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.e., immigrant status and visible minority status) to create a new variable called visible minority immigrant status. This multiplicative approach is commonly used in intersectionality research, which allows us to explore disadvantages experienced by minorities with multiplicative identities. Results Main results show that, compared to white native-born, visible minority immigrants are less likely to report difficulties accessing non-emergency surgical care (OR = 0.55, p < 0.001), non-emergency diagnostic test (OR = 0.74, p < 0.01), dental care (OR = 0.71, p < 0.001), mental health care (OR = 0.77, p < 0.05), and making an appointment for rehabilitative care (OR = 0.56, p < 0.001) but more likely to report difficulties accessing emergency services/urgent care (OR = 1.46, p < 0.05). Conclusion We conclude that there is a dynamic interplay of factors operating at multiple levels to shape the impact of COVID-19 related needs to be addressed through changes in social policies, which can tackle unique struggles faced by visible minority immigrants.

Gene-Environment Interactions in Schizophrenia: A Literature Review

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness with a strong genetic component that is the subject of extensive research. Despite the high heritability, it is well recognized that non-genetic factors such as certain infections, cannabis use, psychosocial stress, childhood adversity, urban environment, and immigrant status also play a role. Whenever genetic and non-genetic factors co-exist, interaction between the two is likely. This means that certain exposures would only be of consequence given a specific genetic makeup. Here, we provide a brief review of studies reporting evidence of such interactions, exploring genes and variants that moderate the effect of the environment to increase risk of developing psychosis. Discovering these interactions is crucial to our understanding of the pathogenesis of complex disorders. It can help in identifying individuals at high risk, in developing individualized treatments and prevention plans, and can influence clinical management.

Protein, Creatine, and Dieting Supplements Among Adolescents: Use and Associations With Eating Disorder Risk Factors, Exercise-, and Sports Participation, and Immigrant Status

Objective: This study aimed to estimate the number of weekly users of protein, creatine, and dieting supplements and to explore whether weekly use was related to eating disorder (ED) risk factors, exercise, sports participation, and immigrant status.Methods: In total, 629 and 1,060 high school boys and girls, respectively, self-reported weekly frequency of protein, creatine, and dieting supplement use, and weight and shape concerns, appearance internalization and pressure, self-esteem, mental distress, physical activity level, exercise context, and the type and weekly frequency of sport played. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses were performed to investigate explanatory factors for supplement use.Results: More boys than girls used protein and creatine supplements. Immigrant boys had more frequent use of all supplements than non-immigrant boys, and immigrant girls used creatine supplements more frequently than non-immigrant girls. In total, 23–40 and 5–6% of the variation in the weekly frequency of supplement use in boys and girls, respectively, was explained by immigrant status, ED risk factors, and exercise and sports participation. More frequent use of protein, creatine and dieting supplements in boys was significantly explained by more weight and shape concerns, fitness center exercise, and weight-sensitive sports participation. Depending on the type of supplement, more frequent use of supplements in girls was significantly explained by lower self-esteem, more engagement in weight-sensitive sports, and less engagement in general sport and exercise activities.Conclusion: Weekly supplement use was common and more frequent among boys than girls. The weekly use of protein, creatine, and dieting supplements was related to ED risk factors, exercise and sports participation, and immigrant status in boys but not in girls.

Migration health research in Norway: a scoping review

Aims: To provide an overview of published research on migration and health conducted in Norway and identify gaps in the research field. Methods: Applying a scoping review methodology, we searched Medline for articles on migration health in Norway published between 2008 and 2020, and assessed them according to research topic, methodology, user-involvement and characteristics of the populations studied (country or area of origin, type of migrant/immigrant status). Results: Of the 707 articles retrieved, 303 met the inclusion criteria. Most studies (77%) were within the clinical disciplines reproductive health, mental health, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases, or on socio-cultural aspects and the use of healthcare services. One third of the papers (36%) pulled participants from various geographic backgrounds together or did not specify the geographic background. Among those who did so, participants were mostly from The Middle East, South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Only 14% of the articles specified the type of migrant/immigrant status and those included refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. A total of 80% of the papers used quantitative methods, of which 15 described an intervention; 15 papers (5%) described different types of user-involvement. Conclusions: Our findings suggest gaps in research related to migrant subgroups, such as those from Eastern-Europe and labour and family reunification migrants. Future studies should further investigate the self-identified health needs of different migrant groups, and might also benefit from a methodological shift towards more intervention studies and participatory approaches.

Our Identity Remains Marked!

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to collectively work towards understanding and resolving the COVID-19 pandemic issues based on Messersmith's (2018) song, We All Do Better When We All Do Better. Furthermore, Our Identity should not Remain Marked to understand and overcome the workings of a virus whose Identity [DOES NOT] Remain Marked!Design/methodology/approachPractice-based creation coalesced with analytical writing.FindingsWe All Do Better When We All Do Better! The COVID-19 pandemic corresponds to crucial fundamental assumptions which have appeared from adversity anthropology over the past epochs. First, that environmental catastrophes infrequently surface, because calamities are communal and reliant on trans-species relationships. Furthermore, they appear from a blend of threat and susceptibility, with susceptibility as the causal issue. Second, the disaster occurs at manifold ranks concurrently, with responses to a threat; it endangers all the weak issues along with the original threat (Kelman, 2020).Research limitations/implicationsThroughout COVID-19 much of the media left cavernous time gaps, masks turned into tools of rebellion, and power and violence were exercised indirectly on the vulnerable. The virtual campuses of WhatsApp, Facebook and conventional broadcasting are disseminating specialist knowledge in pandemic science; now everyone is certified. They voice a nouveau-vindictive biopolitical language, so we rise towards COVID-19 denialism. And, we turn into unthinking puppets who speed up the transfer of misinformation that moves like an “asymptomatic” cough through an overcrowded bar or beach as all inhale-consume it.Practical implicationsPart of pandemic planning and dealing with the consequential calamity is to integrate instantly the disastrous aspects caused by lockdowns. In this surge of terror and apprehension, we cannot afford to isolate people, even more through shame and prejudice. Each one of us is accountable to support each other and advocate for an all-inclusive healthy community.Social implicationsUnescapably, as an immigrant, I had never dreaded this “home away from home” and stay anyhow, and I always had something to write home about. But recently I have had “Nothing to Write Home About,” (Madan-Soni, 2019). Migrant employees in most countries including international students were not much more than uninvited guests positioned in a conventional neighbourhood. It is as if your every expatriate-neighbour was plague-ridden and waiting to infect you. But the virus required no genomic or national identity or visa rank, it could cut all lines to get to you. The virus's Identity Is [Not] Marked.Originality/valueOur Identity Remains Marked (2020) is my probing visual description of how Our Identity Remains Marked, layered, and stratified in stone under authoritarian structures of patriarchy. I read and researched about how Our Identity Remains Marked when humans are othered through the colours of race, gender, national and immigrant status, including all Earth others. Crafting things, creating something engages with a developing field of ecofeminist research on visual and embodied approaches and creativity (VEM Network, n.d; Reynolds, 2021). Painting offered me a therapeutic way of thinking and of using my senses.

The Impact of Pre-Election Protests in Electoral Autocracies: The Case of Hong Kong’s Anti-ELAB Movement

Scholars of electoral autocracies accord far more attention to post-election protests than pre-election ones, as the former have the potential to trigger a regime transition. We argue that pre-election protests can have a significant effect on election outcomes. In particular, they are likely to deepen social cleavages along two dimensions: age and immigrant status. The 2019 social unrest in Hong Kong provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the electoral impact of pre-election protests. Comparing public opinion data related to the 2019 and 2015 District Council elections, we find strong empirical support for our argument, as immigrant status and age are strong predictors of voting choices and voter turnout. Our findings imply that exposure to democratic protests may not help in bridging the gap in political attitudes between immigrants and natives.