Perspectives on Employment Integration, Mental Illness and Disability, and Workplace Health

This paper reviews the literature on the interplay between employment integration and retention of individuals diagnosed with mental health and related disability (MHRD). Specifically, the paper addresses the importance of an integrative approach, utilizing a social epidemiological approach to assess various factors that are related to the employment integration of individuals diagnosed with severe mental illness. Our approach to the review incorporates a research methodology that is multilayered, mixed, and contextual. The review examines the literature that aims to unpack employers' understanding of mental illness and their attitudes, beliefs, and practices about employing workers with mental illness. Additionally we offer a conceptual framework entrenched within the social determinants of the mental health (SDOMH) literature as a way to contextualize the review conclusions. This approach contributes to a holistic understanding of workplace mental health conceptually and methodologically particularly as practitioners and policy makers alike are grappling with better ways to integrate employees who are diagnosed with mental health and disabilities into to the workplace

Editorial

Two decades into the current millennium, there are still questions about the status and situatedness of Africa in the global community. One central question about Africa is the historical footprint and arrangements of the colonial occupiers. From this standpoint, additional questions center on the lived experiences of Africans, especially in terms of the colonial impact on settlement arrangements and planning models. Several policy initiatives aim to empower and improve the African condition from the global to the continental levels. From the global context, the United Nations-inspired Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (2000 to 2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015 to 2030) are instructive. While the former goals focused on the Global South, which included the African subregion, the latter set of goals focused on both the Global North and Global South (Hanson, Puplampu and Shaw, 2018). The SDGs, especially SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), SDG 16 (peace, justice, and strong institutions), and SDG (partnership for the goals) are essential in addressing the nexus of the environment, human settlements, and global partnership. At the continental level is the African Union Agenda 2063 and its inspiring undertones of creating an Africa that Africans want based on sustainability (Africa Union et al., 2016). The important point is that both the global and continental policy initiatives have significant implications for any discussions on coloniality, autonomy, identity, and spatial justice, the issues at the heart of this special issue of the Journal of Inclusive Cities and Built Environment. It is thus an opportune time through this special issue to unpack how well contemporary policy and research on the continent have come to grips with the interplay between (de)coloniality, autonomy, identity, and spatial justice. The special issue aims to contribute in durable ways to the possibilities of reimagining space and place in the built environment from a decolonial lens. The reflections in this issue arise from engagement with questions of spatial difference, autonomy, identity, and change in Africa, aspects of which have become more apparent through the current debates on decolonization. These experiences form the basis of reflection stimulated in this issue to reflect on what confronts and motivates built environment knowledge holders in deepening the critique of past colonial injustices. The question of what the built environment (i.e., planning, urban planning, architecture, housing, social geography, and spatial planning) can do to contribute to the decolonial debate. Colonialism connotes a power relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, often expressed in a superior-inferior binary in state-to-state relations (Young, 2018; Whyte, 2018; Hechter, 2020). The legacies of colonialism are visible in a post-colonial society (MaldonadoTorres, 2017; Bonilla, 2020; Enns and Bersaglio, 2020, Patrick et al., 2022) and the pattern of power relations in such society (Ricaurte, 2019). While many may trace Africa’s colonial realities back to the conquest and subjugation of Africa in the slave trade era (Wabah and N-ue, 2020; Masaka, 2021), one can argue invariably that the official colonialization of Africa was formalized in the Berlin conference of 1884/85, chaired by Otto van Bismark (Idejiora-Kalu, 2019; Babatunde, 2020). The implications of this event for any conceptualization of African identity in the historical contemporary contexts cannot be overemphasized. Identity, it needs to be stressed, is about a sense of self and how others recognize and response to that sense of self. Indeed, is there an African identity currently in an era of neoliberal globalization

The Fecundity of the Race Discourse in Public Health and Epidemiology : Understanding the Limits of Explaining Health Disparities Using Race Categories in Brazil

This paper problematizes the use of race categories in epidemiological and health surveys in Brazil. The (re)production of epidemiological data using racial categories is common practice in epidemiology and public health. Often presented as a means of explaining the persistence of gaps in health status across diverse groups, racial categories have enjoyed an uncritical advantage. The rationale of using racial categories in surveys by its proponents is that such categories facilitate the development of policies that address structural inequalities in health access, and foregrounding reasons why disparities in health outcomes for minoritized and racialized groups and how broader social determinants of health (SDOH) must be addressed. Justified by the persistence of poorer health outcomes for minoritized groups in pluralistic societies, health researchers often argue for the necessity to collect data using racial categories. Utilizing the Foucauldian inspired Critical Discourse Analytic (CDA) method, this paper comments on the data quality issues related to the use of racial categories and the methodological dilemma such a practice poses for public health researchers and epidemiologists. The paper further cautions that an uncritical use of racial categories in public health surveys, reinforce and perpetuate a sense that the measures are real, their meaning uncomplicated, and their properties substantial

The Fecundity of the Race Discourse in Public Health and Epidemiology : Understanding the Limits of Explaining Health Disparities Using Race Categories in Brazil

This paper problematizes the use of race categories in epidemiological and health surveys in Brazil. The (re)production of epidemiological data using racial categories is common practice in epidemiology and public health. Often presented as a means of explaining the persistence of gaps in health status across diverse groups, racial categories have enjoyed an uncritical advantage. The rationale of using racial categories in surveys by its proponents is that such categories facilitate the development of policies that address structural inequalities in health access, and foregrounding reasons why disparities in health outcomes for minoritized and racialized groups and how broader social determinants of health (SDOH) must be addressed. Justified by the persistence of poorer health outcomes for minoritized groups in pluralistic societies, health researchers often argue for the necessity to collect data using racial categories. Utilizing the Foucauldian inspired Critical Discourse Analytic (CDA) method, this paper comments on the data quality issues related to the use of racial categories and the methodological dilemma such a practice poses for public health researchers and epidemiologists. The paper further cautions that an uncritical use of racial categories in public health surveys, reinforce and perpetuate a sense that the measures are real, their meaning uncomplicated, and their properties substantial

Perspectives on Employment Integration, Mental Illness and Disability, and Workplace Health

This paper reviews the literature on the interplay between employment integration and retention of individuals diagnosed with mental health and related disability (MHRD). Specifically, the paper addresses the importance of an integrative approach, utilizing a social epidemiological approach to assess various factors that are related to the employment integration of individuals diagnosed with severe mental illness. Our approach to the review incorporates a research methodology that is multilayered, mixed, and contextual. The review examines the literature that aims to unpack employers’ understanding of mental illness and their attitudes, beliefs, and practices about employing workers with mental illness. Additionally we offer a conceptual framework entrenched within the social determinants of the mental health (SDOMH) literature as a way to contextualize the review conclusions. This approach contributes to a holistic understanding of workplace mental health conceptually and methodologically particularly as practitioners and policy makers alike are grappling with better ways to integrate employees who are diagnosed with mental health and disabilities into to the workplace.Peer Reviewe

Participatory community Action Research process addressing employment integration of internationally trained professionals (ITPs) in Canada

This paper describes the use of a community action research process (CARP) to understand the lived experiences of internationally trained professionals’ (ITPs) unemployment and underemployment in a Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) project in Edmonton, Canada. Through a mixed methods design, members of six ethno-cultural communities discussed their challenges, opportunities, and prospects for labour market integration; particularly within the context of an economic uncertainty and downturn as they transition and settle in the western Canadian city of Edmonton. The CARP was utilized through several stages involving a robust recruitment and data collection strategy to facilitate community dialogue about barriers and facilitators impacting ITPs’ employment integration, and engage community members in providing solutions to support current ITPs.  The CARP stimulated stakeholders to become more cognizant of the contextual issues impacting ITPs, while taking active roles.  Key features of the evaluation process focused on the following: communication patterns, engagement process, applicability of recruitment strategies, effectiveness of mobilization strategies and prospects for community engagement.  The CARP proved to be an effective strategy for engagement and facilitating inter-sectoral collaborations across a variety of key stakeholders

Disproportionate minority contact in Canada: Police and visible minority youth

There is a consensus that some racial groups are over-represented in their contact with the Canadian justice system, but a lack of agreement about possible reasons for this over-representation. The two dominant explanations for disproportionate minority contact (DMC) with the police are differential involvement in crime and differential treatment by the police. Differential treatment may be due to disproportionate possession by minorities of risk factors for police contact or to discriminatory policing. This paper uses data on self-reported delinquency and police contacts from a representative sample of Canadian youth aged 12 to 17 years from the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth to test the hypotheses that DMC is due to differential involvement or to differential treatment due to disproportionate risk factors. The results indicate that there was disproportionate minority contact with the police, but no support was found for explanations of DMC in terms of either differential involvement or differential treatment due to risk factors. Distinguishing between youth who report violent delinquency and all other youth, DMC was found only for the non-violent youth; this DMC was also not explained by differential treatment due to risk factors. By eliminating other explanations, the results suggest that racially discriminatory policing may be one explanation for DMC in Canada