Odds of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in School-Aged Children From Official Language Minority Communities.

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to assess the odds of suffering from anxiety or depression symptoms based on the presence of certain determinants of health for youth living in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, and in two linguistically different Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) in the same province. Methods: With a sample of 22,329 students from grades 7 to 12 in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, logistic regressions were performed to assess each determinant of health's effect on symptoms of anxiety and depression. Results: Some social determinants, like family support, social support and food insecurity, were identified as important determinants of mental health status regardless of linguistic group membership or community membership, while other determinants, such as alcohol use, cannabis use and natural environment, were more prominent in one OLMC than the other. Discussion: Social psychology and public health theories are used in an attempt to explain the results. Limitations and recommendations are also brought forward.

Spatial variability of climate effects on ischemic heart disease hospitalization rates for the period 1989-2006 in Quebec, Canada.

BACKGROUND: Studies have suggested an association between climate variables and circulatory diseases. The short-term effect of climate conditions on the incidence of ischemic heart disease (IHD) over the 1989-2006 period was examined for Quebec's 18 health regions. METHODS: Analyses were carried out for two age groups. A GAM statistical model, that blends the properties of generalized linear models with additive models, was used to fit the standardized daily hospitalization rates for IHD and their relationship with climatic conditions up to two weeks prior to the day of admission, controlling for time trends, day of the season and gender. RESULTS: Results show that, in most of Quebec's regions, cold temperatures during winter months and hot episodes during the summer months are associated with an increase of up to 12% in the daily hospital admission rate for IHD but also show decreased risks in some areas. The risk of hospitalization is higher for men and women of 45-64 years and varies spatially. In most regions, exposure to a continuous period of cold or hot temperature was more harmful than just one isolated day of extreme weather. Men aged 45-64 years showed higher risk levels of IHD than women of the same age group. In most regions, the annual maximum of daily IHD admissions for 65 years old was reached earlier in the season for both genders and both seasons compared to younger age groups. The effects of meteorological variables on the daily IHD admissions rate were more pronounced in regions with high smoking prevalence and high deprivation index. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the differential effects of cold and hot periods on IHD in Quebec health regions depending on age, sex, and other factors such as smoking, behaviour and deprivation levels.

Effects of climate on West Nile Virus transmission risk used for public health decision-making in Quebec.

BACKGROUND: In 2002, major human epidemics of West Nile Virus (WNV) were reported in five cities in the North East region of North America. The present analysis examines the climatic conditions that were conducive to the WNV epidemic, in order to provide information to public health managers who eventually must decide on the implementation of a preventive larvicide spraying program in Quebec, Canada. Two sets of variables, the first observed in the summer of 2002 and the second in the preceding winter were analysed to study their potential as explanatory variables for the emergence of the virus at epidemic levels. RESULTS: Results show that the climatic conditions observed in the year 2002 have contributed to the emergence of the virus and can be observed once every forty years on average. The analysis has shown that the 2002 events observed in several North East North American cities are characterized by two main variables: the number of degree-days below -5 degrees C in the winter (DD-5) and the number of degree-days greater than 25 degrees C in the summer (DD25). CONCLUSION: In the context of a declining rate of human and aviary infection to WNV, this element contributed to the decision to suspend the use of preventive larvicides in the province of Quebec in 2006 and for the foreseeable future. The second part of this study indicates that it is very important to estimate the risk that extreme values can be observed simultaneously in the summer and in the winter preceding the appearance of the virus. The proposed models provide important information to public health officials, weeks before the appearance of the virus, and can therefore be useful to help prevent human epidemics.

Combining communication technology utilization and organizational innovation: evidence from Canadian healthcare decision makers.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Organizational Innovation (OI) are seen as the miracle of post-modernity in organizations. In this way, they are supposed to resolve most organizational problems, efficiently and rapidly. OI is highly dependent on the capacity and the investment in knowledge management (internal and external) to support decision making process and to implement significant changes. We know what explains ICT utilization (ICTU) and what determines OI development (OID) in healthcare services. Moreover, the literature tends to link ICTU to OID and vice versa. However, this dependency has never been explored empirically through the lens of roles combination. To identify the existing combined roles profiles of ICTU and OID among healthcare decision makers and determine factors of the shift from a profile to another. We did the following: (1) a structured review of the literature on healthcare management by focusing on ICTU and OID which allowed us to build two indexes and a comprehensive framework; (2) a copula methodology to identify with high precision the thresholds for ICTU and OID; and (3) a cross-sectional study based on a survey done with a sample of 942 decision makers from Canadian healthcare organizations through a multinomial logit model to identify determinants of the shift. ICTU and OID are correlated at 22% (Kendal's Tau). The joint distribution (combination) of ICTU and OID shows that four major profiles exist among decision makers in Canadian healthcare organizations: the traditional decision maker, the innovative decision maker, the technologic decision maker and the contemporary decision maker. We found out that classic factors act as barriers to the shift from one profile to the desired profile (from 1 to 4, from 2 to 4 and from 3 to 4). We have identified that the attitude toward research and relational capital are transversal barriers of shift. We have also found that some factors have a specific impact such as engaging in activities of research acquisition, the administrative position (being a manager), the preference for applied research results as source of information, the degree of novelty of research results, and the gender. Modern Canadian healthcare organizations need contemporary decision makers who use ICT and develop OI, if performance is the target. Our results let us suggest that the isolated administrative agents profile is no more effective in a dynamic and changing world. Contemporary decision makers need to be more active intellectually and to take risks in their decisions. Relying exclusively on research results and on their social network is no more helpful for a real shift. Moreover, the traditional factors, i.e. organization size, time, experience ... are no more effective, especially when we consider combined roles. We propose some practical and theoretical recommendations to support these changes.