Strengthening Equity and Inclusion in Urban Greenspace: Interrogating the Moral Management & Policing of 2SLGBTQ+ Communities in Toronto Parks.

There is growing recognition that greenspace provides invaluable benefits to health and wellbeing, and is essential infrastructure for promoting both social and environmental sustainability in urban settings. This paper contributes towards efforts to build 'just' and equitable urban sustainability, and more specifically greenspace management, by drawing attention to hostility and exclusion experienced by two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, genderqueer, pansexual, transsexual, intersex and gender-variant (2SLGBTQ+) park occupants. There is evidence that access to greenspace is inequitable-despite ongoing media accounts of targeted violence and discriminatory police patrolling of 2SLGBTQ+ communities in urban parks, this population has not received adequate research attention. This paper examines systemic barriers that impede urban greenspace access among 2SLGBTQ+ communities, including how the threat of violence in greenspace limits opportunities for accessing benefits associated with naturalized settings. These themes are explored within the context of the City of Toronto, Canada. Our mixed-method approach draws upon key informant interviews, key document content analysis, and ground-truthing. Our findings reveal how queer corporeality, kinship and love subvert deeply entrenched heteronormative social values and understandings of sexuality, partnership, gender, and use of public space, challenging institutional understandings of morality and daily life. The paper concludes by reflecting on the state of 2SLGBTQ+ communities' relationships to greenspace, and potential ways forward in building greater inclusivity into the social fabric of park design and management.

Pursuing dignified food security through novel collaborative governance initiatives: Perceived benefits, tensions and lessons learned.

Food security governance is broadening and diversifying, resulting in organizations coming together in novel collaborative actions, despite little history of working together. Alternative food initiatives coexist alongside traditional charitable, emergency-based approaches. Tensions can arise between approaches and collaborating organizations due to differences in philosophy, priorities, constraints and practices. There is limited knowledge on how converging interests are interacting with one another within shifting landscapes of collaborative intervention, or the experiences of governance stakeholders involved. Through in-depth interviews this case-study examines the experiences of diverse stakeholders involved in a novel food security coalition and their perceived benefits, challenges, tensions and lessons learned. Benefits included greater communication, information sharing, understanding of diverse needs, more frequent and customized referrals, and the development of a community food centre that has increased access to affordable fresh produce in inclusive manners. Simultaneously changes in governance have produced turf wars and competition over resources. We reveal the importance of sensitivity when advocating for food system reforms to avoid 'villainizing' organizations that have been supporting those in need through charitable means, or further marginalizing populations who may perceive less access barriers when using food banks. Our findings suggest perceptions on what it means to provide 'dignified' food access vary according to unique needs and lived experiences, and one delivery model is likely inappropriate. Food banks and alternative food initiatives serve unique roles and efforts should be made to ensure they can co-exist and that those with lived experience play an influential role in changing food governance systems.

Double Burden of Rural Migration in Canada? Considering the Social Determinants of Health Related to Immigrant Settlement Outside the Cosmopolis.

There is a large and growing body of research acknowledging the existence of health disparities between foreign-born and native-born populations in many high immigrant-receiving countries. Significant attention has been paid to the role of physical and social environments in the changing health status of immigrants over time. However, very limited attention has been given to these issues within the context of rural geographies, despite global evidence that immigrants are increasingly settling outside of traditional gateway cities and into rural communities. This paper presents the results of a scoping review aimed at assessing the state of knowledge on the health impacts of immigrant migration into rural communities in Canada. Guided by Arksey and O'Malley's scoping protocol, we conduct a review of academic literature in Canada related to rural migration. A total of 25 articles met inclusion criteria which included access to the social determinants of health. Findings identified a paucity of research directly connecting rural settlement to health but the literature did emphasize five distinct social determinants of health for rural residing immigrants: social inclusion, culturally-appropriate services, gender, employment, and housing. This paper concludes with an identification of research gaps and opportunities for future research into whether rural-residing immigrants face a double burden with respect to health inequity.

Challenges to evidence-based health promotion: a case study of a Food Security Coalition in Ontario, Canada.

Developing the evidence base for health promotion can be challenging because interventions often have to target competing determinants of health, including social, structural, environmental and political determinants; all of which are difficult to measure and thus evaluate. Drawing on a case study of food insecurity, which refers to inadequate access to food due to financial constraints, we illustrate the challenges faced by community-based organizations in collecting data to form an evidence base for the development and evaluation of collective programmes aimed at addressing food insecurity. Interviews were conducted with members of a multi-stakeholder coalition (n = 22 interviewees; n = 10 organizations) who collectively work to address food insecurity in their community through a range of community-based programmes and services. Member organizations also provided a list of measures currently used to inform programme and service development and evaluation. Data were collected in a city in Southern Ontario, Canada between May and September 2015. Participants identified four barriers to collecting data: Organizational needs and philosophies; concerns surrounding clientele wellbeing and dignity; issues of feasibility; and restrictive requirements imposed by funding bodies. Participants also discussed their previous successes in collecting meaningful data for identifying impact. Our results point to the challenge of generating data suitable for developing and evaluating programmes aimed at broader determinants of health, while maintaining the primary goal of meeting clients' needs. Documenting change at intermediate- and macro-levels would provide evidence for the collective effectiveness of current programmes and services offered. However, appropriate resources need to be invested to allow for scientific evaluation.

Exploring socio-cultural factors that mediate, facilitate, & constrain the health and empowerment of refugee youth.

Studies on youth health and well-being are predominantly quantitative and expert-driven with less attention given to how youth understand what it means to be healthy themselves and the role of socio-cultural factors in shaping this. Knowledge on the perceptions and experiences of refugee youth is particularly lacking and notable given their unique stressors related to migratory, settlement and integration experiences. We contribute a better understanding of how refugee youth themselves define and contextualize health, with particular emphasis given to socio-cultural factors that enable or constrain health promotion efforts and individual health agency. This research was undertaken at a downtown drop-in centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada that provided settlement and integration services to newcomer youth. We employ a grounded theory approach and draw upon participant observation, focus groups and in-depth interviews. Twenty-six youth (age 18-25 years), representing 12 different countries of origin participated. The youth defined health very broadly touching upon many typical determinants of health (e.g. education, income, etc.). Yet factors of most importance (as demonstrated by the frequency and urgency in which they were discussed by youth) included a sense of belonging, positive self-identity, emotional well-being, and sense of agency or self-determination. We conceptualize these as "mediating" factors given the youth argued they enabled or constrained their ability to cope with adversities related to other health determinant categories. The youth also discussed what we interpret as "facilitators" that encourage mediating factors to manifest positively (e.g. informal, non-biomedical settings and programs that nurture trust, break down access barriers, and promote a sense of community amongst peers, mentors, and health professionals). When creating health promotion strategies for refugee youth (and perhaps youth more generally) it is important to understand the factors that may mediate the magnitude of effects from various risks/stressors, in addition to those which facilitate health agency.

Discrimination and the health of immigrants and refugees: exploring Canada's evidence base and directions for future research in newcomer receiving countries.

Research and practice increasingly suggests discrimination compromises health. Yet the unique experiences and effects facing immigrant and refugee populations remain poorly understood in Canada and abroad. We review current knowledge on discrimination against newcomers in Canada, emphasizing impacts upon health status and service access to identify gaps and research needs. Existing knowledge centers around experiences within health-care settings, differences in perception and coping, mental health impacts, and debates about "non-discriminatory" health-care. There is need for comparative analyses within and across ethno-cultural groups and newcomer classes to better understand factors shaping how discrimination and its health effects are differentially experienced. Women receive greater attention in the literature given their compounded vulnerability. While this must continue, little is known about the experiences of youth and men. Governance and policy discourse analyses would elucidate how norms, institutions and practices shape discriminatory attitudes and responses. Finally, "non-discriminatory health-care" interventions require critical evaluation to determine their effectiveness.

Profiling differential gene expression of corals along a transect of waters adjacent to the Bermuda municipal dump.

A coral cDNA array containing 32 genes was used to examine the gene expression profiles of coral populations located at four sites that varied with distance from a semi-submerged municipal dump in Castle Harbour, Bermuda (previously identified as a point source of anthropogenic stressors). Genes on the array represent transcripts induced under controlled laboratory conditions to a variety of stressors both natural (temperature, sediment, salinity, darkness) and xenobiotic (heavy metals, pesticides, PAH) in origin. The gene expression profiles produced revealed information about the types of stressors. Consistent with other studies undertaken in Castle Harbour, the coral cDNA array detected responses to heavy metals, sedimentation, as well as oxidative stress.

Development of a coral cDNA array to examine gene expression profiles in Montastraea faveolata exposed to environmental stress.

The development of a cDNA array of coral genes and its application to investigate changes in coral gene expression associated with stressful conditions is described. The array includes both well-characterized and previously unidentified coral genes from Acropora cervicornis and Montastraea faveolata. Corals were exposed to either natural or anthropogenic stressors to elicit the expression of stress genes for isolation and incorporation onto the array. A total of 32 genes involved in protein synthesis, apoptosis, cell signaling, metabolism, cellular defense and inflammation were included on the array. Labeled cDNA from coral (Montastraea faveolata) exposed to elevated seawater temperature, salinity and ultraviolet light was tested against the microarray to determine patterns of gene expression associated with each stressor. Carbonic anhydrase, thioredoxin, a urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) and three ribosomal genes demonstrated differential expression across all replicates on the array and between replicate colonies. Specific gene expression patterns produced in response to different stressors demonstrate the potential for gene expression profiling in characterizing the coral stress response.