Poster Introductions I--Arduous Access: Does SES Affect Access to Primary Health Care in Quebec?

A review of the extant literature indicates that there is an important dearth of research concerning access to primary care in Quebec specifically, given the province’s particularly troublesome number of people without family doctors. Furthermore, while many studies concentrate on the effect of socioeconomic on utilisation rates of services, few studies have considered its impact on the likelihood of having a regular source of care. As such, in order to address some of these gaps in the extant literature, this paper will ask whether there is a positive relationship between SES and the likelihood of having a family physician amongst Quebecers. Logistic regression was employed using odds ratios in order to determine the different probabilities of having a regular medical doctor according to level of income and education. Other inequity measures were also included in the analyses, including health region, area of residence, language, visible minority status, and marital status. Finally, the effects of perceived and evaluated health need, age and sex were also controlled for. Results indicate that income positively affects one’s chances of having a regular physician in Quebec, especially among low-income individuals. Education, on the other hand, was not found to be significant. Health status, age and being female were found to increase the likelihood of having a physician, (representing inequalities in access), whereas living in Montreal (and urban regions in general) as well as being unmarried were all found to be negatively associated with having a regular doctor. In sum, disparities in access continue to exist in this province, despite universal healthcare coverage. Tania Jenkins is a Master’s student in Sociology at McGill University and recipient of a SSHRC Master’s Canadian Graduate Scholarship. She is currently a research assistant at the International Research Infrastructure on Social Inequalities in Health at McGill University and is notably working on several projects that touch upon aging, maternal health care and private health insurance. Beyond this, her research interests include health care systems across the world and more particularly access to primary health care in Quebec, which is the subject of her Master’s thesis. She hopes to continue on to a PhD in the field of medical sociology in autumn 2010

Watersheds in planetary health research and action

Watersheds (also known as water catchments and river basins) are recognised in contemporary science as important natural systems in which to investigate the complex socioecological foundations of health. A watershed is the spatially bound geophysical unit within which surface and shallow groundwater drain to a single collecting stream or river (see appendix). Watersheds are physical and abstract systems: they are open and hydrologically permeable, yet can be represented as functionally distinct. Collectively, watersheds comprise a complex hierarchical network, and thus exemplify the upstream and downstream nature of ecosystems. Watersheds include the social actors, relationships, and institutions located within their boundaries. This means that distant individuals residing within the same watershed might share a more common history of social and environmental exposure than nearer individuals located closer to each other, but in separate watersheds

CLASS_GWB: robust modeling of the astrophysical gravitational wave background anisotropies

Gravitational radiation offers a unique possibility to study the large-scale structure of the Universe, gravitational wave sources and propagation in a completely novel way. Given that gravitational wave maps contain a wealth of astrophysical and cosmological information, interpreting this signal requires a non-trivial multidisciplinary approach. In this work we present the complete computation of the signal produced by compact object mergers accounting for a detailed modelling of the astrophysical sources and for cosmological perturbations. We develop the CLASS_GWB code, which allows for the computation of the anisotropies of the astrophysical gravitational wave background, accounting for source and detector properties, as well as effects of gravitational wave propagation. We apply our numerical tools to robustly compute the angular power spectrum of the anisotropies of the gravitational wave background generated by astrophysical sources in the LIGO-Virgo frequency band. The end-to-end theoretical framework we present can be easily applied to different sources and detectors in other frequency bands. Moreover, the same numerical tools can be used to compute the anisotropies of gravitational wave maps of the sky made using resolved events.Comment: 58 pages, 11 figure

Sex, Gender, Genetics, and Health

This article addresses 2 questions. First, to what extent are sex and gender incorporated into research on genetics and health? Second, how might social science understandings of sex and gender, and gender differences in health, become more integrated into scholarship in this area? We review articles on genetics and health published in selected peer-reviewed journals. Although sex is included frequently as a control or stratifying variable, few articles articulate a conceptual frame or methodological justification for conducting research in this way, and most are not motivated by sex or gender differences in health. Gender differences in health are persistent, unexplained, and shaped by multilevel social factors. Future scholarship on genetics and health needs to incorporate more systematic attention to sex and gender, gender as an environment, and the intertwining of social and biological variation over the life course. Such integration will advance understandings of gender differences in health, and may yield insight regarding the processes and circumstances that make genomic variation relevant for health and well-being

Major practicum as a learning site for exercise science professionals: A pilot study

Exercise science is now an integral part of the allied health framework in Australia and graduates from accredited programmes are equipped with skills recognised as being important in the prevention and management of lifestyle-related diseases. This pilot study sought to determine the experiences of 11 final-year exercise science students in their major practicum and identify skills learned and developed while on placement. Analysis of the interview data established that the students worked with clients from a broad range of sociocultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, both within and between practicum sites; the students' experiences and their preparedness to engage with clients from different backgrounds varied as a result. Although the students generally reported being technically skilled for their major placement, many reported being underprepared to deal with people from different backgrounds. However, all participants held that their interpersonal skills greatly improved in response to their placement and several remarked that they developed their problem-solving skills through watching and assisting their supervisors work with clients. The present study confirms the practicum as a critical learning site for improving communication and problem-solving skills with exercise science and exercise physiology students

Key recommendations on science communication in Europe relating to health and food safety

In the autumn of 2018, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, consulted EvoKE on several science communication issues important to social wellbeing and sustainable development in Europe. These included how to change people’s attitudes toward science, scientific knowledge, and how to communicate about risk, with a special emphasis on food-related issues. Our response, based on research in education and science communication was that simply providing access to information and facts (the so-called deficit model of science communication) is not sufficient. People build their positions and attitudes based on emotional factors and then engage in motivated reasoning, looking for and/or attaching greater value to evidence and experts that support their initial attitudes. Although more studies are needed, research already provides avenues to address this problem. In this document we use the most important lessons of the research to recommend solutions that can be applied, illustrated by case studies

White Matter Deficits Assessed by Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Cognitive Dysfunction in Psychostimulant Users With Comorbid Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection

Background Psychostimulant drug use is commonly associated with drug-related infection, including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Both psychostimulant use and HIV infection are known to damage brain white matter and impair cognition. To date, no study has examined white matter integrity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in chronic psychostimulant users with comorbid HIV infection, and determined the relationship of white matter integrity to cognitive function. Methods Twenty-one subjects (mean age 37.5 ± 9.0 years) with a history of heavy psychostimulant use and HIV infection (8.7 ± 4.3 years) and 22 matched controls were scanned on a 3T MRI. Fractional anisotropy (FA) values were calculated with DTI software. Four regions of interest were manually segmented, including the genu of the corpus callosum, left and right anterior limbs of the internal capsule, and the anterior commissure. Subjects also completed a neurocognitive battery and questionnaires about physical and mental health. Results The psychostimulant using, HIV positive group displayed decreased white matter integrity, with significantly lower FA values for all white matter tracts (p < 0.05). This group also exhibited decreased cognitive performance on tasks that assessed cognitive set-shifting, fine motor speed and verbal memory. FA values for the white matter tracts correlated with cognitive performance on many of the neurocognitive tests. Conclusions White matter integrity was thus impaired in subjects with psychostimulant use and comorbid HIV infection, which predicted worsened cognitive performance on a range of tests. Further study on this medical comorbidity is required

Promoting scientific literacy in evolution through citizen science

Evolutionary understanding is central to biology. It is also an essential prerequisite to understanding and making informed decisions about societal issues such as climate change. Yet, evolution is generally poorly understood by civil society and many misconceptions exist. Citizen science, which has been increasing in popularity as a means to gather new data and promote scientific literacy, is one strategy through which people could learn about evolution. However, despite the potential for citizen science to promote evolution learning opportunities, very few projects implement them. In this paper, we make the case for incorporating evolution education into citizen science, define key learning goals, and suggest opportunities for designing and evaluating projects in order to promote scientific literacy in evolution