sites (Vancouver and the Okanagan Valley) in order to investigate similarities and differences between large and smaller cities. This research will include in-depth, semi-structured photo-elicitation interviews and focus groups where participants will discuss the meanings and stories portrayed in the photographs.
This research will provide an in-depth understanding of how the enforcement of gender norms impacts the mental health and well-being of Canadians. It will have broad implications for the development of best practices and protocols for trauma-informed and gender-sensitive services, health promotion, and violence prevention/intervention in marginalized communities.
A growing body of evidence has shown that violence and other health-related risks are highly gendered, with a disproportionate burden experienced by young women and youth who do sex work in many settings. In Vancouver, escalating gentrification, the recent creation of supportive housing for “at-risk” youth, and legislative shifts in criminal policies around sex work and drug use have the potential to transform the landscape of violence, risk, and safety that youth who do sex work must navigate.
The proposed ethnographic study will explore how these processes of urban transformation are altering youth’s experiences and health outcomes over time. Key focuses will be youth’s social-spatial transitions in sex work (e.g. the transition from more isolated outdoor spaces to potentially safer indoor venues), and how these transitions exacerbate or mediate the production of violence and risk.
This research will be particularly concerned with how gender relations and inequities intersect with the production of violence and risk in particular sites. Moreover, it will focus on the continuum of violence experienced by youth in the city and how structural violence can produce interpersonal violence and risk in particular places.
This study will help produce a more nuanced understanding of young people’s lived experiences in the city over time, and the gendered production of risk and violence in urban space. This understanding is critical to developing and advocating for policy and “safer environment interventions” that are relevant to youth’s needs and capable of addressing the complex social processes that shape health outcomes for this youth population.
Dr. Boyle’s research will investigate the role that physical activity and sedentary behaviour play in the development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and breast cancer.
This project aims to: 1) examine the associations between physical activity and sedentary behaviour and the risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and 2) investigate whether the effects of physical activity and sedentary behaviour on the risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and breast cancer are modified by particular genes.
These research questions will be investigated using data from four case-control studies (three of which were conducted in British Columbia), as well as pooled data from an international consortium of case-control studies.
This research will provide new and important information about the associations between physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and cancer. Identification of modifiable risk factors is particularly important for the prevention and control of these cancers, as little is known about their etiology.
The men and women who work in Canada’s off-street sex industry are an underserved and poorly understood population that represents the majority of the Canadian sex worker populace. Men and women off-street sex workers experience an array of interrelated factors known to be associated with significant morbidity and mortality including violence and victimization, economic vulnerability, limited access to health services, substance abuse, arrest, exploitation, inconsistent condom use, STI, and HIV.
Dr. Victoria Bungay’s research program seeks to contribute to the growing body of knowledge addressing the intersecting causes and contributing factors that exacerbate vulnerability for health inequities among the men and women who work in the off-street sex industry. This knowledge is critical to informing effective multi-level interventions aimed at protecting sex worker health and safety. Informed by critical perspectives on the connection between health and social issues, the research program will:
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Identify and examine how specific health issues (e.g. STI, HIV, violence, exploitation) and social processes (e.g. racism, poverty, heterosexism, sexism) intersect in ways that may compound their effects and exacerbate health inequities.
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Generate policy and programming recommendations needed to promote effective service delivery to protect individuals’ sexual health.
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Use an integrated approach to knowledge translation to facilitate the translation of this knowledge into social, health and legal policies and programs to protect the health of sex workers.
The research includes a series of ongoing and planned studies that include ethnographic methods, discourse analysis, and mixed-method designs. Bungay employs an integrated approach to knowledge translation that includes collaboration with stakeholders throughout the entire research processes. Her program of research is among the first studies in North America to examine intersections between gender, race, sexuality, and class as influential for male and female sex worker health and safety in the off-street context.
