The chair, which will receive some $2 million in funding over five years, will study ways to improve the mental health and well-being of people with ASD and their families in Canada.

Jonathan Weiss speaking at the announcement Monday

and his team will examine why people with ASD are prone to develop mental health problems, evaluate novel treatment strategies to help youth and adults with ASD deal with these issues, as well as other stressful events like bullying. It鈥檚 estimated that between 40 and 70 per cent of people with ASDs have at least one co-occurring mental health problem, including anxiety, depression and anger.

91亚色 President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri congratulated Weiss, saying 鈥�91亚色's Faculty of Health is home to some of Canada's leading researchers, who work collaboratively to improve health promotion, disease prevention and health care in the community. I am proud of their commitment to bettering the health of the nation.鈥�

Mamdouh Shoukri

The first $1 million of funding will come聽from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)聽in partnership with Autism Speaks Canada, the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance, Health Canada, NeuroDevNet and the Sinneave Family Foundation. 91亚色 will match those funds, along with its community partner, the Spectrum of Hope Autism Foundation.

ASDs are a group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication and behavioural challenges. The number, kind and severity of symptoms varying from one person to another and includes children and adults.

Colin Carrie

鈥淭he majority of people with autism will experience mental health problems at some point in their lives. Good mental health translates into better outcomes for these individuals and for their families, and to a reduced demand on our health and social systems, which benefits all Canadians,鈥� said Weiss, who also holds a New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation.

His team will work with people with autism, families, service providers, and government to share cutting edge research that will inform mental health care policy and practice across the country.

Weiss is also looking to hear from people with ASD, their families and service providers to help direct the research questions his team will ask. To that end, a new website 鈥� 鈥� was launched Monday where people can subscribe to learn more about what the program is doing. He will also be putting together an advisory and working group in January to provide input, determine the best way to answer the research questions, inform stakeholders of what is learned and transform that knowledge into improved policy and practice. He hopes that as the program of research grows, the advisory group will attract national representation.

Harvey Skinner

Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinner believes Weiss is up for the challenge, saying he was impressed by the breadth of Weiss鈥� perspectives, as well as how he reaches out and bridges the gap with the community.

Parliamentary Secretary Colin Carrie, who was at the announcement on behalf of Leona Aglukkag, minister of health, said he understands at a personal level the need for this kind of research. He has a son with ASD who is now in university. He added that he was heartened to hear about the research work that will be done by the new chair.

Mike Lake addresses the crowd with his son

鈥淥ur Government is committed to helping Canadians maintain and improve their health. That鈥檚 why we are supporting research that will use innovative approaches to improve the health of Canadians who live with autism,鈥� Carrie said.

MP for Edmonton Mike Lake brought his son, who has been diagnosed with ASD, to the announcement. He said he also understands the challenges faced by families who have a member with ASD. With a nod to the organizations in the autism community, Lake said they 鈥減rovide a valuable link to Canadians affected by ASD and their families and they will be critically important to the success of the research program and implementation of the results.鈥�

Robert Thirsk, vice-president, Public, Government and Institute Affairs, CIHR; Dan Goldowitz, scientific director of NeuroDevNet; Dr. Margaret Clarke, senior vice-president of the Sinneave Family Foundation; Jill Farber, vice-chair, Autism Speaks Canada; and Frank Viti, CEO, Autism Speaks Canada, were also at the announcement.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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Migration is a complex phenomenon聽that can have important consequence on mental health, say two 91亚色 professors who will talk about some of the assumptions聽made in conducting research聽on immigrant mental health at the upcoming Multicultural Mental Health Promotion.

Michaela Hynie (left), associate director of the 91亚色 Institute for Health Research and a 91亚色 psychology professor, and Yvonne Bohr, director of 91亚色鈥檚 LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research and a psychology professor, will draw on their own research to discuss assumptions in immigrant mental health research.

Multicultural Mental Health Promotion will take place Wednesday, Feb. 15, from noon to 2pm, at 519 91亚色 Research Tower, Keele campus.

Following opening remarks by Harvey Skinner, dean of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health, and Nazilla Khanlou, co-director of the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network, Hynie and Bohr will conduct an interactive roundtable discussion. In addition, they will also make use of narrated- and video-based case studies to help frame the discussion.

Left: Yvonne Bohr

As part of the discussion they will explore how the phenomenon and experiences of migration can differ along a number of dimensions, and how these differences can impact the mental health of migrant families. Participants will be invited to join the discussion with their own experiences in research and practice regarding assumptions, their alternatives and how they shape the understanding of mental health among migrant populations.

Some of the assumptions Bohr and Hynie will examine include those about the geographic space inhabited by migrant families, the source and adaptiveness of coping strategies, and the causes of behaviour and well-being.

鈥淔or some families, their migration experience might better be described as transnational, with family members repeatedly spending extended periods of time in more than one country,鈥� says Bohr.

Coping strategies, she says, need to be considered in context. That context includes time/era, geographic location, availability of structural supports and culture. Change in any of these dimensions can render a formerly adaptive strategy less adaptive.

As for adaptiveness, 鈥渨e often assume that differences between migrant and non-migrant families in the receiving country are due to acculturation or the migration process, but we often do not compare migrant families to non-migrant families in the country of origin and so cannot be certain about causes,鈥� says Hynie.

The event is sponsored by the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network.

To RSVP, contact owhchair@yorku.ca.

For more information, visit the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network website.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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The study, published this summer, examined the effects of exercises that build positivity on more than 250 participants. It found that people with needy personalities reported lower self-esteem after listening to three or four uplifting songs of their choosing every day over the course of a week.

Needy individuals suffer from deep insecurities and need interpersonal support to ward off acute feelings of despair and loneliness. They tend to be submissive in interpersonal relationships, feel helpless and fear abandonment.

鈥淲e were quite surprised at this result,鈥� says study lead author Myriam Mongrain (right), professor of psychology in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health. 鈥淯ntil now, the vast majority of studies have suggested that positive psychology exercises result in either improvements for participants or no change over time. This result hints that self-help exercises may actually be detrimental for those with needy personalities,鈥� she says.

Study participants were randomly assigned one of three daily exercises: recalling five things that they were grateful for over the course of the day; listening to three or four uplifting songs of their choosing; or writing about a specific memory from their early life (the latter was used as a control exercise). Participants then completed questionnaires to measure changes in their mood and outlook; these same measures were administered at intervals of one, three and six months post-study.

Those with needy personalities reported no significant benefits from the gratitude exercise, while the music exercise dragged them down further. Highly self-critical individuals experienced the greatest improvement to their subjective happiness when they practiced the gratitude exercise. They also demonstrated a larger increase in self-esteem and greater decrease in physical symptom severity in both the gratitude condition and the music condition.

鈥淲e hypothesized that listening to happy music was a kind of self-soothing that would benefit people with needy personalities. However, this independent activity, which involved no interaction with others, may have had a negative effect on participants,鈥� says Mongrain.

鈥淣eedy people rely on secure intimate bonds with others in order to experience well-being, and they may have felt frustrated with the lack of improvement and expressed their disappointment on the outcome measures. Given these results, one-on-one counselling is likely more appropriate for this personality type.鈥�

The study was published in August 2011 in the Journal of Positive Psychology. It is co-authored by Susan Sergeant, a PhD student in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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