Digital exclusion of racialized women at risk of Gender-Based Violence during the COVID-19 pandemic

Racialized women at risk of gender-based violence are a priority group to focus on for upstream mental health support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collection is a strategic tool to address the specific risks of women experiencing GBV. We will present findings from our knowledge synthesis project to analyze guiding principles for data collection

Becoming Resilient: Promoting the Mental Health and Well-Being of Immigrant Women in a Canadian Context

This paper reports on grounded theory findings that are relevant to promoting the mental health and well-being of immigrant women in Canada. The findings illustrate how relationships among settlement factors and dynamics of empowerment had implications for “becoming resilient” as immigrant women and how various health promotion approaches enhanced their well-being. Dimensions of empowerment were embedded in the content and process of the feminist health promotion approach used in this study. Four focus groups were completed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with 35 racialized immigrant women who represented diverse countries of origin: 25 were from Africa; others were equally represented from South Asia (5), Asia (5), and Central or South America and the Caribbean (5). Participants represented diverse languages, family dynamics, and educational backgrounds. One focus group was conducted in Somali; three were conducted in English. Constructivist grounded theory, theoretical sampling, and a critical feminist approach were chosen to be congruent with health promotion research that fostered women's empowerment. Findings foreground women's agency in the study process, the ways that immigrant women name and frame issues relevant to their lives, and the interplay among individual, family, community, and structural dynamics shaping their well-being. Implications for mental health promotion are discussed

Cultural Identity as Part of Youth’s Self-Concept in Multicultural Settings

Copyright © Masood Zangeneh, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Mental Health & AddictionIdentity is recognized as an important aspect of psychosocial well-being. This study examined the self-concept and cultural identity of 550 youth in a community based sample of high school students in Canada. A revised version of Kuhn and McPartland’s (1954) Twenty Statement Test and Oetting and Beauvais’ (1991) orthogonal cultural identification item were used to gather data. The relationship between participants’ individual (age and gender) and environmental (cultural background and migrant background) with cultural identity levels was considered. Close to 79% of respondents were born in Canada, 18% had immigrated, and 2.5% were visa students. The average age of respondents was 17 years. In relation to self-concept, 61.3% of responses were related to the Self-Evaluations category and 16.5% to the Social Identity category. Five sub-themes (Ethnicity/National origin, Migration status/Residency, Race, Language, and Cultural/Political) were related to cultural identity. Over 54% of the sample identified a lot and 32.5% identified some with the Canadian way of life. Cultural identity levels were found to vary by cultural background in relation to several cultural identity groups. The concept of neighbourhood concordance was considered among the explanations for emerging patterns. The term multiculturation was proposed in cultural identity discourse in multicultural settings.Ye

Information Sheet 19: Social support for racialized families of children and youth with developmental disabilities: COVID-19 pandemic inequities

People with disabilities face increased risk for exposure, complications, and death from the recent COVID-19 public health emergency (Shapiro, 2020; Turk et al, 2020). The pandemic lockdown, with disruption of services and support (Chung, 2020) and accessibility barriers to prevention and response measures (Eshraghi et al., 2020), increased the challenges associated for people with developmental disabilities (DDs) (Ameis et al., 2020). Racialized people with disabilities (including DDs), further face systemic disadvantages across their social determinants of health (John et al., 2016); the interlocking barriers to care position them at a high risk of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research findings suggest that social support mitigates the effects of stressors for families to promote the wellbeing of children / youth with DDs leading to positive outcomes (Khanlou et al., 2022; Khanlou et al., 2015). Lack of data on the effects of the recent pandemic on people with DDs results in the inability of health surveillance systems to accurately determine the impact of the pandemic on marginalized populations and support needed (Turks et al., 2020). Increasing calls from racialized communities and disability advocates, scholars, and practitioners urge for the need to generate more data on the pandemic experiences of racialized people with DDs.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Exchange – KMb Gran