**apologies for cross-posting

**please distribute widely to your networks

 

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

 

Thursday November 20, 2008

 

(11am- 1pm) **note time and alternative 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

**Co-sponsored by the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution, York University

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

Alternate Location (if York University strike persists): Room 2111 Sidney Smith, 100 St. George, University of Toronto

Wednesday December 10, 2008

 

“My Health Has Improved because I Always Have Everything I Need Here…”:

A Qualitative Exploration of Change in Health Status Since Migration

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

Summary: Immigrants in Canada constitute approximately 20 percent of the total population and will continue to account for a significant portion of the country’s population in the future. Accordingly, a growing body of research has focused on examining the disparity in health status between the increasing foreign-born and the Canadian-born populations. The healthy immigrant effect, in particular, acknowledges that immigrants have better health status than their Canadian-born counterparts upon arrival in Canada. However, studies have shown that over time immigrants’ health status declines to the level of the Canadian-born population. This study is one of the first to qualitatively examine the factors associated with the observed change in health status among immigrants. The paper presents the results of 23 in-depth interviews with recent (less than 3 years of residency), mid-term (3-10 years), and long-term (more than 10 years) immigrants living in the Greater Toronto Area. The findings reveal that the majority of the participants believed their health had remained stable or increased over time due to improved living standards and lifestyle behaviours in Canada. Those who perceived their health to have worsened over time attributed the change to life course events rather than a lack of health-promoting opportunities in the country or their adoption of an unhealthy lifestyle. This research highlights the need to incorporate more mental health measures into the current understanding of the healthy immigrant effect and its decline, as well as continue to focus on those factors that contribute to high levels of stress and subsequent negative health outcomes among more recent immigrants.

 

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, M.A.

Centre Coordinator/ Research Associate

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