Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de santé publique
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Can J Public Health · Dec 2018
Drug checking at an electronic dance music festival during the public health overdose emergency in British Columbia.
Shambhala is a 5-day electronic dance music (EDM) festival held in rural British Columbia that annually hosts between 15,000 and 18,000 people on a 500-acre ranch. The AIDS Network Outreach & Support Society (ANKORS) has provided harm reduction services throughout the duration of the festival since 2003, including point-of-care drug checking, which allows real-time testing of illicit substances to assess their composition. Drug checking results are provided directly to clients and displayed in aggregate on a screen for all attendees to see. ⋯ Drug checking services appeal to festivalgoers who, when faced with uncertainty, may discard their substances. This innovative harm reduction service allows for a personalized risk discussion, potentially reaching others via word-of-mouth and early warning systems.
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Can J Public Health · Dec 2018
Cancer incidence among First Nations adults in Canada: follow-up of the 1991 Census Mortality Cohort (1992-2009).
Estimate site-specific cancer incidence rates for a wide range of cancers in First Nations adults in Canada, and compare these with rates in non-Aboriginal adults. ⋯ First Nations people in Canada have disproportionately high rates of certain cancers, providing evidence to support public health policy and programming. More research is needed to identify factors contributing to the significantly lower incidence observed for various cancer types. Novel methods for studying disparities in cancer incidence among First Nations people are required to support ongoing cancer control planning and advocacy.
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Can J Public Health · Dec 2018
Is 'health equity' bad for our health? A qualitative empirical ethics study of public health policy-makers' perspectives.
'Social justice' and 'health equity' are core values in public health. Yet, despite their normative character, the numerous normative accounts of social justice and equity are rarely acknowledged, meaning that these values are often unaccompanied by an explanation of what they require in practice. The objective of this study was to bridge this normative scholarship with information about how these 'core values' are integrated and interpreted by Canadian public health policy-makers. ⋯ These findings indicate that health equity dominates the discursive space wherein justice-based considerations are brought to bear on public health activities. As a result, 'uncomfortable' justice-based considerations of power imbalances and systematic disadvantage can be eschewed in practice in favour of attending to 'proximal' inequities. These findings reveal the problematic ways in which considerations of justice and equity are, and are not, being taken up in public health policy, which in turn may have negative implications for the public's health.
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Can J Public Health · Dec 2018
Beyond the grey tsunami: a cross-sectional population-based study of multimorbidity in Ontario.
To determine volumes and rates of multimorbidity in Ontario by age group, sex, material deprivation, and geography. ⋯ Much of the common rhetoric around multimorbidity concerns the aging 'grey tsunami'. This study demonstrated that the volume of multimorbidity is derived from adults beginning as young as age 35 years old. A focus only on the old underestimates the absolute burden of multimorbidity on the health care system. It can mask the association of material deprivation and geography with multimorbidity which can turn our attention away from two critical issues: (1) potential inequality in health and health care in Ontario and (2) preventing younger and middle-aged people from moving into the multimorbidity category.
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Can J Public Health · Dec 2018
A missed opportunity? Cannabis legalization and reparations in Canada.
As Canada moves towards the legalization of cannabis, the Cannabis Act itself remains void of any complementary social justice measures. Decades of criminalization for the possession, production, and sale of cannabis will remain unscathed under this ostensibly new approach, leaving intact laws that have disproportionately and prejudicially impacted Indigenous people and people of colour. ⋯ Despite the continuing impacts, the Government of Canada has made no commitment to tandem initiatives that address the issues of reparation for those who have been most heavily targeted under cannabis prohibition. Public health implications are discussed.