Medical Interpreting Services for Refugees in Canada: Current State of Practice and Considerations in Promoting this Essential Human Right for All.

Language barriers, specifically among refugees, pose significant challenges to delivering quality healthcare in Canada. While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the emergence and development of innovative alternatives such as telephone-based and video-conferencing medical interpreting services and AI tools, access remains uneven across Canada. This comprehensive analysis highlights the absence of a cohesive national strategy, reflected in diverse funding models employed across provinces and territories, with gaps and disparities in access to medical interpreting services.

Investigating features that contribute to evaluations of intrusiveness for thoughts and memories.

What makes a thought feel intrusive? One possibility is that traumatic experiences are the primary cause of intrusive thoughts and memories. Another possibility is that experiences of intrusiveness arise from the features involved with re-experiencing. We investigated several features that may lead a thought to feel intrusive: task-congruence, repetition, and affective content.

The effect of pre-event instructions on eyewitness identification.

Research on eyewitness identification often involves exposing participants to a simulated crime and later testing memory using a lineup. We conducted a systematic review showing that pre-event instructions, instructions given before event exposure, are rarely reported and those that are reported vary in the extent to which they warn participants about the nature of the event or tasks. At odds with the experience of actual witnesses, some studies use pre-event instructions explicitly warning participants of the upcoming crime and lineup task.

A WISH to be Housed: Exploring the Winter Interim Solution to Homelessness (WISH) Temporary Accommodation Model in London, Canada.

Temporary housing programs (THPs) aim to serve the homeless population. This article explores the impacts of a THP, the Winter Interim Solution to Homelessness (WISH) in London, Canada, which applied a barrier-free, harm reduction model. Adopting an intersectional lens and interpretive description methodology, we analyzed data collected from WISH residents, utilizing a thematic analytic approach.

Community perspectives on addressing and responding to HIV-testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) among African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) people in Ontario, Canada.

Background: The African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) population of Ontario, Canada is comprised of individuals with diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds and experiences; some of whom have resided in Canada for many generations, and others who have migrated in recent decades. Even though the ACB population represents less than 3.5% of the Canadian population, this group accounts for 21.

Correction to: Strengthening the Collection and Use of Disaggregated Data to Understand and Monitor the Risk and Burden of COVID-19 Among Racialized Populations.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s42650-021-00050-2.].

Difficulties accessing health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada: examining the intersectionality between immigrant status and visible minority status.

Background: Difficulties accessing health care services can result in delaying in seeking and obtaining treatment. Although these difficulties are disproportionately experienced among vulnerable groups, we know very little about how the intersectionality of realities experienced by immigrants and visible minorities can impact their access to health care services since the pandemic.

Methods: Using Statistics Canada's Crowdsourcing Data: Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians-Experiences of Discrimination, we combine two variables (i.

Strengthening the Collection and Use of Disaggregated Data to Understand and Monitor the Risk and Burden of COVID-19 Among Racialized Populations.

There is growing evidence that the risk and burden of COVID-19 infections are not equally distributed across population subgroups and that racialized communities are experiencing disproportionately higher morbidity and mortality rates. However, due to the absence of large-scale race-based data, it is impossible to measure the extent to which immigrant and racialized communities are experiencing the pandemic and the impact of measures taken (or not) to mitigate these impacts, especially at a local level. To address this issue, the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership partnered with the Collaborative Critical Research for Equity and Transformation in Health lab at the University of Ottawa and the Canadians of African Descent Health Organization to implement a project to build local organizational capacities to understand, monitor, and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigrant and racialized populations.

Recognizing and Responding to the Commonly Misunderstood Reactions to Sexual Assault: Evaluation of an Online Curriculum.

Sexual assault remains a serious public health issue with significant impacts on the health and well-being of individual women. Many women's reactions and behaviors post sexual assault are not well understood by the general public, or more worrying, among professionals to whom women frequently turn to for help. An innovative and evidence-informed online curriculum was developed to educate health and social service providers about the range of possible psychological responses and associated behaviors post sexual assault and to better equip them in supporting survivors in their recovery.

Stealing and sharing memories: Source monitoring biases following collaborative remembering.

People experience difficulties tracking the source of their memories following collaborative remembering. This results in a variety of source monitoring errors. Researchers have typically focused on one of these errors - instances of adopting information from external sources as one's own memories.

Unpacking the health and social consequences of COVID-19 through a race, migration and gender lens.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented challenge for healthcare systems across the world. To date, there has been little application of a race, migration and gender lens to explore the long-term health and social consequences of COVID-19 in African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) communities in Canada, who have been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic. The evidence presented in this commentary suggests that recovery strategies need to adopt an intersectional lens taking into account race, migration and gender since ACB women and ACB immigrant women have been among the populations most impacted both personally and economically.

Understanding Social Network and Support for Older Immigrants in Ontario, Canada: Protocol for a Mixed-Methods Study.

Background: Older adults are the fastest growing age group worldwide and in Canada. Immigrants represent a significant proportion of older Canadians. Social isolation is common among older adults and has many negative consequences, including limited community and civic participation, increased income insecurity, and increased risk of elder abuse.

Provider- and patient-related determinants of diabetes self-management among recent immigrants: Implications for systemic change.

Objective: To examine provider- and patient-related factors associated with diabetes self-management among recent immigrants.

Design: Demographic and experiential data were collected using an international survey instrument and adapted to the Canadian context. The final questionnaire was pretested and translated into 4 languages: Mandarin, Tamil, Bengali, and Urdu.

A mega-analysis of memory reports from eight peer-reviewed false memory implantation studies.

Understanding that suggestive practices can promote false beliefs and false memories for childhood events is important in many settings (e.g., psychotherapeutic, medical, and legal).

Taking action on violence through research, policy, and practice.

Background: Violence is a critical public health problem associated with compromised health and social suffering that are preventable. The Centre for Global Health and Health Equity organized a forum in 2014 to identify: (1) priority issues related to violence affecting different population groups in Canada, and (2) strategies to take action on priority issues to reduce violence-related health inequities in Canada. In this paper, we present findings from the roundtable discussions held at the Forum, offer insights on the socio-political implications of these findings, and provide recommendations for action to reduce violence through research, policy and practice.

Severe Neonatal Morbidity Among Births to Refugee Women.

Background Despite being considered high risk, little is known about the perinatal health of refugees in developed countries. Our objectives were to examine whether: (1) the healthy migrant effect applies to infants born to refugee women with respect to severe neonatal morbidity (SNM); (2) refugee status was a risk factor for SNM among immigrants; (3) refugee sponsorship status was a risk factor for SNM by comparing asylum-seekers to sponsored refugees; and (4) refugees were at greater risk of specific SNM subtypes. Methods Immigration records (1985-2010) linked to Ontario hospital data (2002-2010) were used to examine SNM.

The influence of refugee status and secondary migration on preterm birth.

Background: It is unknown whether the risk of preterm birth (PTB) is elevated for forced (refugee) international migrants and whether prolonged displacement amplifies risk. While voluntary migrants who arrive from a country other than their country of birth (ie, secondary migrants) have favourable birth outcomes compared with those who migrated directly from their country of birth (ie, primary migrants), secondary migration may be detrimental for refugees who experience distinct challenges in transition countries. Our objectives were (1) to determine whether refugee status was associated with PTB and (2) whether the relation between refugee status and PTB differed between secondary and primary migrants.

Contribution of HIV to Maternal Morbidity Among Refugee Women in Canada.

Objectives: We compared severe maternal morbidity (SMM) and SMM subtypes, including HIV, of refugee women with those of nonrefugee immigrant and nonimmigrant women.

Methods: We linked 1,154,421 Ontario hospital deliveries (2002-2011) to immigration records (1985-2010) to determine the incidence of an SMM composite indicator and its subtypes. We determined SMM incidence according to immigration periods, which were characterized by lifting restrictions for all HIV-positive immigrants (in 1991) and refugees who may place "excessive demand" on government services (in 2002).

Failure to see money on a tree: inattentional blindness for objects that guided behavior.

How is it possible to drive home and have no awareness of the trip? We documented a new form of inattentional blindness in which people fail to become aware of obstacles that had guided their behavior. In our first study, we found that people talking on cell phones while walking waited longer to avoid an obstacle and were less likely to be aware that they had avoided an obstacle than other individual walkers. In our second study, cell phone talkers and texters were less likely to show awareness of money on a tree over the pathway they were traversing.

Self-management, health service use and information seeking for diabetes care among Black Caribbean immigrants in Toronto.

Objective: The objective of this research was to explore self-management practices and the use of diabetes information and care among Black-Caribbean immigrants with type 2 diabetes.

Method: The study population included Black-Caribbean immigrants and Canadian-born participants between the ages of 35 to 64 years with type 2 diabetes. Study participants were recruited from community health centres (CHCs), diabetes education centres, hospital-based diabetes clinics, the Canadian Diabetes Association and immigrant-serving organizations.

Fluidity in autobiographical memories: relationship memories sampled on two occasions.

We investigated consistency of relationship memories. College undergraduates described five events (first meeting, first date, first fight, most embarrassing event, and favourite memory) from their current relationship or, if not currently dating, most recent relationship. Three months later, they were asked to describe the same events again.

Tuberculosis and common mental disorders: international lessons for Canadian immigrant health.

Tuberculosis is a pressing global health issue. Its association with other infections, illnesses, and social factors, including immigration, is well known, yet comparatively little research has examined the connections between tuberculosis and mental disorder, particularly among immigrants in Canada. The authors report on a scoping review conducted to better understand the synergies of tuberculosis, mental disorders, and underlying social conditions as they affect immigrants' health.

Multiple causes of collaborative inhibition in memory for categorised word lists.

Collaborative inhibition is the finding that collaborative groups recall less information than nominal groups (the combined output of an equal number of individuals). The retrieval strategy disruption explanation of collaborative inhibition argues that individuals' idiosyncratic retrieval strategies are disrupted by hearing the contributions of others. In a series of studies, we investigated the role of retrieval interference and other cognitive explanations of collaborative inhibition.