Lars K. Hallstrom

Background: Recent data highlight problematic rates of mental health symptoms (MHS) among adolescents and young adults following the COVID-19 pandemic, with implications for early identification and clinical service provision. This study estimated the prevalence of MHS and its sociodemographic correlates among Canadian youths. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 896 iundividuals aged 18–24 years using data from Statistics Canada’s Survey on COVID-19 and Mental Health. Symptoms of anxiety, psychological distress, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were assessed using validated self-report instruments. Analyses included descriptive statistics, Pearson’s chi-square tests, two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and multivariate linear regression. Results: Participants’ mean (SD) age was 21.2 (2.0) years; 53% identified as women, and 81% lived in urban areas. Prevalence was highest for psychological distress (57.0%), followed by depression (31.6%), anxiety (23.7%), and PTSD symptoms (12.6%). Women reported higher anxiety and distress than men ( p < 0.05). In multivariable analyses, female gender, non-essential worker status, poorer self-rated mental health, weaker community belonging, lower household income, lower life satisfaction, and pre-existing mental health disorder were associated with greater symptom severity ( p < 0.05). Conclusion: The rising prevalence of mental health symptoms reflects gendered, socioeconomic, and psychosocial vulnerabilities, requiring trauma-informed clinical screening and equity-focused public health interventions for Canadian youth.

This article demonstrates how refugee integration is supported in rural and small communities across Canada. We conducted virtual focus groups and interviews with 40 participants across the country who support refugees through settlement organizations, sponsorship groups, and other networks. The article outlines six participant-identified models of settlement services and explores the benefits, challenges, and limitations of and potential improvements for each model. These models highlight the mix of formal and informal supports existing in rural places and the urban focus of Canada’s settlement system. Recommendations include adequate funding of settlement services in smaller communities and engaging with rural service providers.

Housing is a key part of the sustainability discourse of any community. It can affect the recruitment and retention of workers and their families that, in turn, support the resilience of rural communities, businesses, and economies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the scalar dimensions of transition management to support socio-economic development and sustainable housing markets in small municipalities. Drawing from the case study of Canmore, Alberta, Canada, this chapter explores the power and governance dynamics that have unfolded through the municipality’s attempts to bring sustainability to its rapidly growing housing market, community, and economy. This endeavour is unfolding within complex and unclear statutory environments guiding the governance of municipal enterprises within the Province of Alberta. The research deepens our understanding of the governance processes guiding municipal enterprises, broadens our awareness of new approaches to sustainable rental and home ownership markets, and shares the use of community housing enterprises to support sustainable transitions with other municipalities in Canada and internationally.

Although scholars have long drawn attention to the profound social, political and security implications created by changes in water supply, quality, and access [1, 2] in many parts of the world (and particularly Western Canada, where the author currently sits) both the public and policy-makers have historically considered water from the standpoint of perpetual abundance, availability, and quality [3]. However, as very recent events have demonstrated along the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains have shown, that myth is increasingly, and quickly, dispelled. Many areas of the world are now intimately aware of the immediate effects of anthropogenic climate change, and much of Alberta (for example) is already anticipating severe drought conditions in the summer of 2024, if not already experiencing them. Beyond the key questions of both water supply and demand that tend to permeate political and policy discussions at both the very local, and very global, levels, water is also a natural resource that provides critical linkages and connections to, and between, ecosystems, human populations, and the activities that take place within our catchments. As a result, while we are inherently aware of the need for water once we don't have it, we are also increasingly aware of how water is a critical input for life (the water resource strategy in the Province of Alberta is actually called "Water for Life") in ways that extend beyond biological functionality, and into the linkages between community development, economic growth or depression, resource extraction, urban planning and design, of recreation, and of course, into questions of ecological, social, political and particularly health equity. Water has been a critical element for public health since the "Great Sanitary Awakening" of the 19 th Century [4], and that new emphasis corresponded to a significant change in the way that society thought about cleanliness (including clean drinking water and waste water systems) as a key factor in physical health. When coupled with industrialization, urbanization, crowded living conditions, high levels of population density and socioeconomic inequities, the provision of clean water and the necessary infrastructural growth was a major factor in the evolution of public health, and in the realization that issues such as poverty and mental health were not simply individual failings. Recent years have seen a body of scholars, often working in concert with watershed management and public health practitioners, examine and expand both the data that inform practitioner-knowledge, and the socio-political norms and values that inform both data collection and its use. In addition to the analyses of different ways that public health, health equity and natural resource management can align and trigger both positive feedback for knowledge and practice, as well as potentially negative or attenuating feedback for both ecological and social effects, work in the last few decades has identified watersheds as: (1) a viable, if not desirable setting for public health [5]; (2) a functional variable that can facilitate the integration of health

The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on general health has received extensive attention in recent research. However, limited attention has been given to examining the health impacts of the pandemic among people living with disabilities. This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on three aspects of health among Canadians living with a disability: (1) perceived physical health, (2) perceived mental health, and (3) unmet healthcare needs during the pandemic. We utilized crowdsourcing data from Statistics Canada’s Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians Living with Long-term Conditions and Disabilities, 2020 Survey. The total sample size for our study was 8,872 and included males and females who were 15 years and older. To examine the health impacts of the pandemic, we calibrated a multivariable logistic regression. We found that respondents living with a disability had higher odds of experiencing negative impacts from the pandemic on their physical and mental health and have more unmet healthcare needs than those without a disability. Youth (15–24 years) living with a disability had 4.11 times higher odds of experiencing poor physical health during the pandemic than older adults (65 years and older) without a disability. Similarly, respondents aged 25-44 years and 45-64 years living with a disability also had higher odds of experiencing poor physical health (5.34 times and 5.68 times respectively) during the pandemic than older adults without a disability. The health impacts of the pandemic among those living with disabilities were found to differ significantly by age cohorts.

Based on our chapter from the State of Rural Canada Report, this presentation considers rural peoples and places across Alberta. This poster will present an overview of the population shifts, economic realities, and electoral politics in rural Alberta. With a population over 4.3 million, and growing (mostly in urban centers), Alberta is the fourth largest province in Canada. While rural Albertans continue to overwhelmingly vote conservatively, support for the conservative party has diminished and population shifts mean that rural Alberta no longer has the population base to determine election outcomes. Many of the challenges faced by rural municipalities are long-standing, but increasingly compounded by economic decline, provincial fiscal policy, deteriorating infrastructure, increasing urbanization, and aging populations. Complimenting this broad overview are two case studies focused on the impacts of COVID-19 in Canmore and the lasting impacts of the Fort McMurray wildfires. These are included to provide specific evidence of rural resiliency in the face of adversity. In conclusion, we discuss the diversity and complexity of identity, place and people in rural Alberta, drawing attention to the work rural Albertans are doing to protect the land and water, public services, and communities in which they are invested and rely on.