Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding Attitudes To Refugees And Immigrants In Australia, Winnifred Louis

Migration and Ethnic Relations Colloquium Series

No abstract provided.

Poster Introductions Iii--Predicting Vulnerability: Pandemic H1n1/09 And Canada’S First Nations, Nicholas Spence, Jerry White

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

The World Health Organization has estimated that as many as 2 billion or between 15 and 45 percent of the population globally will be infected by pandemic H1N1/09. Certain subgroups have been categorized as high risk given the clinical evidence to date. One of these subgroups is Indigenous populations as they experience poor socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, great variability in socioeconomic conditions across First Nations communities in Canada. Rooted in the social determinants of health, we have developed a model to predict vulnerability and institute relevant measures to mitigate the effects of pandemic H1N1/09 in First Nations communities. The …

Poster Introductions Iii--Antipsychotic Utilization In British Columbia From 1997 To 2006, Joseph H. Puyat, Wayne Jones, Elliot M. Goldner

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

This study examined the prevalent use of antipsychotic medication in British Columbia from 1997 to 2006 among individuals aged 20 and above. Utilization data were obtained from BC’s PharmaNet system – a provincially maintained database that contains prescription dispensation records and demographic information for individuals residing in BC. Using the American Hospital Formulary Service (AHFS) Pharmacologic-Therapeutic Classification, claim records for Antipsychotics, Atypical Antipsychotics, Butyrophenones, Phenotiazines, Thioxanthenes, and Miscellaneous Antipsychotics were identified in the PharmaNet dataset. Individuals who filled at least 1 antipsychotic prescription in a given year were counted as prevalent users. Results were examined across gender and several age …

Breastfeeding Practices Of Immigrant Mothers In Canada: The Role Of Immigration Status, Length Of Residence, And Ethnic Minority, Gebremariam Woldemicael

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Previous studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between breastfeeding practices and immigration status, length of residence, and ethnic minority. However, it remains unclear to what extent differences in these factors can be explained by cultural influences or other socio-demographic factors. Using the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) data, this study investigates whether immigration status, year of residence, and visible minority status are associated with initiation and duration of exclusive breastfeeding in the context of socio-demographic factors. The findings show that while the relationship between breastfeeding and immigration process is complex, some clear, broad patterns exist that may have important …

Poster Introductions Ii--Learning Violence Young, Lihui Zhang

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Two geographically and culturally connected nations, the United States and Canada, have starkly contrasting violent crime rates. Comparable surveys show that American teenagers on average are three times as likely to engage in fights as their Canadian peers and that this cross-country violence gap exists even among children as young as 4-5 years old. Conventional arguments believed to account for this sharp contrast in violence rates prove to have limited explanatory power. The US violence premium remains a puzzle. Using rich information provided by large-scale individual level longitudinal survey data, this study performs a Canada-US comparative analysis with a special …

The ‘Trendiness’ Of Sleep: An Empirical Investigation Into The Cyclical Nature Of Sleep Time, Pierre Brochu, Catherine Deri-Armstrong, Louis-Philippe Morin

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Using Canadian time use data, we exploit exogenous variation in local unemployment rates to investigate the cyclical nature of sleep time and show that for both men and women, sleep time decreases when the economy is doing relatively better. Our results suggest that in a recession Canadians sleep an average of 2 hours and 34 minutes more per week, or 22 minutes more per day. Given the importance of even small changes in sleep time on measures of cognitive functioning such as reaction time and concentration, our findings may help explain the countercyclical nature of mortality. Further, as we find …

Poster Introductions I--Arduous Access: Does Ses Affect Access To Primary Health Care In Quebec?, Tania M. Jenkins

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

A review of the extant literature indicates that there is an important dearth of research concerning access to primary care in Quebec specifically, given the province’s particularly troublesome number of people without family doctors. Furthermore, while many studies concentrate on the effect of socioeconomic on utilisation rates of services, few studies have considered its impact on the likelihood of having a regular source of care. As such, in order to address some of these gaps in the extant literature, this paper will ask whether there is a positive relationship between SES and the likelihood of having a family physician amongst …

Poster Introductions I--Socioeconomic Inequalities In Health And The Welfare State: A Research Synthesis, Sarah Brennenstuhl, Peggy Mcdonough, Amélie Quesnel-Vallée

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Research on the social determinants of health and health inequalities has drawn increasingly from the comparative social policy literature. Much of this research relies on one welfare regime typology, but there is a need to systematically review the efficacy of this and alternative approaches if we are to advance research in this area and provide state-of-the-art information to policy makers. Our paper presents the findings of a critical review of the public health literature on socioeconomic inequalities in health and the welfare state. In addition to synthesizing existing research, we identify knowledge gaps, and address the research and policy implications …

Welfare Regimes And Social Inequalities In Health Dynamics: A Comparative Analysis Of Panel Data From Britain, Denmark, Germany And The Us, Peggy Mcdonough, Diana Worts, Amanda Sacker

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Objective: To describe average national trajectories of self-rated health over a 7-year period, identify social determinants of cross-sectional and longitudinal health; and compare cross-national patterns.

Design: Prospective nationally representative household panel studies (the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics; British Household Panel Survey; the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey; the Danish panel from the European Community Household Panel Survey).

Setting: The US, Britain, Germany and Denmark

Participants: Household heads and their partners of working age throughout follow-up (US: 4855; Britain: 4365; Germany: 4694; Denmark: 3252).

Main Outcome Measure: Repeated measures of self-rated health (1995 – 2001). Social indicators include education, occupational …

Socioeconomic History And Preventable Disease: A Comparative Analysis Of Fundamental Cause Theory, Andrea Wilson, Amir Erfani

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Fundamental cause theory suggests that because persons of higher socioeconomic status have a range of resources that benefit health, they hold an advantage in warding off whatever particular threats to health exist at a given time. Therefore as risk factors that stratify health are eliminated, socioeconomic disparities in health remain. Accordingly, SES should be more strongly associated with diseases that are more preventable than with less preventable diseases, and SES should have a stronger relationship to health in countries where high economic inequality and no universal health insurance leads to greater competition for resources. Using longitudinal data from Canada (National …

Canadian Health Measures Survey, Colleen Bolger

Health over the Life Course Conference (2009)

Colleen Bolger is an analyst at Statistics Canada who has worked on developing data products and services for researchers for over 20 years. Currently working on the first data releases for the Canadian Health Measures Survey that integrates physical measurements and scientific data into population health information sources, she has worked on the development of the National Population Health Survey, integrated socio-economic journals such as Perspectives on Labour and Income and provided remote data services to international scholars for OECD publications. As a former senior scientific and economic editor at Statistics Canada, she guided many research papers and population studies …

Refugees, Health And Trauma: Barriers To Resettlement, Jennifer Mills

Migration and Ethnic Relations Colloquium Series

No abstract provided.