Promoting children's health through community-led street interventions: analyzing sustained voluntarism in Canadian School Streets.

Background: Active School Travel (AST) initiatives align with the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, which calls for 'creating supportive environments' and 'strengthening community action.' However, their reliance on volunteers poses sustainability challenges. The main objectives of this study were to document the motivations, satisfaction, and experiences of volunteers involved in sustaining two AST initiatives in Ontario for an entire school year.

Understanding the Experiences of COVID-19 Public Health Measures and Well-Being: A Qualitative Study Among Older Adults in Quebec, Canada.

This interpretative descriptive study explores how public health measures implemented during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec, Canada, affected the well-being of older adults. Twenty-six participants aged 60-81 took photographs to depict how COVID-19 public health measures affected their well-being and were invited to discuss their photographs in virtual focus groups. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Investigating social inequalities in children's independent mobility, active transportation and outdoor free play in two Canadian cities.

Background: Active transportation (AT) and free play (FP) are the primary ways in which children engage in unstructured physical activity in cities, with independent mobility (IM) gaining increased attention as a potential precursor of AT and FP. However, current trends show that children are engaging in less FP and AT, and have less IM, than previous generations and it is not well understood how these practices, and their interrelatedness, differ by neighbourhood-level socio-economic stats (SES) and municipal contexts.

Objectives: This study aims to address the gaps in knowledge by quantifying, comparing, and correlating IM, AT, and FP practices in high and low-SES neighbourhoods within and across the cities of Montreal and Kingston, Canada.

Mechanisms of Stigmatization in Family-Based Prevention and Treatment of Childhood Overweight and Obesity.

It is well established that overweight and obesity are often accompanied by stigmatization. However, the influence of stigmatization on interventions for overweight and obesity remains unknown. Stigma may be particularly harmful to children.

Children's right to the city and their independent mobility: why it matters for public health.

Automobile-centric community design, or 'motornormativity', severely restricts opportunities for children to engage in active transportation (AT) and outdoor free play (OFP). As these activities are critical to children's health and well-being, their decline has become a major public health concern. Meanwhile, independent mobility (IM) has emerged as a critical determinant of child development and well-being.

The (De)normalisation of Smoking Among Apprentices: Plurality of Settings, Norms and Vulnerability Levels.

When it comes to smoking, apprentices are considered a 'vulnerable' population. They have been the subject of targeted approaches based on the assumption of common characteristics. In contrast to most public health studies, that assume homogeneity of vulnerable groups, this article, based on Lahire's 'theory of the plural individual', aims to examine inter- and intra-individual variability in relation to tobacco exposure.

Resilience among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: A photovoice study.

Older adults faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic but also demonstrated great resilience. Investigating these strengths may enhance and inform strategies to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. To gain insight into the resilience processes of older adults during the first year of the pandemic, we conducted a photovoice study with 26 older adults (aged over 60) in the province of Quebec, Canada.

A Tale of Two Cities: Unpacking the Success and Failure of School Street Interventions in Two Canadian Cities.

One innovative strategy to support child-friendly cities is street-based interventions that provide safe, vehicle-free spaces for children to play and move about freely. School streets are one such innovation involving closing streets around elementary schools to vehicular traffic to improve children's safety as they come and go from school while providing opportunities for children to play and socialize on the street. Launching these initiatives in communities dominated by automobiles is enormously challenging and little is known about why these interventions are successfully launched in some places but not others.

Virtual Photovoice With Older Adults: Methodological Reflections during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Photovoice is a participatory action research method in which participants take and narrate photographs to share their experiences and perspectives. This method is gaining in popularity among health researchers. Few studies, however, have described virtual photovoice data collection despite the growing interest among qualitative health researchers for online data collection.

Quarantots, quarankids, and quaranteens: how research can contribute to mitigating the deleterious impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health behaviours and social inequalities while achieving sustainable change.

The adoption and maintenance of healthy behaviours including age-appropriate amounts of physical activity, limited sedentary and screen time, and healthy eating are the foundations for youth development and thriving. In reviewing extant evidence, we observe that the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with marked reductions in physical activity, increased sedentary and screen time, and increased food intake and unhealthy snacking. Deleterious effects in movement behaviours appear to be more pronounced among vulnerable groups and food insecurity has become more widespread.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air and tap water samples in residences of pregnant women living in an area of unconventional natural gas operations: Findings from the EXPERIVA study.

Background: Northeastern British Columbia (Canada) is an area of unconventional natural gas (UNG) exploitation by hydraulic fracturing, which can release several contaminants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs). To evaluate gestational exposure to contaminants in this region, we undertook the Exposures in the Peace River Valley (EXPERIVA) study.

Objectives: We aimed to: 1) measure VOCs in residential indoor air and tap water from EXPERIVA participants; 2) compare concentrations with those in the general population and explore differences related to sociodemographic and housing characteristics; and 3) determine associations between VOC concentrations and density/proximity to UNG wells.

Initiation or cessation: what keeps the prevalence of smoking higher in Quebec than in the rest of Canada?

Introduction: We compared smoking initiation and cessation in Quebec versus the rest of Canada as possible underpinnings of the continued higher cigarette smoking prevalence in Quebec.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). We compared average and sex-stratified prevalence estimates of (1) current cigarette smoking in persons aged 15 years and older; (2) past-year initiation of cigarette smoking in those aged 12 to 17 and 18 to 24 years; and (3) past-year cessation in adults aged 25 years and older in Quebec versus the other nine Canadian provinces in each two-year CCHS cycle from 2007/08 to 2017/18.

Dismantling the status quo: promoting policies for health, well-being and equity: an IUHPE2022 prelude.

The next international gathering of the global health promotion family will be in Montreal, in May 2022. The 24th IUHPE conference is themed 'Promoting policies for health, well-being and equity'. Conference organizers have decided to transcend the 'usual suspects' rhetoric and frame a conference program that truly challenges these key notions for health promotion.

Do Social Inequalities in Smoking Differ by Immigration Status in Young Adults Living in an Urban Setting? Findings From the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking.

Objectives: We assessed whether social inequalities in smoking observed among young adults born in Canada were also apparent in same-age immigrants.

Methods: Data were drawn from an investigation of social inequalities in smoking conducted in an urban setting (Montreal, Canada). The sample included 2077 young adults age 18 to 25 (56.

Do you mind if I smoke here? Exploring the insights that public benches bring to public health research.

In this commentary, we illustrate how exploring the meanings and uses of everyday, seemingly mundane, public objects can advance our understanding of health-related practices and the social norms that shape them. We use the example of the public bench and smoking for this purpose. By observing the design of public benches, the places where they are found, the meanings people attribute to them, and the way people use them, we can learn what health-related practices (e.

The role of education and other transition milestones in the progression of social inequalities in cigarette smoking between the ages of 18 and 25: Evidence from the Canadian National Population Health Survey.

Young adulthood is now considered a sensitive period in the progression of health inequalities over the life-course. This age group experiences highly dynamic and socially patterned life-course events that require nuanced modelling choices compared to those commonly used in public health sciences. To illustrate this, we estimate changes in the risk of smoking according to student status, employment status, living arrangements, and relationship status at different ages across education categories.

Smoking in Young Adults: A Study of 4-Year Smoking Behavior Patterns and Residential Presence of Features Facilitating Smoking Using Data From the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking Cohort.

Introduction: Young adults have the highest prevalence of smoking among all age groups in most industrialized countries and exhibit great variability in smoking behavior. Differences in associations between features in residential environments and smoking initiation, prevalence, and cessation have been extensively examined in the literature. Nonetheless, in many cases, findings remain inconsistent.

Is accessibility in the eye of the beholder? Social inequalities in spatial accessibility to health-related resources in Montréal, Canada.

Neighbourhood resources are often considered to be spatially accessible to people when they are located close to their place of residence, a perspective which overlooks individuals' unique lived experience of their neighbourhood and how they define it. Drawing on the relational approach to place and on Sen's capability approach, we explore spatial accessibility to health-related resources, and the social gradient therein, in light of people's place experiences. Using data from 1101 young adults from Montreal (Canada) who participated in the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking (ISIS), we compare the social gradients in the presence of health-related resources located (i) within uniform areas (defined as circular buffers and road-network buffers) around participants' place of residence; and (ii) within participants' self-defined neighbourhoods.

"Don't smoke in public, you look like trash": An exploratory study about women's experiences of smoking-related stigmatisation and the connection to neighbourhood-level deprivation.

In this exploratory qualitative study we used Goffman's theory of stigmatisation to examine how women experience smoking-related stigma in relation to neighbourhood-level deprivation. From an existing cohort, we recruited fifteen women who smoked. We found differences in the women's experiences and abilities to negotiate and avoid a stigmatised smoking identity based on neighbourhood-level deprivation.

Urinary and hair concentrations of trace metals in pregnant women from Northeastern British Columbia, Canada: a pilot study.

Background: Northeastern British Columbia (Canada) is an area of intense natural gas exploitation by hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing can release contaminants, including trace metals, many of which are known developmental toxicants. To date, there is limited data on human exposure to contaminants in this region.