A review of recent literature related to eHealth technologies in Canada and Australia was conducted to better understand specific barriers and enablers for the uptake, acceptability, and success of eMental health programs.
It has been shown that the more “rural” or “remote” a community, the access to mental health services decreases. By mitigating barriers and promoting enablers, successful eMental health integration can increase access to mental health services for rural residents.
eMental health aims to bridge the gap between rural and urban mental health services by introducing electronic methods such as teleconferencing or videoconferencing for psychological services, virtual referral to psychiatrists, and sharing of electronic records. Successful integration of the technology remains a challenging task, with key actors, enablers, and barriers all influencing its success.
Rural and remote communities comprise around32% and 22% of Australia’s and Canada’s population. However, only 14% and 16% of family physicians in Australia and Canada, respectively, practice in these communities, resulting in a disproportion in access as compared with urban areas. An erosion of health services occurs when the number of physicians and other health care providers in a region is insufficient or these professionals are non-existent. Even when existing in a rural and remote region, providers are often overburdened. Inaccessibility to services in rural and remote communities’ results in poor health outcomes for all involved.
In Canada, 1 in 7 physicians will leave rural practice within two years. Strategies to address these turnover rates and the lessening interest in entering rural practice have focused on supporting recruitment and retention initiatives (RnR) to first bring physicians into rural practice and then encourage physicians to continue in rural practice beyond the short-term.
These programs have so far been insufficient or ineffective to address the lack of physicians in rural and remote areas. A review of recent literature related to RnR initiatives focused on rural physicians in Australia and Canada was conducted to investigate the strengths and limitations of initiatives. Further, this review critically examines the short and long-term feasibility of initiatives and develops a conceptual framework for designing or examining RnR initiatives.
This report was prepared for the Centre for Rural Medicine in Storuman, Sweden, as part of the Free Range international student exchange program.
See also Carleton's Spatial Determinants of Health Lab: https://carleton.ca/determinants
Abstract:
This report is provides guidance for research teams who are currently planning or are in the midst of
implementing an e-health intervention in rural communities. It describes the important factors which need to be considered when scaling - up a pilot project from one context to another, and demonstrates what a successful project needs to maximize the probability that it will achieve the
desired level of spread within the healthcare system.
This report can be used as a reference for people who wish to implement a novel intervention
into a new environment. Ideally it will be used in the early stages of intervention design to help researchers understand how a complex adaptive system functions and why navigating one is important for the outcome of their intervention. To begin, the report covers some basic terminology used when discussing complex adaptive systems and highlights the importance of working with these ideas moving forward.
Next, in-depth discussions about sense-making, leverage points, self-organization, and agent-based modelling provide evidence of the complexity of implementation. Finally, the principle of antifragility is discussed, as well as a tangible example of an intervention which has been designed with antifragility in mind. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the key findings of the report, offers future directions, and identifies some of the
limitations.
Special thanks to the Toolkit researchers, including Tara McWhinney, Aaron Kozak and Evan Culic for their contributions towards building this toolkit. Cette publication est aussi disponible en français.
Abstract:
This Community-Based Research Toolkit is intended for community organizations trying to decide if they want to conduct research, and whether they should seek an academic partner to work with to conduct this research. This toolkit is designed as a project development checklist that acts as a guide for things to consider for community organizations conducting a research project.
More about the Centre for Studies on Poverty and Social Citizenship: https://carleton.ca/cspsc
See also: Canada's First National Housing Strategy - A Panel Discussion focusing on Canada’s first National Housing Strategy at the CASWE National Conference 2018
Abstract:
In 2016, with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Seed Grant program, The Somali
Centre for Family Services of Ottawa (SCFS) invited Carleton University’s Centre for Studies on Poverty
and Social Citizenship (CSPSC) to partner on the completion of a needs assessment focusing on the
barriers faced by Somali youth in accessing post-secondary education, and employment training and
opportunities. In carrying out this research, the SCFS’s main objective was to address social and
economic exclusion locally by inviting Somali youth (age 19-30) from the Ottawa area to engage in the
conceptualization and design of resources that could best support their participation in educational and
vocational programs.
This report was originally published on December 7, 2021. We re-released in on December 17, 2021 after cleaning up the text from an editorial point of view. This resulted in some stylistic changes but nothing substantive.
This report examines the development of the media economy over the past thirty-five years. Since beginning this project a decade ago, we have focused on analyzing a comprehensive as possible selection of the biggest telecoms, Internet and media industries (based on revenue) in Canada, including: mobile wireless and wireline telecoms; Internet access; cable, satellite & IPTV; broadcast television, specialty and pay television services as well as Internet-based video subscription and download services; radio; newspapers; magazines; music; Internet advertising; social media; operating systems; browsers, etc.