University of Toronto Archives | Research & Innovation

Psychology prof co-lead in $1.8 million government funded program

muellerm — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ psychology Professor Jonathan Weiss is one of the co-leads in a research program that was recently awarded $1.8 million over three years from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s Health System Research Fund.

The program, Health Care Access Research in Developmental Disabilities (H-CARDD), aims to enhance the overall health and wellbeing of individuals with developmental disabilities through improved health-care policy and services.

H-CARDD is directed by Yona Lunsky from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and the University of Toronto. Weiss, the Chair in Autism Spectrum Disorders Treatment and Care Research in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health, is a member of the program’s core team, which includes scientists, clinicians and policymakers from across Ontario.

Jonathan Weiss

Individuals with developmental disabilities are one of the most vulnerable and marginalized populations when it comes to accessing healthcare. The goal of H-CARDD is to reduce disparities in health outcomes of Ontarians with developmental disabilities.

Four vulnerable subgroups will be examined over the next three years. The four subgroups are as follows:

Aging Adults with co-leads Lynn Martin of Lakehead University and Hélène Ouellette-Kuntz of Queen's University
Women with co-leads Virginie Cobigo of the University of Ottawa and Simone Vigod of Women’s College Hospital.
Youth Transitioning to Adult Services with Weiss and Barry Isaacs of Surrey Place Centre
Individuals with “Dual Diagnosis” with Rob Balogh of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Elizabeth Lin of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Researchers already know that youth with developmental disabilities visit emergency rooms more often than others and have higher rates of psychiatric hospitalization than youth without disabilities. What is needed is more research at the individual and system level on the factors that lead to these high rates and that is what Weiss and Isaacs will be doing.

Young people with developmental disabilities have difficulty in transitioning into adult health care services. For those who need mental health services, it is even more difficult especially with an already difficult to navigate health-care system. That can lead to a worsening of issues.

“Understanding patterns of service use as adolescents with developmental disabilities transition into adulthood can help us to identify barriers and gaps in the health service system,” says Weiss. “Doing so can lead to improved primary care and addressing problems before they become severe.”

H-CARDD’s program of research will provide new information that profiles vulnerable developmental disability subgroups and will translate research into action by facilitating the uptake of evidence-based practices in primary and emergency care.

H-CARDD’s partners include the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Surrey Place Centre, the University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, 91��ɫ, Lakehead University, Sunnybrook Hospital, and Women’s College Hospital.

For more information about the H-CARDD program, contact Julie Klein-Geltink, H-CARDD manager, at julie.kleingeltink@camh.ca.

The post Psychology prof co-lead in $1.8 million government funded program appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Effects of precarious legal status on immigrants long lasting

muellerm — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Immigrants with precarious legal status, such as temporary foreign workers, often end up in precarious work situations that undermine their economic prospects. Moreover, according to a new study by researchers from 91��ɫ and the University of Toronto, these effects are long lasting even for those who subsequently become permanent residents.

, by 91��ɫ sociology Professor Luin Goldring and University of Toronto sociology Professor Patricia Landolt, was published Tuesday by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). Given recent major changes in Canada’s immigration system, including large increases in the number of temporary foreign workers and new pathways to permanent residence, this finding has important implications, says Goldring.

Luin Goldring

The study authors define precarious work as employment that is insecure and of lower quality. They point out that immigrants with these types of jobs are often exposed to labour practices that “erode, violate or evade employment standards.” This is especially of concern in a context where “a growing number of newcomers spend time navigating various forms of temporary and probationary legal status before they can apply for permanent residence,” while others remain in a temporary category or stay in Canada without work or residence authorization.

The authors’ quantitative and qualitative analyses are based on original data from a sample of 300 Latin American and Caribbean immigrant workers in the Greater Toronto Area. A key finding is that exposure to precarious work during the initial period in Canada had a lasting negative impact on these workers. As they put it, the effects of living with precarious legal status can be “sticky”; the transition to secure status “does not put people on par with those who entered with secure status.”

In light of this, Goldring and Landolt identify several ways to mitigate the effects of precarious status on immigrant economic outcomes, including faster transitions to secure legal status and permanent residence, open work permits for temporary migrant workers, improvements in workplace equity and broader access to settlement services.

The Impact of Precarious Legal Status on Immigrants’ Economic Outcomes by Goldring and Landolt can be downloaded free of charge from the ’s website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

The post Effects of precarious legal status on immigrants long lasting appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Professor Rebecca Riddell takes infant pain research to CIHR's Café scientifique

fmaquito — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Not so long ago, many in the medical profession thought infants didn’t feel pain, and whether it was a heel prick or open heart surgery, pain relief was not required. 91��ɫ psychology Professor Rebecca Pillai Riddell (BA Spec. Hons. '96), had a different take – that infants did experience pain and it was important to figure out just how much and how to manage it.

Pillai Riddell will share her research with the public as one of the featured presenters in a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Café scientifique taking place tonight from 6 to 8pm at the Gladstone Hotel in downtown Toronto. The event, "Ouch! Preventing and Managing Pain in the Real World", is hosted by the Centre of Nursing at The Hospital for Sick Children in collaboration with CIHR.

Right: Rebecca Pillai Riddell

Joining Pillai Riddell in this informal discussion between leading researchers and the public are Anna Taddio, a professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto and a pharmacist at the Hospital for Sick Children, and Denise Harrison, chair in Nursing Care of Children, Youth & Families at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the University of Ottawa. The event will be moderated by Tom Blackwell, senior national reporter for The National Post.

Pillai Riddell runs 91��ɫ’s Opportunities to Understand Childhood Hurt Laboratory (OUCH Lab) and is an associate scientist in The Hospital for Sick Children’s Department of Psychiatry Research. She has two research programs on the go, both looking at pain in infancy.

Her first, Understanding Chronic Pain in Infancy, is designed to define what chronic pain is in infancy, to establish a baseline that everyone can agree on, because right now there isn’t one, and to develop a measure to assess it. Chronic pain goes beyond acute pain, which is more temporary in nature – heel pricks, regular needles or post-operative – and can have implications on a person’s life into adulthood.

In collaboration with researchers at 91��ɫ, the University of Toronto, The Hospital for Sick Children as well as Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Women’s College Hospital, and armed with a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) operating grant, Pillai Riddell is looking at infants in the neonatal intensive care units of hospitals. This is where many premature infants experience ongoing pain as medical procedures are performed. “With that comes an enormous amount of iatrogenically induced pain or pain that is a result of the life-saving treatments.”

The goal is to better understand chronic pain in infants by talking with parents, health professionals and national and international experts, which can then be used to develop a conceptual model of chronic pain in infants, followed by a reliable and valid assessment measure, and finally strategies for infant chronic pain management.

Café scientifiques started in the late 20th century as an informal discussion about scientific subjects. They were never intended to be lectures. The same holds true for CIHR Café scientifiques. They provide insight into health-related issues of popular interest to the general public, and in turn provoke questions and provide answers.

For that reason, the CIHR Café scientifiques are all about accessibility. They involve interaction between the public and experts in a given field at a café, a pub or a restaurant. If you want to take part in a CIHR Café scientifique, there is no need for you to have a science degree. You just need to have a deep-rooted desire to talk about a particular health subject. That way you could learn how health research may provide answers to any questions that are on your mind.

Can't be there in person? Join the group on Facebook.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Rebecca Riddell takes infant pain research to CIHR's Café scientifique appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Call for papers for Critical Disability Discourse journal

fmaquito — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Volume 2 of Critical Disability Discourse, a bilingual, interdisciplinary journal which focuses on experiences and analysis of disability, is now available. The Critical Disability Studies Students' Association (CDSSA) is currently accepting submissions for Volume 3, scheduled to be published in the summer of 2011.

Submissions are due by March 1, 2011. To submit, register as an author on the Critical Disability Discourse website and follow the online instructions. Registration is free and editorial guidelines for can be found on the website.

Critical Disability Discourse was conceived by, and is managed by, graduate students. The journal’s review board consists of over 30students and faculty members from 91��ɫ, the University of Toronto, Université Laval, McMaster University and the University of Cambridge.

The objective of the journal is to create an academic space where graduate students might make valuable contributions to the field of disability studies. Critical Disability Discourse is meant to facilitate an academic community and to provide a more promising opportunity for those just beginning their careers.

Journal topics share in common a dedication to non-discrimination and social justice. It is the intention of the CDSSA to bring disability-related issues to mainstream scholastic conversations by promoting and publishing arguments that critically assess disabling social conditions. The journal is part of a greater effort to bring disability to the table and to redress physical and attitudinal discrimination.

For more information, contact Sarah Ebbs, Critical Disability Discourse managing editor, at cdsj@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Call for papers for Critical Disability Discourse journal appeared first on Research & Innovation.