Community food program use in Inuvik, Northwest Territories

Background: Community food programs (CFPs) provide an important safety-net for highly food insecure community members in the larger settlements of the Canadian Arctic. This study identifies who is using CFPs and why, drawing upon a case study from Inuvik, Northwest Territories. This work is compared with a similar study from Iqaluit, Nunavut, allowing the development of an Arctic-wide understanding of CFP use – a neglected topic in the northern food security literature. Methods: Photovoice workshops (n=7), a modified USDA food security survey and open ended interviews with CFP users (n=54) in Inuvik. Results: Users of CFPs in Inuvik are more likely to be housing insecure, female, middle aged (35–64), unemployed, Aboriginal, and lack a high school education. Participants are primarily chronic users, and depend on CFPs for regular food access. Conclusions: This work indicates the presence of chronically food insecure groups who have not benefited from the economic development and job opportunities offered in larger regional centers of the Canadian Arctic, and for whom traditional kinship-based food sharing networks have been unable to fully meet their dietary needs. While CFPs do not address the underlying causes of food insecurity, they provide an important service for communities undergoing rapid change, and need greater focus in food policy herein

Marine tourism in Nunavut: Issues and opportunities for economic development in Arctic Canada

The Arctic is being influenced dramatically by climate change and new environmental conditions. As a result, there are increasing opportunities for local economic development and one of the sectors that is responding rapidly is marine tourism. In particular, Arctic cruise and yacht tourism has increased across all Arctic regions as sea ice declines and shipping season length increases with warming temperatures. The territory of Nunavut, in Arctic Canada, provides an interesting case study for examining the role of tourism in economic development in a region that is marketed as exotic and remote. Further, this is an important case study given the recent boom in marine tourism: the territory has experienced a 70% and 400% increase respectively in expedition cruise tourism and pleasure craft (yacht) tourism over the past decade. Nunavut is a settled land claim area and these changing environmental and economic conditions require focused attention within the context of adaptation to climate change and evolving self-determination. This chapter examines the place of marine tourism in economic development through the concepts of adaptation and ‘nation-building’ to explore the challenges and opportunities that are part of a complex and rapidly changing economic environment in the region of Nunavut Canada

Age and life expectancy clocks based on machine learning analysis of mouse frailty

The identification of genes and interventions that slow or reverse aging is hampered by the lack of non-invasive metrics that can predict the life expectancy of pre-clinical models. Frailty Indices (FIs) in mice are composite measures of health that are cost-effective and non-invasive, but whether they can accurately predict health and lifespan is not known. Here, mouse FIs are scored longitudinally until death and machine learning is employed to develop two clocks. A random forest regression is trained on FI components for chronological age to generate the FRIGHT (Frailty Inferred Geriatric Health Timeline) clock, a strong predictor of chronological age. A second model is trained on remaining lifespan to generate the AFRAID (Analysis of Frailty and Death) clock, which accurately predicts life expectancy and the efficacy of a lifespan-extending intervention up to a year in advance. Adoption of these clocks should accelerate the identification of longevity genes and aging interventions.ISSN:2041-172