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Developing meaningful indicators to track youth mental health (MH) is important to support the development and evaluation of responsive mental health promotion (MHP) initiatives that address the socio-economic determinants of youth MH. Development of relevant indicators is challenged, however, by the lack of knowledge regarding the relations among socio-economic factors and youth MH. Thirty diverse young people from a Canadian metropolitan area were engaged within a process of social praxis to explore their experiences of the inter-relationship between their socio-economic environments and their MH and their processes of seeking to realize their MH. Participants emphasized 'needs' as foundational to MH, whereas 'wants', driven by materialistic and wealth-oriented values and social norms, constrained their MH. Their reflections on the inter-relations among their MH and socio-economic processes highlight eight inter-related MH needs within the Canadian socio-economic context. In this paper, we present these needs and show how these needs, young people's affective states, and their access to resources within co-evolving socio-economic processes (to enable their needs) illustrate the fundamental inter-relation between young people's MH and socio-economic processes. We identify implications for measuring youth MH within MHP practice, including the importance of iterative indicator frameworks that include measures of young people's access to resources to enable their MH needs and their degree of distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological factors are often acknowledged for their impact on the urban sustainability assessment outcomes. The significance of this impact, however, divides those who assign it great importance; to the point of compromising any attempt at sustainability benchmarking using indicators, from those who regard it as having a relatively limited role. In this paper, we aim to contribute to this debate by assessing how methodological choices could influence the variation in the outcomes of indicator-based urban sustainability benchmarking. The paper starts with a literature review outlining the evolution of the approaches adopted since the pioneering experiences in the ‘90s to show a convergence in indicators and data over time. Subsequently, by using the data of the 25 most populous cities in Quebec, we empirically analyse the sensitivity of the cities’ sustainability scores to 18 combinations of estimation techniques, and observe consistency within the outcomes while maintaining general patterns regardless of the approach used. The results suggest that methodological choices play a limited role in the urban sustainability assessment outcomes. Thus, other determinants beyond the evaluation methods are most likely involved and therefore should be a major focus in future research agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a preliminary expsloration of the relationship between audit culture and legal pluralism. Audits that employ a range of indicators are increasingly the tool of choice for managing a range of human endeavors, including natural resource exploitation. This is true at many different scales of governance. But audit culture has also increasingly come under attack as failing to live up to the claims of enhancing transparency and accountability. Who is harnessing the power of indicators and performance audits? Who benefits from these measurements? How is governance impacted by the audit approach? We address these questions in the specific context of legal pluralism generated by multiple levels of regulation affecting fishing enterprises. In seeking to develop a 'report card' approach to assessing Canadian fisheries as part of Project 1.1 of the Canadian Fisheries Research Network, we have explored the failure to effectively incorporate social, governance and cultural indicators in many global examples. There is also a lack of attention to power dynamics and of the institutional resistance to performance indicators that measure the governors rather than the governed. Finally, this paper asks how the normative drive of audits can or will interact with legal pluralism. The case studies suggest the need for careful thought on the interactions of legal pluralism and the audit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on expectations for and community members' experience in the development of community indicators in a healthy communities initiative (HCI) in Alberta, Canada. The HCI process involved community visioning, the creation of action plans to further the vision by addressing key health priorities and/or community capacity building activities and the development of indicators to monitor and report on progress towards goals. Nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with community participants to discuss definitions of success in the HCI and participant experience in developing indicators. Three themes emerged: the formal indicators lacked relevance to community members; the community did not own the HCI indicators and participants instead drew upon measures of success which were largely experiential in nature. The study provides a critically reflective, candid account of on-the-ground work with communities. The findings reveal limitations in the process of developing community indicators in this HCI, which we attribute in part to skills and discontinuities on the staffing side of the health authority and in part to failure to recognize and fully appreciate 'different ways of knowing' between communities and agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement stipulates that the Governments of Canada and the United States are responsible for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem. Due to varying mandates and areas of expertise, monitoring to assess progress towards this objective is conducted by a multitude of Canadian and U.S. federal and provincial/state agencies, in cooperation with academia and regional authorities. This paper highlights selected long-term monitoring programs and discusses a number of documented ecological changes that indicate the present state of the open and nearshore waters of the Great Lakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elaboration of a conceptually grounded, easily replicable set of indicators for gauging the current state and future prospects for innovation cluster development is an essential aid for policy makers and stakeholders. In this paper we propose a parsimonious, generic cluster framework comprising six constructs and 34 variables, and describe the process for applying the framework to the analysis of clusters. Finally, we summarise the results of an analysis of the current state of eight innovation cluster initiatives of the National Research Council of Canada. The framework and methodology have proven to be effective in analysing clusters quickly, consistently, and cost-effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer represent a unique group with unmet needs. Metrics and quality indicators are important for evaluating AYA cancer care. The purpose of this study is to describe the quality indicators in a Canadian context that are used for AYA (15–39 years of age) cancer care and control. The Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework was applied to undertake a scoping review of the peer-reviewed and gray literature for indicators related to AYA cancer care and control. OVID Medline was searched from January 1995 until April 2018 for English language articles. Inquiries were made to AYA cancer organizations and a Google search conducted to identify unpublished material. Articles were included if they incorporated AYAs and contained cancer care indicators. Data were summarized at the article and indicator level. A total of 610 abstracts were reviewed. Eighty-nine full-text articles and reports were assessed for eligibility, with 19 included in analyses which identified 146 indicators or indicator concepts. Most of the indicators were specific to the AYA age group (65.8%) and dealt with the active care theme (57.5%), almost half focusing on guideline adherence and treatment (26.4%) and multidisciplinary/specialized care (20.7%). Notable deficits in indicators were in fertility, psychosocial care, and prevention. Important progress has been made internationally and within Canada on developing indicators for AYA cancer care and control. However, there is a lack of well-defined AYA-specific cancer care indicators developed through a consensus process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baseline variations in trout‐perch energy use (growth, gonad size) and energy storage (condition, liver size) were characterized between 2009 and 2015 in 8 reaches of the Athabasca River (AB, Canada), including 2 reaches upstream of the city of Fort McMurray (AB, Canada) and 6 reaches downstream of Fort McMurray among existing oil sands operations. Generalized linear models, used to account for background variation, indicated that fork length, gonad size, and liver size decreased, whereas body weight increased, in relation to river discharge, for both male and female trout‐perch. Air temperature was positively correlated with liver size and negatively correlated with gonad size and body weight for females, but only positively correlated with gonad weight for males. These linear models explained approximately 20 to 25% of the variation in adjusted body size, and upward of 80% of the variation in adjusted body weight, liver weight, and gonad weight. Residuals from linear models were used to estimate normal ranges of variation for each of the fish population performance measures. Combined, the models and normal ranges can be used to assess subsequent monitoring data, providing potential triggers for follow‐up monitoring activities. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;38:0–0. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;38:1890–1901. © 2019 SETAC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Funded by a Public Health Ontario 'Locally Driven Collaborative Project' grant, a team led by public health practitioners set out to develop and test a comprehensive set of indicators to guide health equity work in local public health agencies (LPHAs). Methods: The project began with a scoping review, consultation with content experts, and development of a face-validated set of indicators aligned with the four public health roles to address health inequities (NCCDH, 2014), plus a fifth set of indicators related to an organizational and system development role. We report here on the field testing of the indicators for feasibility, face validity (clarity, relevance), reliability, and comparability in four Ontario LPHAs. Data were collected by two separate individuals or groups at each site, during two consecutive periods. These individuals participated in separate focus groups at the end of each test period, which further examined indicator clarity, data source availability and relevance. A third focus group explored anticipated indicator uses. Results: Field testing showed that indicators addressed important issues in all public health roles. Although the capacity for indicator use varied, all test sites found the indicators useful. Suggestions for improved clarity were used to refine the final set of indicators, and to develop a Health Equity Indicator User Guide with background information and recommended resources. Conclusion: The process of evaluating health equity-related activity within LPHAs is still in its early stages. This project provides Ontario LPHAs with a tool to guide health equity work that may be adaptable to other Canadian jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the use of university technology transfer reporting standards developed under the aegis of the US-based Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) in Canada. Given the importance to policy-makers internationally of improving the contributions of universities in transferring technology to industry, these indicators are regarded as critical to informing the policy debate. We analyze federal science and technology policy and identify how these metrics have influenced the framing of policy problems and alternatives. Next, a micro-level analysis of Canada's largest research university unveils several major weaknesses of the survey. Our study points to the need for a more critical use of the AUTM licensing data in the Canadian policy debate, and provides recommendations on the future development of these indicators and their use in public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the origin of international norms, arguing that one pathway is via the strategic action of sector-specific policy networks. Evidence is adduced from an examination of the contested norm of sustainable forest management (SFM). It is argued that a Canadian forestry policy network, under pressure internally and externally to demonstrate its environmental and social credentials, promoted an “economistic” SFM norm in regional negotiations known as the Montreal Process. The article outlines the policy network approach, applies it to the Canadian forest sector, and analyzes how a policy network centered in the Canadian Forest Service and the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers worked to have the network's preferred conception of SFM internationally endorsed. The article highlights the importance of investigating which social actors champion which international norms and encourages reflexive policymaking by calling into question the degree to which international norms actually reflect a genuine global consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT The accumulating effects of human development are threatening water quality and availability. In recognition of the constraints to cumulative effects assessment (CEA) under traditional environmental impact assessment (EIA), there is an emerging body of research dedicated to watershed-based cumulative effects assessment (WCEA). To advance the science of WCEA, however, a standard set of ecosystem components and indicators is required that can be used at the watershed scale, to inform effects-based understanding of cumulative change, and at the project scale, to inform regulatory-based project based impact assessment and mitigation. A major challenge, however, is that it is not clear how such ecosystem components and indicators for WCEA can or should be developed. This study examined the use of aquatic ecosystem components and indicators in EIA practice in the South Saskatchewan River watershed, Canada, to determine whether current practice at the project scale could be 'scaled up' to support ecosystem component and indicator development for WCEA. The hierarchy of assessment components and indicators used in a sample of 35 environmental impact assessments was examined and the factors affecting aquatic ecosystem component selection and indicator use were identified. Results showed that public environmental impact statements are not necessarily publically accessible, thus limiting opportunities for data and information sharing from the project to the watershed scale. We also found no consistent terminology across the sample of impact statements, thus making comparison of assessment processes and results difficult. Regulatory compliance was found to be the dominant factor influencing the selection of ecosystem components and indicators for use in project assessment, rather than scientific reasoning, followed by the mandate of the responsible government agency for the assessment, public input to the assessment process, and preexisting water licensing arrangements external to the assessment process. The current approach to project-based assessment offered little support for WCEA initiatives. It did not provide a standard set of aquatic ecosystem components and indicators or allow the sharing of information across projects and from the project to the watershed scale. We suggest that determining priority assessment parameters for WCEA requires adoption of a standardized framework of component and indicator terminology, which can then be populated for the watershed of concern based on both watershed-based priorities and project-specific regulatory requirements. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2013;9:469-479. © 2012 SETAC [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions and use of environmental indicators and state of environment (SOE) reports by local governments and conservation authorities within the Ontario portion of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence basin were examined through a web-based survey and follow-up telephone interviews. Indicator and SOE reporting use are described, as well as information needs and limitations and challenges in using indicators and SOE reports to formulate environmental policy. Information exchange among different levels of governance is also explored. The State of the Great Lakes environmental indicators and SOE reports, developed by the governments of Canada and the United States, were used as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mercer Clarke, C. S. L., Roff, J. C., and Bard, S. M. 2008. Back to the future: using landscape ecology to understand changing patterns of land use in Canada, and its effects on the sustainability of coastal ecosystems. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 1534–1539.In Canada, concerns are mounting that the coastal environments may be more affected by human activities than is evidenced by current monitoring and assessment of environmental quality. Holistically orientated approaches to coastal management have concluded that indicators of coastal sustainability must include a wider array of factors that go beyond marine ecosystem health to include the health and well-being of coastal terrestrial environments and human communities. Research is needed to bridge the disciplinary and jurisdictional barriers that hamper better understanding of the relationships between terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and to help recognize the role of humans as both a contributing and an affected species in the coastal ecotone. Our examination of past and current knowledge of conditions along the Atlantic shore of Nova Scotia led us to challenge the predominant view that all is well along Canadian coasts. Using an interdisciplinary approach derived from landscape ecology, we examined international, national, and local efforts to assess management indicators against factors that gauge their relevance to marine- and land-development planning and management. We propose a new context for indicators, one that challenges scientists to provide decision-makers with information that can be used to drive social change, avoiding or mitigating human activities and sustaining coastal ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the moderator effect of communication in marketing channels of distribution. This study concentrates on the cars industry in Canada emphasizing on the relationship between the manufacturers and the dealers. It gives attention to the power of negotiation where a tendency for consolidation among the dealers is noted. This consolidation creates an atmosphere of quasi associations where dealers tend to achieve some sort of alliance in creation of superior powers of purchasing. It also gives them an edge in purchasing and novel forms of integration for achievement of common interests.

Objectives: To assess the ability of an Adjusted Clinical Group (ACG)-based morbidity measure to assess the overall health service needs of populations. Data Sources/Study Setting. Three population-based secondary data sources: registration and health service utilization data from fiscal year 1995-1996; mortality data from vital statistics reports from 1996-1999; and Canadian census data. The study included all continuously enrolled residents in the universal health care plan in Manitoba.Study Design: Using 60 small geographic areas as the units of analysis, we compared a population-based "ACG morbidity index," derived from individual ACG assignments in fiscal year 1995-1996, with the standardized mortality ratio (ages < 75 years) for 1996-1999. Key variables included a population-based socioeconomic status measure and age- and sex-standardized physician utilization ratios.Data Extraction Methods: The ACGs were assigned based on the complement of diagnoses assigned to persons on physician claims and hospital separation abstracts. The ACG index was created by weighting the ACGs using average health care expenditures.Principal Findings: The ACG morbidity index had a strong positive linear relationship with the subsequent rate of premature death in the small areas of Manitoba. The ACG index was able to explain the majority of the relationships between mortality and both socioeconomic status and physician utilization.Conclusions: In Manitoba, ACGs are closely related to premature mortality, commonly accepted as the best single indicator for health service need in populations. Issues in applying ACGs in settings where needs adjustment is a primary objective are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was used to explore the relationship between measured environmental variables and surficial diatom (Bacillariophyceae) assemblages in alkaline lakes from southeastern Ontario. Total nitrogen (TN), watershed area, alkalinity, and maximum depth each explain significant (P ≤ 0.05) directions of variance in the distribution of diatom taxa. TN was highly correlated to total phosphorus (TP) (r = 0.92), chlorophyll a (r = 0.86), and Secchi depth (r = 0.77). When a series of CCAs were run with the first axis constrained to each of these variables in turn, the ratio of the eigenvalue of the first axis to that of the second axis (&lamda;[sub1]/&lamda;[sub2]) was highest for TN, indicating that Tn best explained the distribution of the diatom assemblages in this set of lakes, Furthermore, results of Monte Carlo permutation tests indicated that these four variables did not act independently on the diatom assemblages. Therefore, TN was selected to represent these four closely related variables to infer take trophic status. Weighted-averaging regression and calibration (with classical deshrinking) were used to develop transfer functions to infer TN from the relative abundanees of 83 diatom taxa recovered from the surficial sediments of 51 takes. There was a good correlation between diatom-inferred TN concentrations and measured TN concentrations (r[sup;2] = 0.75, n = 51) The weighted-averaging regression and calibration model was used to infer lake trophic status (represented by TN) from diatom assemblages preserved in the sediments from Little Round Lake, Ontario. These data were used in confunction with historical land-use data in order to quantify the sequence and extent of nutrient enrichment related to human activity in the watershed area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]