What happens next? Exploring connections between repatriation, restorative justice, and reconciliation in Canada

The collection and use of Indigenous ancestors and their belongings for research and display in museums has contributed to losses of cultural patrimony and to the intergenerational trauma reverberating from Indigenous peoples’ experiences of colonialism. Repatriation movements, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and related Indigenous rights activism have begun to transform heritage management practices. As of 2022, in Canada and elsewhere, legislation and national policy require heritage practitioners to engage with Indigenous descendant communities and to repatriate ancestral human remains and other cultural materials. The return of ancestors and cultural materials can remediate traumatic histories, reconnect individuals with culture and community, and serve as a form of restorative justice. However, involvement in repatriation work may also carry unanticipated challenges, including struggles with unclear policies and procedures, timelines that extend for years and decades rather than weeks and months, and high financial and spiritual burdens for descendants. Many museums also perpetuate colonial dynamics by clinging to decision-making authorities and otherwise resisting change to accommodate Indigenous values, interests, and preferences. The three case studies presented here examine connections among repatriation, restorative justice, and reconciliation: 1) The return of a Tłı̨chǫ caribou skin lodge; 2) The reproduction of traditional Gwich’in clothing; and 3) The repatriation of ancestral human remains and other-than-human ancestors to Bkejwanong (Walpole Island First Nation). Each case scrutinizes what happened after repatriation was “completed” and identifies the effects that repatriation/rematriation processes and outcomes can and do have on Indigenous descendant communities. The cases also provide contexts for discussion of the roles that repatriation should play in ongoing reconciliation efforts here in Canada. Repatriation has the potential to be much more than a process of return. Conducted in good faith, with open minds and hearts, it can bring benefits to receiving communities across social, cultural, political, economic, and spiritual dimensions

Suboptimal Nonmedical Qualities of Primary Care Linked With Care Avoidance Among People Who Use Drugs in a Canadian Setting Amid an Integrated Health Care Reform

Background:  People who use unregulated drugs (PWUD) often face significant barriers to—and thereby avoid seeking—health care. In Vancouver, Canada, a neighborhood-wide health care system reform began in 2016 to improve health care delivery and quality. In the wake of this reform, we sought to determine the prevalence of health care avoidance and its association with emergency department use among PWUD in this setting and examine patient-reported nonmedical qualities of health care (“responsiveness”).   Methods:  The study derived data from two prospective cohort studies of community-recruited PWUD in Vancouver in 2017–18. Responsiveness was ascertained by the World Health Organizations\u27 standardized measurements and we evaluated seven domains of responsiveness (dignity, autonomy, communication, confidentiality, prompt attention, choice of provider, and quality of basic amenities). The study used Pearson chi-squared test to examine differences in responsiveness between those who did and did not avoid care. The study team used multivariable logistic regression to determine the relationship between care avoidance due to past mistreatment and emergency department use, adjusting for potential confounders.   Results:  Among 889 participants, 520 (58.5%) were male, 204 (22.9%) reported avoiding health care, most commonly for chronic pain (47.4%). Overall, 6.6% to 36.2% reported suboptimal levels (i.e., not always meeting the expected quality) across all seven measured domain of responsiveness. Proportions reporting suboptimal qualities were significantly higher among those who avoided care than those who did not across all domains, including care as soon as wanted (51.0% vs. 31.8%), listened to carefully (44.1% vs. 20.4%), and involved in health care decision-making (27.9% vs. 12.7%) (all p < 0.05). In multivariable analyses, avoidance of health care was independently associated with self-reported emergency department use (adjusted odds ratio = 1.49; 95% confidence interval:1.01–2.19).   Conclusion:  We found that almost a quarter of our sample of PWUD avoided seeking health care due to past mistreatment, and all seven measured domains of responsiveness were suboptimal and linked with avoidance. Individuals who reported avoidance of health care were significantly more likely to report emergency department use. Multi-level interventions are needed to remedy the suboptimal qualities of health care and thereby reduce care avoidance

Considering data on a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) for Chinese patients with thyroid diseases who speak Mandarin in China

The current study examined a newly-translated Simplified Chinese version of the Thyroid-Specific Patient-Reported Outcome Short Form (SC ThyPRO-39) among 179 thyroid patients in Mainland China. This study investigated whether the ceiling/floor effect (CFE) is present in responses to the SC ThyPRO-39. The appropriateness of regression modelling strategies for data with and without CFE were considered for a variety of predictor sets, and models were compared among six distributional models. With different predictor sets, the effect of gender and mode of administration (electronic interview versus self-administration) were of particular interest. Results suggested the use of Negative Binomial or Zero-inflated Negative Binomial as modelling strategies to fit the data with significant floor effect. There were also gender and mode effects on the scale scores. Findings indicated that overall, the SC ThyPRO-39 can be used as a patient-reported outcome measure among thyroid patients who speak Mandarin or read Simplified Chinese in China

Voices of the Street: Without Prejudice

Content Warning: The stories in this series deal with difficult and sometimes traumatic topics. Please practice self care, stop listening, and seek help if you need to. Scroll down to find links to available supports.  For the third installment of the Voices of the Street podcast, we have a candid and heartful conversation between host Yvonne Mark and Megaphone writer Dennis Gates in response to his piece “Without Prejudice,” published in the 2021 Voices of the Street anthology. In his piece, Dennis writes about his experiences of anti-Indigenous discrimination and injustice within the court system and the deep-felt impact of incarceration on his life. Yvonne and Dennis reflect on both their experiences with the criminal justice system, finding strength through writing, and the importance of sharing stories like theirs. This episode was curated and hosted by poet, storyteller and Megaphone vendor, Yvonne Mark, an avid writer and advocate for ending stigma around substance use

Re-thinking the Coronavirus Pandemic as a Policy Punctuation: Covid-19 as a Path-clearing Policy Accelerator

This article joins with others in this special issue to examine the evolution of our understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic impacted policy ideas and routines across a wide variety of sectors of government activity. Did policy ideas and routines transform as a result of the pandemic or were they merely a continuation of the status quo ante? If they did transform, are the transformations temporary in nature or likely to lead to significant, deep and permanent reform to existing policy paths and trajectories? As this article sets out, the literature on policy punctuations has evolved and helps us understand the impact of COVID-19 on policy-making but tends to conflate several distinct aspects of path trajectories and deviations under the general concept of “critical junctures” which muddy reflections and findings. Once the different possible types of punctuations have been clarified, however, the result is a set of concepts related to path creation and disruption—especially that of “path clearing”—which are better able to provide an explanation of the kinds of policy change to be expected to result from the impact of events such as the 2019 coronavirus pandemic

Voices of the Street: Why I Choose to Stay

The Voices of the Street podcast makes its debut on Below the Radar!  Over the next six weeks, follow along as Megaphone storytellers weave tales and read from the 2021 Voices of the Street anthology. In this first installment, we hear from poet, writer, actor, research tech and overdose responder Nicolas Leech-Crier, in conversation with your host for this episode, Mr. Essential. Nicolas shares his journey with Megaphone and how he’s cultivated a passion and skill for community storytelling and journalism. He also reads his original poem, “Why I Choose to Stay,” published in the 2021 issue of Voices of the Street — speaking to the piece as an accumulation of his lived experiences on the streets and his insights into fighting stigma with stories, empathy and love. Due to Nicolas’s story featuring trauma-heavy content, should the poem or anything said during the episode have an adverse effect on your emotional or mental health, we recommend you stop listening to the podcast and refer to your best practices of self-comfort and/or seek support (links provided below). Listeners are invited to reach out to Nicolas, the creator of this episode, at [email protected] if they would like to discuss the contents of the episode

Dynamic Inhibitory Control Prevents Salience-Driven Capture of Visual Attention

The salience-driven selection theory is comprised of three main tenets: (a) the most salient stimulus within a monitored region of the visual field captures attention, (b) the only way to prevent salience-driven distraction is by narrowly focusing attention elsewhere, and (c) all other goal-driven processes are possible only after the most salient item has been attended. Evidence for and against this theory has been provided from two experimental paradigms. Here, event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded in a novel Go/No-Go paradigm disconfirmed all three of tenets of the theory. Participants were instructed to search cyan-item displays for a salient orientation singleton (Go trials) and to ignore randomly intermixed yellow-item displays that could also contain an orientation singleton (No-Go trials). ERP components associated with attentional orienting (N2pc), distractor suppression (PD), and stimulus relevance (P2a) were isolated to test predictions stemming from the salience-driven selection theory. On No-Go trials, the salient oddball elicited a PD rather than an N2pc, indicating that it was suppressed, not attended. Moreover, a P2a emerged before the N2pc on Go trials, demonstrating that observers first evaluated the global color of each display and then decided to search for the oddball (Go trials) or to ignore it (No-Go trials). We conclude that goal-driven processes can lead to the prevention of salience-driven attention capture by salient visual objects within the attentional window

3D Printed Leech-inspired Origami Dry Electrodes for Electrophysiology Sensing Robots

In this study, based on inspiration drawn from origami and the suction mechanism of leeches, a dry electrode is developed for reliable blood pressure (BP) monitoring. The leech-inspired suction mechanism generated a local soft vacuum facilitating appropriate contact with the human skin. Subsequently, an electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor, termed a leech-inspired origami (LIO) sensor, was constructed using the developed dry electrode. The LIO with a sensing robot system ensures reliable ECG signals with a signal-to-noise ratio of 21.7 ± 0.56 dB. From the paired detection of ECG and photoplethysmography (PPG) through human–robot interaction, BP monitoring was demonstrated. The average difference of the systolic BP between that estimated by the sensing robot and that monitored by the sphygmomanometer was 0.03 mmHg, indicating the reliable BP monitoring ability of the sensing robot. The LIO sensing system inspired by origami and leech behaviors makes BP sensing tools feasible, which in turn would further the development of a remote healthcare monitoring robotic system

Range-wide life-history diversity and climate exposure in Chinook salmon

Climate change risk for migratory species is intertwined with their life-history diversity. Here I quantify climate risk, exposure, and phenological adaptive capacity in Chinook salmon during their spawning migrations for populations from across their North American range. First, I assessed how migration timing varies with watershed characteristics. Populations with longer migration distances and from higher elevations entered freshwater earlier. Second, I quantified climate exposure and risk by linking migration timing data to recent (1990s) and future (2040s) water temperatures. Nearly a quarter of populations will be exposed to future temperatures above thermally stressful thresholds. Third, I assessed the rate and direction of phenological shifts that would enable Chinook to adapt to climate warming. Spring populations would need to shift earlier, while fall populations would need to shift later. Broadly, my thesis highlights that climate exposure, risk and adaptive capacity are structured by phenology and latitude in a diverse migratory species

Voices of the Street: My Mother’s Comfort

Content Warning: The stories in this series deal with difficult and sometimes traumatic topics. This episode in particular discusses substance use, family separation and residential schools. Please practice self care, stop listening, and seek help if you need to. Scroll down to find links to available supports. The fourth episode of the Voices of the Street podcast series features a conversation on Indigenous honour, healing and empowerment, with your host, Nicolas Leech-Crier. Nicolas interviews Voices of the Street contributor Eva Takakanew about her written piece, “My Mother’s Comfort,” a deeply personal poem and reflection on drug use and the intergenerational mother-child relationships in her life as an adoptee from the Sixties Scoop. Together they speak about their experiences as adoptees and reconnecting with their culture as adults. They also speak to finding empowerment through Indigenous-led education programs and taking part in the cultural resurgence of their generation