women's health Archives | Research & Innovation

Four 91��ɫ professors elected to the Royal Society of Canada

fmaquito — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The achievements of four 91��ɫ professors have been recognized by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), which has inducted them as Fellows.

Professor Pat Armstrong, a distinguished research professor of sociology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS); Professor Isabella Bakker in the Department of Political Science in LA&PS; Professor Rishma Dunlop in the Faculty of Education and in the Department of English in LA&PS; and Professor Bernard Lightman in the Department of Humanities, LA&PS, have all been inducted into the society as Fellows.

“On behalf of the 91��ɫ community, I would like to offer our sincere congratulations to four of our faculty members on being named as Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada,” said President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “This prestigious recognition is well-deserved as Drs. Armstrong, Bakker, Dunlop and Lightman are leading scholars who have made outstanding contributions in research in their fields.”

The society has elected 78 new Fellows, including two Foreign Fellows, and one Honorary Fellow to its ranks for 2011. The newly elected Fellows will be officially inducted on Saturday, Nov. 26, during a ceremony at the Ottawa Convention Centre.

Election to the academies of the Royal Society of Canada is one of the highest honours awarded to Canadian scholars in the arts, humanities and sciences.

Pat Armstrong (right) is an internationally renowned sociologist with expertise in health care and women’s health, social policy, and gender and work. She has co-authored numerous books on health policy, including They Deserve Better: The Long-Term Care Experience in Canada and Scandinavia, Women’s Health: Intersections of Policy, Research and Practice, and Critical to Care: The Invisible Women in Health Services, among others. Armstrong is the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation/Canadian Institutes of Health Research Chair in Health Services and Nursing Research and an executive member of both the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research and the Graduate Program in Health Policy and Equity. She is the principal investigator for a major collaborative research initiative project titled “Re-imagining Long-Term Residential Care: An International Study of Promising Practices,” which is funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Isabella Bakker (left) teaches International Political Economy, Women and Politics and Public Finance. A leading global expert in her field, Bakker’s research examines the interplay between feminist perspectives and international public policy, with a focus on how macroeconomics and fiscal policy affect questions of gender and social justice. Bakker’s published work includes: Questioning Financial Governance from a Feminist Perspective, Power, Production and Social Reproduction: Human In/security in the Global Political Economy, Beyond States and Markets: The Challenges of Social Reproduction and The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy. She has been a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at 91��ɫ since 1986, and has held visiting professorships at the European University Institute in Florence, the University of California Santa Barbara and the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, among other institutions. Bakker is a Trudeau Fellow and was named Fulbright New Century Scholar in 2004. She is the principal investigator of a SSHRC-funded project “Budgeting for Women’s Human Rights in Canada”.

Rishma Dunlop (right) is an award-winning Canadian poet, playwright, essayist, and fiction writer. She is founding editor of the international online literary journal Studio. Dunlop’s poetry collections include: White Album (2008), Metropolis (2005), Reading Like a Girl (2004) and The Body of My Garden (2002). Next month, her fifth book, Lover Through Departure: New and Selected Poems will be published. Known for her innovative research that merges scholarly inquiry with artistic production, Dunlop has taught interdisciplinary seminars on research and artistic creation for over a decade. In 2009 to 2010, she was awarded the prestigious Canada-US Fulbright Research Chair at the Virginia Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. She won the Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry in 2003, and her non-fiction and poetry have been short-listed for the CBC Literary Awards. She is currently principal investigator on the SSHRC research initiative on poetry of witness, human Rights and transitional justice. She is an interdisciplinary scholar, cross-appointed to 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education and the Department of English, where she was coordinator of the Creative Writing program from 2007 to 2011.

Bernard Lightman (left) is an internationally renowned historian and currently the editor of Isis, the quarterly journal of the History of Science Society. He is also director of the Institute for Science and Technology Studies at 91��ɫ. Lightman’s area of expertise is the cultural history of Victorian science. He is editor of the Pickering and Chatto Press monograph series, titled “Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century”, in which 14 books have been published. His publications include: The Origins of Agnosticism, Victorian Popularizers of Science, Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain and Victorian Science in Context, among others. Currently, Lightman is working on a biography of the physicist John Tyndall, and he is the founder of an international correspondence project to collect and publish Tyndall’s letters. The project is being funded by the Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

For more information on the 2011 Fellows, visit the website.

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

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Professor Nazilla Khanlou's research advocates for immigrants and mental health

fmaquito — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Imagine the stress of uprooting your family to make a new life in a new country in a new language. For women, adapting can be a very different experience than that of their children. Depending on their resilience and their situation, some adapt better than others.

Nazilla Khanlou knows. An immigrant herself, she's been studying the mental health of new arrivals – mainly women and youth – for a decade. But her community-based research goes well beyond gathering information. Whatever she learns about the mental wellbeing of newcomers and the services they need to adjust and integrate she shares with community agencies, health and social service providers and policy makers.

Right: Nazilla Khanlou

In fact, check out her new website and see that since 2008, when she joined 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health as the first Echo Ontario Women’s Health Council Chair in Women’s Mental Health Research, she has shared her research on immigration and mental health at dozens of conferences and with government ministries. The nursing professor never turns down invitations to speak to local community groups, has started a newsletter and has launched a speaker series at 91��ɫ – anything to help improve the transition of immigrant women, youth and their families into Canadian society.

In her office suite in 91��ɫ Lanes, one room serves as a meeting room, resource library and workspace for her community-based partners, visiting scholars, graduate students and her research team. “I like the connection between academia and community,” says Khanlou, who has put up pictures on the wall and tried to make the room a welcoming, comfortable space.

Khanlou practised as a psychiatric nurse and spent seven years as health domain leader of the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement in Toronto.

She believes in caring for the individual as well as providing systemic support to promote the mental wellbeing of immigrant women.

“When we talk about women, we’re not talking about a homogeneous group,” says Khanlou. Immigrant women come from varying cultures, religions, regions and educational backgrounds. They juggle many of the same day-to-day responsibilities and face the same pressures and multiple-role expectations as their Canadian-born peers.

Newcomers also face barriers – linguistic, social, cultural and gender-based – and discrimination. Isolation, family pressures and fear of stigma can prevent many from seeking help. To flourish, immigrant women, like everybody else, need fulfilling relationships, self-confidence and a sense of security. They need support systems that provide access to employment and good housing, health and social services, and equitable treatment.

“Good mental health doesn’t happen on its own,” she says. “We need a way to focus on society and systemic issues but not to lose sight of each person's resilience and challenges because at the end of the day, you need to attend to the individual.”

Most recently, Khanlou has collaborated with community partners on a variety of studies. One looked at how newcomer teenagers from Afghan, Colombian, Sudanese and Tamil communities understand mental health and seek help. Another compared the perceptions of newcomer immigrant and Canadian-born residents of Toronto’s St. James Town of their neighbourhood, social relations and access to health and social services and the effect on their wellbeing. With faculty in 91��ɫ's School of Nursing, a third explores the connection between immigrant women’s participation in their community and their success at settling in a community, and a fourth aims to improve the measurement of child and youth resilience.

Khanlou has also reviewed policies on immigrant health and mental health for federal and provincial agencies.

All Khanlou’s studies come with recommendations on how to remove barriers and improve services to promote mental health.

“It’s an exciting time to be in the mental health field because more people are talking about the relevance of mental health to all of us,” says Khanlou. “Hopefully our efforts come together to take away the fear of stigma so when families experience mental illness they are able to access good services and are able to talk about it. We all need good mental health.”

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

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Upcoming Health and Environment Forum in Sarnia to focus on First Nations youth

fmaquito — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Organizers of an upcoming environmental forum are hoping to engage First Nations youth, wrote :

The event, hosted by the Aamjiwnaang First Nations Health and Environment Committee, in partnership with 91��ɫ, is a follow-up to a 2008 health symposium held in Sarnia to share research findings with members of the scientific community, environmental groups, the media and government.

“The idea came about a year ago after [Aamjiwnaang community member] Ada Lockridge mentioned the idea of doing a follow up symposium,” said Sarah Wiebe, project coordinator for the Community Forum on Pollution and Action, and research assistant to , environmental law professor at 91��ɫ’s Osgoode Hall Law School [and executive director of the ], who has worked closely with Lockridge and the Aamjiwnaang community to investigate the links between pollution and health.

. . .

The one-day forum will include a series of workshops exploring the relationship between the Aamjiwnaang First Nation and Sarnia's Chemical Valley, to deliver "collective and creative legal education," said Wiebe.

Participants will be invited to familiarize themselves with using the Environmental Registry and accessing PollutionWatch data. A session will also be held exploring how money collected from environmental offences is distributed to affected communities.

"We're trying to look at legal remedies, so when fines are charged to local facilities, one option could be to reallocate that money to those who maybe have a health concern," said Wiebe. "We also want people to have a better understanding of how to provide input when new facilities and projects come up."

Another component of the forum, "Raising Voices," will invite area youth to share their thoughts and concerns on the environment, including a group of First Nations youth who have been working on an ongoing photography assignment since the summer.

"We've asked them to document the good, bad and the ugly in their context; what gives them hope and what gives them concern," said Wiebe. "We're planning to showcase some of their images."

Community members will also receive an update on the ongoing Lambton Community Health Study, as well as updates from researchers investigating cancer, child development and endocrine disruption on the reserve.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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91��ɫ-led report shows homeless youths most often victims of crime, particularly young women

fmaquito — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Study co-authored by Professor Stephen Gaetz, who leads SSHRC-funded homelessness project

Homeless young people are victims of crime at rates that society would consider unacceptable for any other group, according to a new report by researchers at 91��ɫ and the University of Guelph.

The report, , highlights the degree to which it is street youth themselves − often perceived as delinquent and dangerous − who are vulnerable to crime and violence.

“The very people we are taught to fear are the ones who are most at risk,” said Professor (right), associate dean of research and field development in 91��ɫ’s . ”More than 76 per cent of the homeless youth we surveyed said they had been victims of violent crime in the past year, and almost three-quarters of them reported multiple incidents.”

In comparison, about 40 per cent of young people in the general population reported that they had been victimized in the previous year, when the last asked them about it in 1999 − and they experienced mostly property crime.

Gaetz and University of Guelph Professor interviewed 244 homeless youths across Toronto last year about life on the streets. Their report was commissioned by , a not-for-profit legal aid clinic that operates a Street Youth Legal Services program, providing legal advice and support to homeless youth in Toronto.

The solution to problems youth face on the streets lies in changing the way youth homelessness is addressed, according to the report. It calls for a balanced response that, instead of relying mostly on emergency services, would balance preventive measures, an emergency response, and transitional support to move young people out of homelessness quickly.

Above: A homeless youth keeps dry under a bridge in downtown Toronto. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In the interviews, conducted at agencies serving youth in downtown Toronto and the suburbs:

female street youth were more likely than males to report being victims of crime (85.9 per cent compared to 71.8 per cent).
38.2 per cent of the female street youth reported being victims of sexual assault. Reports of sexual assault were higher among black females (47 per cent) than white females (33 per cent).
60 per cent of lesbian and bisexual females reported that they had been sexually assaulted in the past year, making them perhaps the most victimized group among street youth.
young homeless women reported extremely high levels of violence and abuse from their intimate partners.
youths who had become homeless at a young age (16 or 17) were much more likely to have been violently victimized than young people who became homeless later.
only 20 per cent of all respondents said they had alerted police about their victimization.

Much has changed since Gaetz first wrote a report on homeless youth in Toronto, also for Justice for Children and Youth, seven years ago. The and non-profit agencies have improved services, and the City has expanded its Streets to Homes program to move youth into housing. Street Youth Legal Services, a program of Justice for Children and Youth, has expanded its capacity to support young people with their legal and justice issues.

However, the report concludes federal, provincial and municipal governments should be addressing youth homelessness with an integrated strategy that includes: an adequate supply of supported, affordable housing for young people; efforts by health and mental health sectors, corrections and child welfare services to ensure their practices do not contribute to homelessness; crisis intervention and family mediation to help young people remain housed; and transitional approaches with income, social and health care supports for young people.

“Many people, including policy makers, believe that youth homelessness and crime are linked, and they use laws such as the Safe Streets Act to ‘move along’ young people,” said Gaetz. “In fact, our findings show that young homeless people are among the most victimized people in our society, and they need our protection.”

Gaetz leads the (CHRN), which enhances the impact of homelessness research on homelessness and the housing crisis by increasing collaboration and discussion among researchers, policy-makers and community workers. One of Canada’s leading experts on homelessness, Gaetz also created the – the world’s first digital hub to mobilize homelessness research – to support collaboration, knowledge exchange, and public engagement among regional and clustered research networks. CHRN, , received $2.1 million through the strategic knowledge clusters program.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator. Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Passings: Professor Gina Feldberg led the 91��ɫ Centre for Health Studies

fmaquito — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Professor Gina Feldberg, a faculty member in the Health & Society Program in the Department of Social Science in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, died on Saturday, July 10, after a long illness. She was 54 years old.

Prof. Feldberg made a significant mark at 91��ɫ. She spent a decade at Harvard, first as an undergraduate in biology, then as a graduate student in the history of science and medicine. When settling on a dissertation topic, Prof. Feldberg chose to explore differing American and Canadian approaches to the control of tuberculosis (TB) in the first half of the 20th century. Her husband, Rob Vipond, said that even her historian colleagues wondered why she had chosen to write on such an unfashionable disease as TB. Yet within a few years, the disease was resurgent, TB was “hot” in historical circles, and Prof. Feldberg’s dissertation, now a book titled (1995), had captured the Jason Hannah Medal from the for the best book in the history of medicine.

Right: Prof. Gina Feldberg

Prof. Feldberg's gift for engaging students in the area of health & society was recognized through a faculty-wide award for outstanding teaching in 1990. She was particularly proud of the graduate students whom she mentored. She led the 91��ɫ Centre for Health Studies (now the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research) through a critical decade of rebuilding health studies at the University, then managed a large and complex research grant on women’s health from 1992 until 2001. At the time of her death, Prof. Feldberg was about to begin a research leave to finish work on an inspired project on the history of salads.

In addition to her colleagues and hundreds of former students, Prof. Feldberg leaves her husband Rob Vipond and their daughter Susanna. A memorial service will be held for Prof. Feldberg in the fall.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Prof. Feldberg's honour can be made to the Princess Margaret Hospital, 610 University Ave., Toronto, for research in multiple myeloma; St. Stephen's Community House, 91 Bellevue Ave., Toronto; or the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 10 Garden St., Cambridge, MA.

Professor Feldberg was also remembered in an obituary published in The Globe and Mail:

It's safe to say that tuberculosis is not a subject of great interest for most folks – unless, of course, you or a loved one actually has it. Often associated with filth, squalor and Dickensian living conditions, TB, at least in the industrialized world, is commonly, and erroneously, thought to have vanished with consumptive Victorians, and good riddance.

For Gina Feldberg, TB's persistence and treatment were treasure troves, offering up mountains of information on social reform, middle-class values, personal hygiene, and public health policy. She believed that as with AIDS, tuberculosis served as a metaphor for other social ills, and that perhaps like no other disease helped shape modern North American values.

She was a historian of science, specifically of medicine and more specifically of infectious diseases. A probing, inventive scholar, she examined the interplay of illness, class, and the practice of medicine, and how those combine to affect the health of nations.

"If we want policy to be effective," she said, boiling it down, "we need to know why it looks the way that it looks and how we can change it."

At Toronto's 91��ɫ, where she taught in the Department of Social Science and for nine years headed the Centre for Health Studies [now the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research], she also weighed in on a host of public issues, including women's health, AIDS and Canada's health-care system.

Feldberg, who died in Toronto on July 10 at the age of 54 following a four-year battle with multiple myeloma, focused on the differing American and Canadian approaches to the control of TB in the first half of the 20th century.

The is available on the Globe's website.

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

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Professor Dorota Crawford's research shows misoprostol prevents cell communication

fmaquito — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Drug has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects associated with autism

A 91��ɫ study has shown for the first time how the drug misoprostol, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects associated with autism, interferes with neuronal cell function.

It is an important finding because is similar in structure to naturally occurring prostaglandins, which are the key signalling molecules produced by fatty acids in the brain. The drug is used to prevent ulcers in people who take certain arthritis or pain medicines, including aspirin, that can cause ulcers. It protects the stomach lining and decreases stomach acid secretion.

Past clinical studies have shown an association between misoprostol and severe neurodevelopmental defects including autism symptoms. Those studies looked at cases in Brazil in which women misused the drug early in pregnancy in unsuccessful attempts to terminate their pregnancies.

The 91��ɫ study examined mouse neuronal cells to discover how the drug actually interferes at a molecular level with prostaglandins, which are important for development and communication of cells in the brain.

“Early in the first trimester of pregnancy, neuronal cells reach out to communicate with one another,” says Dorota Crawford, a professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. “Our study shows that misoprostol interferes with this process by increasing the level of calcium ions in neuronal extensions, which reduces the number and length of these extensions. It prevents the cells from communicating with each other. If changes in prostaglandin level alter the development or differentiation of cells, it may have a physiological impact.”

Left: Dorota Crawford

Crawford and Javaneh Tamiji, who undertook the research for her master’s thesis in the Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Program at 91��ɫ, co-authored a study published online in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications: “Prostaglandin E2 and misoprostol induce neurite retraction in Neuro-2a cells”.

There is no indication that women in Canada are misusing misoprostol to terminate pregnancies, and in fact the drug is used safely for other purposes such as treatment and prevention of gastrointestinal ulcers. However, during early neuronal development the drug misoprostol or other environmental factors such as infections or inflammations, which can also increase the level of prostaglandins, may interfere with normal brain function, says Crawford.

Right: Javaneh Tamiji

Crawford and Tamiji focused on the drug misoprostol because they had evidence from clinical studies of the neurotoxic effects of the drug. They used misoprostol and the naturally occurring prostaglandins side by side in their study and found that both compounds produced the same effects on neuronal cell function.

The study shows that misoprostol interferes with the prostaglandin pathway in a dose-dependent manner – in other words, the higher the dose, the greater the problems created.

“What that indicates to us is whether it is infection that will activate it or whether it is the drug, it will cause the same effect,” says Crawford.

Now that it has been shown that misoprostol affects interaction between cells, the next step will be to do animal studies on mice to examine the physiological impacts on particular parts of the brain, she says.

Crawford’s lab is one of very few in the world that has adopted a multidisciplinary approach to the study of autism spectrum disorders, using molecular techniques to understand the link between causative biological factors (genes and environment) and the behavioural expression.

This research was funded by the . The provided equipment used in the study.

It has also received coverage on MedicalNewsToday.com:

A 91��ɫ study has shown for the first time how the drug misoprostol, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects associated with autism, interferes with neuronal cell function.

91��ɫ Professor Dorota Crawford, of the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Science & Enginering, and graduate student Javaneh Tamiji, who undertook the research for her master’s thesis in the Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Program at 91��ɫ, co-authored a study published online in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications: “Prostaglandin E2 and misoprostol induce neurite retraction in Neuro-2a cells”.

By Janice Walls, media relations officer

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

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Premier's visit to 91��ɫ attracts media coverage

fmaquito — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Premier was covered in the North 91��ɫ Mirror May 11:

To kick-start National Nursing Week and highlight the province’s announcement to introduce another 14 nurse practitioner-led clinics in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty dropped in on a group of nursing students at 91��ɫ Monday, May 10.

In a room set up like a hospital or clinic, McGuinty went from bed to bed chatting with students practising different medical procedures before sitting down for a round-table discussion with undergraduate nursing students and graduate students in the nurse practitioner program.

The government announced Monday it is accepting applications to create 14 more nurse practitioner-led clinics, with a goal of having 25 such clinics by 2012. The first 11 clinics are scheduled to begin opening this month.

Meanwhile, students shared their stories about why they are studying nursing.

“Nursing chose me,” said Crystal Van Leeuwen, who decided on her career while holding a girl infected with HIV during a trip to a Thailand clinic.

Deana Ruddell-Thomson said she was a retail manager in Walkerton when the tainted water tragedy struck a decade ago. “I felt helpless watching friends and family becoming ill and I didn’t have any power,” she said.

Thomas McCormick said he will be working on a placement in Toronto before heading to northern Ontario to help more remote communities.

Several international students told McGuinty how thrilled they were to be able to study nursing in Ontario. The premier told the students that they have chosen an important career.

The complete article is .

The School of Nursing’s faculty members are involved in innovative and leading-edge research, and have established national and international reputations in their areas of expertise. Faculty members’ programs of research and scholarly activities contribute to better understanding of current and challenging health and nursing phenomena.

Faculty members’ scholarly activities encompass a range of areas (including, but not limited to, community health, environmental health, global health, health policy, homeless populations, immigrant health, mental health, women’s health) and cross the life span (children, youth, adults, and older adults), using diverse theoretical and methodological approaches.

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

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Audio: Professor Molly Ladd-Taylor speaks about the birth control pill's history on CBC Radio

fmaquito — Fri, 07 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Molly Ladd-Taylor, 91��ɫ history professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and co-editor of the anthology , discussed the impact of the birth control pill since it came on the market 50 years ago,on in Toronto May 5.

The clip runs for approximately six minutes and is available on .

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

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Health Policy & Management professors address health, health care and illness prevention in Canada & US

fmaquito — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Four years after it was first published, a second edition of the book has just been published, providing a fresh perspective on health, health care and illness.

Co-edited by 91��ɫ School of Health Policy & Management Professors and , along with University of Toronto health studies Professor Toba Bryant, the second edition of Staying Alive (Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc.) has been thoroughly updated.

It features a new chapter on research methodology; expanded discussions of inequality, women’s health, public health and public policy; more material on First Nations health; and a new discussion of the historical development of the Canadian medicare system.

"The first edition sold really well and there isn’t another source out there that covers the same material in one book," says Rioux, who also directs the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research. "A second edition was needed."

The collection also includes chapters on pharmaceutical policy, social class, race, gender and care, as well as the social construction of illness and disability. In addition, it looks at approaches to promoting population health that include insights into the impact of economic forces such as globalization and privatization.

Left: Dennis Raphael

“Concerns about health and the health-care system have reached a fever pitch in Canada in recent years,” write the editors. “The public is subjected to a daily onslaught of media stories about the causes and treatment of disease and the threats to the sustainability of the Canadian health-care system.”

The book strives to bring together isolated yet important perspectives in identifying key issues in health, illness and health care, relating them to current policy environments as a means of identifying the complex origins of the problems identified and contributing in a meaningful way to their solution.

It focuses on the Canadian scene with relevant comparisons to the United States and other countries and is organized in four parts. The first part provides an overview and critical review of four major health paradigms – the epidemiological, sociological, political economy and human rights perspectives – and a new chapter on research paradigms and methodologies.

Right: Toba Bryant

The second part explores the emerging field of the social determinants of health with a focus on social class, gender and race as indicators of differential access to the economic and social resources available within a society.

In the third part, a comparative history of the Canadian health-care system is provided, along with an overview of current attempts at reform and a detailed analysis of the effects upon the system and its participants of recent trends toward privatization.

Left: Marcia Rioux

The final part considers critical issues in health and health care that illustrate some of the key themes of the volume, including gender and its interaction with health and health care; the construction of illness and disability; health policy through the lens of pharmaceutical policy and the health-care system; and public health concerns of varying national jurisdictions.

Staying Alive is expected to be of interest to a wide range of readers in the fields of health studies, nursing and social policy. In addition to traditional health sciences and sociological approaches, the book provides human rights and political economy perspectives on health, focusing on Canada and the United States within an international context.

For more information, visit the Web site.

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

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