Suchergebnisse

Canada is an international leader in major natural resource and large-scale infrastructure projects, which substantially contribute to the domestic economy. Notwithstanding, major projects in rural and remote regions can pose significant challenges for population health equity, defined as the absence of avoidable differences in health determinants, status, and outcomes between geographic, socio-economic, or demographic communities and sub-populations. In these regions, a more equitable sharing of risks and benefits with Indigenous peoples and affected communities could help to address the ongoing legacy of colonialism, environmental injustice, and systemic oppression tied to histories of major project development. Consequently, public deliberations and decision-making about the impacts of projects should consider population health equity throughout the exploration, construction, operation, and closure periods. Impact assessment is a legislated process in more than half of all countries in the world. Through public deliberation and decision-making about proposed major projects, impact assessments are generally mandated to identify and mitigate potential negative impacts to the biophysical environment. The recent development of a new federal system for impact assessments led by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has extended this mandate in the Canadian context to incorporate positive and negative impacts of projects on health, social, and economic conditions. In the new system, a 180-day planning phase has been introduced to engage with Indigenous peoples and affected communities on their issues of concern, in order to develop a more tailored impact assessment structure for each project. By providing increased opportunities for consultation, engagement, and input from the earliest stages, the planning phase can provide critical pathways to promote population health equity through impact assessments, which help to ensure projects make a net contribution to the public interest and sustainability. The goal of this knowledge synthesis is to prioritize population health equity within federal impact assessment in Canada. Its objectives are to identify key points of leverage in the planning phase for achieving its goals through the implementation of evidence-based best practice and principles. Knowledge mobilization has the aim of promoting the uptake of findings from this research in impact assessment policy and health system practice; advocating for more public health research and practice to support population health equity in the context of major projects; and raising awareness of these issues among the Canadian public. Employing a methodologically rigorous realist review research process, documents were retrieved and screened through an iterative combination of systematically searching two key impact assessment journals, and purposively searching other journals and websites. A total of 185 peer-reviewed and grey literature sources underwent full data extraction, analysis, and synthesis, using a standardized procedure and template. Results include recommendations organized by main themes of findings across five key planning phase processes.

Walkability is a critical component of built environments, yet there is still diverse conceptualization and measurement of the construct. The Walk Score® metric is one measure of walkability, which is widely used in scholarly, industry, and public domains. With increased interest in the use of Walk Score® as a research tool, it is necessary to examine the operationalization and scope of the measure. This scoping review examined how researchers utilized Walk Score® in walkability research, with specific attention to identifying limitations related to health outcomes as well as the use of the metric in non-health research contexts. Findings from the review provide a novel and critically nuanced understanding of how the assumptions and limitations of Walk Score® are addressed relative to socio-ecological aspects of walkability.

Nutritional health of children and youth is an increasing cause for concern in Canada. Through food and beverage messaging in multiple environments, young people develop eating behaviours with ramifications throughout their life course. Unhealthy food retailers near schools, recreation facilities, and childcare centres—key activity settings for healthy eating promotion—present repeated, compounding exposures to commercial geomarketing. Geomarketing impacts nutritional health by promoting highly processed, calorie-dense, and nutrient-poor foods and beverages across urban landscapes. While food retail mix (as a ratio of healthy to unhealthy food retailers) can be used to assess food environments at multiple scales, such measures may misrepresent young people's unique experience of these geographic phenomena. Moving beyond uniform conceptualization of food environments, new research methods and tools are needed for children and youth. We investigated young people's food environments in the major Canadian cities of Calgary and Edmonton. Using government-initiated nutrition guidelines, we categorized 55.8% of all food retailers in Calgary, and 59.9% in Edmonton as 'unhealthy'. A Bernoulli trial at the 0.05 alpha level indicated few differences in prevalence proximal to activity settings versus elsewhere in both cities, demonstrating the limited applicability of food retail mix for characterizing young people's food environments. To model unhealthy food retailers geomarketing to children and youth, we considered their proximity to multiple activity settings, using overlapping radial buffers at the 250 m, 500 m, 1000 m, and 1500 m scales. Examining young people's food environments relative to the spaces where they learn and play, we determined that as many as 895 out of 2663 unhealthy food retailers fell within 1500 m of 21+ activity settings. By conceptualizing, measuring, and problematizing these "super-proximal" unhealthy food retailers, urban planners and public health researchers can use these techniques to ...