Topic: Equity

Early adolescents who are new to Canada experience dual challenges of navigating developmental changes and multiple cultures. This study examined how changes in early adolescents’ emotional health from ages 9 to 12 differed by immigration background, and to what extent peer belonging and supportive school climate protected or promoted their emotional health.

Gilham K, Gadermann A, Dummer T, Murphy RA. Mental health, cancer risk, and the mediating role of lifestyle factors in the CARTaGENE cohort study. PLoS One. 2023;18(2):e0281588. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281588.

Gerlach, A.J.; McFadden, A. Re-Envisioning an Early Years System of Care towards Equity in Canada: A Critical, Rapid Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 9594. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159594

Neurodevelopmental disability in children covers a vast array of congenital and acquired long-term conditions associated with brain or neuromuscular impairments that impact function. While some presentations of neurodevelopmental disability align with diagnostic labels, many do not, leaving children whose conditions don’t fit neatly under diagnostic labels struggling to access services or families and professionals feeling pressured to assign a diagnostic label in order to access services.

This study uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the developmental well-being of refugee children in British Columbia, Canada. Quantitative analysis, using government data and the Early Development Instrument (EDI), compared refugee children's developmental scores across five domains to those of immigrant and non-migrant children.