Inequities in Social Determinants of Health Factors and Criminal Behavior: A Case Study of Immigrant Ex-Offenders

When immigrants arrive in a new country, they often discover that being an immigrant does not allow them to integrate easily into the new society. Immigrant offenders are more likely to engage in criminal behaviors due to inequities in social determinants of health factors as a source of strain.  This study was focused on utilizing the personal experiences of immigrant offenders to discover the various circumstances that contributed to their criminal behavior. General Strain Theory has been shown to be a useable theoretical model in explaining the relationship between race/ethnicity and criminal behavior. The participants in this study were adult immigrant ex-offenders in the province of Alberta, Canada.  The results of the study indicated a consensus among ex-offenders that there are social determinants of health factors such as stress, income problem, education issues, employment issue, and health risk behaviors that have led them to commit crime.  The recommendations presented below are divided into three groups. Recommendations include:  (a) future research in federal, provincial and territorial correctional systems, (b) identification of multiple risk factors that lead an individual to commit crime, (c) crime prevention strategies that help prevent criminal behavior for immigrants.

GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare.

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits

GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits