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Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (2008-2009) Seminar Series

Spotlight on Urban Health Series: (all seminars run from 1:15 until 2:45, unless otherwise noted)

Thursday October 16, 2008

“The Street Health Survey Project: Community-based Research for Social Change”

Erika Khandor, Kate Mason and Peer Researchers, Street Health, 2008 Community-Based Research Award of Merit Recipient

Summary: Street Health is a community-based organization that has been providing nursing, mental health and outreach services to homeless people in Toronto for over 20 years. In the winter of 2006/2007, Street Health conducted a survey of 368 homeless adults in downtown Toronto about their health status and access to health care. The project involved extensive collaboration with community, academic and institutional partners, as well as employing a team of peer researchers with lived experience of homelessness. The Street Health Report 2007 presents findings on the causes of homelessness, the daily living conditions of homeless people, the physical and mental health of homeless people, their use of health care, and their barriers to health care. The report also outlines an action plan consisting of targeted solutions to improve the health of homeless people and to ultimately end homelessness. This presentation will include a discussion of the study’s key findings and policy recommendations, research process, dissemination and advocacy activities.  A short film produced in partnership with NFB which tells the human stories behind the statistics will be shown.

Bios: Erika Khandor and Kate Mason conduct research at Street Health. Both are graduates of the MHSc in Health Promotion from the Department of Public Health at U of T.

Location: University College, Room 248, 15 King’s College Circle, University of Toronto St. George Campus

Thursday November 20, 2008

(11am- 1pm) **note the change in time and location**

“What About the Guys? Young Men's Invisibility in Sexual Risk and Sexual Health Research”

Elizabeth Saewyc, PhD, RN, CIHR/PHAC CIHR/PHAC Applied Public Health Chair in Youth Health; Associate Professor, University of British Columbia School of Nursing; Research Director, McCreary Centre Society

Summary: Much of the research on adolescent sexual health and risk behaviours focuses only on girls and young women, whether the studies are about teen births, contraceptive practices, or even sexual violence and exploitation. Yet most of these sexual health events involve more than one person—and that other person is often male. Even sexual violence, although disproportionately experienced by women, is also targeted towards boys and young men, and they too can experience lifelong health issues as a result. So why are they so invisible? This presentation will explore the ways data are gathered for population-level sexual health studies, how and perhaps why sexual health and risk issues get framed as “female” issues, and what we learn when we ask the same questions for adolescent and young adult males.

Bio: Dr. Elizabeth M. Saewyc is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She holds a Canadian Institute for Health Research/Public Health Agency of Canada Applied Public Health Chair, and is a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar. She also serves as Research Director for the McCreary Centre Society, a community-based youth health research and youth empowerment organization. She teaches public health nursing, adolescent health, and research methods. Her research focuses on the sexual and mental health issues of youth, with a particular emphasis on understanding the links between stigma, violence, and trauma, how these influence their coping and risk behaviours, and what protective factors in their relationships and environments can help reduce their risks and foster resilience. The particular groups of young people include: sexual minority youth (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teens), homeless and runaway youth, sexually-abused and sexually-exploited teens, pregnant and parenting adolescents, youth in custody, immigrant and refugee populations, and indigenous young people in Canada and other countries.

Location: Room 280 York Lanes, York University

Tuesday December 9, 2008

Project Title: Examining Determinants of Health Among Immigrant Populations in the Dixie-Bloor Neighbourhood

Kathi Wilson, Geography & Planning, University of Toronto Mississauga - 2006 CUHI Seed Grant Recipient

Summary: TBA

Location: University College, Room 177, 15 King’s College Circle, University of Toronto St. George Campus

Thursday January 22, 2009

Blake Poland (Public Health Science, University of Toronto) & Cheryl Teelucksingh (Sociology, Ryerson University) – CUHI Environmental Health Justice Co-Leaders

Summary: TBA (topic will be relevant to Environmental Health Justice)

February 2009 – date TBA

Good Governance for Local Environment and Health Decision-Making: Insights from Two Case Communities

David Noble, Social and Political Thought, York University

Summary: Presentation will highlight insights on the governance context for local environment and health decision-making in two case communities - Owen Sound, Ontario and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Location: TBA

March 2009 – date TBA

Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, City University of New York

April 2009 – date TBA

Taking Action: Developing Aboriginal Youth Leadership in HIV Prevention

June Larkin (The Women and Gender Studies Institute (WGSI), University of Toronto) – 2008 Seed Grant Recipient & 2007 Community-Based Research Award of Merit

Project Summary: This project consists of an innovative knowledge dissemination strategy for research on HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal youth.  Our goals are to: 1) involve Aboriginal youth in a performed ethnography project designed to turn data from our study on HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal youth into scripts and discussion questions that can be used to educate both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities; 2) develop a draft evaluation tool to assess the effectiveness of the scripts as a knowledge dissemination strategy; and 3) pilot the performed ethnography and evaluation tool with Aboriginal youth and non-Aboriginal youth. This project extends the collaborative work of the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) Project, University of Toronto and the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN) to include Native Child and Family Services and will be used as the basis of a larger proposal to support the wider dissemination of this prevention strategy and to assess its effectiveness with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal groups.

       
Alexis Kane Speer

Centre Coordinator

Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (CUHI)

University College, Room 259

University of Toronto

15 King's College Circle

Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7

416-978-7223

FAX: 416-946-0669

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